Music of New York City
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The music of New York City is a diverse and important field in the world of music. It has long been a thriving home for popular genres such as
Music author Richie Unterberger has described the New York music scene, and the city itself, as "(i)mmense, richly diverse, flashy, polyethnic, and engaged in a never-ending race for artistic and cosmopolitan supremacy."[1] Despite the city's historic importance in the development of American music, its status has declined in recent years due to a combination of increased corporate control over music media, an increase in the cost of living, and the rise of local music scenes whose success is facilitated by the cheap communication provided by the Internet.[2]
Institutions and venues
New York has been a center for the American music industry since the earliest records in the early 20th century. Since then, a number of companies and organizations have set up headquarters in New York, from the Tin Pan Alley publishers and Broadway to modern independent rock and hip hop labels, non-profit organizations, and others. Many music magazines are or were headquartered in New York, including Blender, Punk, Spin, and Rolling Stone.[3]
Carnegie Hall is one of the most important music venues in the world, especially for classical music; the hall is noted for its excellent acoustics. The venue was named for philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, but fell into disrepair in the 20th century until being renovated between 1983 and 1995. Radio City Music Hall was also a major venue after opening in 1932, and was also recently renovated; it is now a significant architectural attraction as an example of the Art Deco style.[4]
Other institutions and organizations in New York include the
Club influence
The New York
The
Festivals, holidays and parades
New York has a long history of using music in various festivals and parades, though the vibrant local music scene has meant that festivals are less of a draw than in other cities, since residents are near major sources of live music all the time. The diverse groups of immigrants living in New York have each brought with them their own holiday traditions. As a result, major festivals of music in New York include the
Additionally, New York hosts the yearly ElectricZoo festival, second only to Miami's Winter Music Conference as a mecca for house and electronic music fans in the United States. It also holds the annual Dance Parade which brings together all types of dance-oriented music from across the world (both traditional and contemporary) in a combined parade down Fifth Avenue. The NYC Musical Saw Festival has been a summer staple since 2001, bringing musical saw players from around the world to perform diverse types of music on this unique instrument. The festival, organized by Natalia Paruz, holds the Guinness World Records for the largest musical saw ensemble. Roz Nixon
Music history
The first music performed in the area that is now New York City was that
By the 1830s, New York was gradually becoming the most important cultural center in the United States, and was a home for many varieties of folk, popular and classical music. Late in the 19th century, many influential conservatories and venues were founded, including the world-famous
Early history
As the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, New York was populated by Dutch settlers who left little musical trace behind, excepting some songs such as "Dutch Prayer of Thanksgiving," "Rosa," and "The Little Dustman." Under English rule, sea shanties, open-air singing gardens, sometimes with fireworks, ballads and other Anglo-Irish traditions, became widespread. New York's colonial ballads were often topical, concerning the events of the day and the local gossip. Beginning in 1732, ballads were placed together with a story tying them together, forming a performance genre called the ballad opera, the best-known of which is The Beggar's Opera, first performed in 1752. That same period also saw the first concerts held in New York, and the arrival of William Tuckey, who helped establish church music in the city.[10]
New York's rise as the intellectual and artistic center of the United States occurred in the 1830s. This period, which coincided with an upsurge in American
Near the end of the 19th century, modern
Classical and art music history
New York's position as a center for
Both Fry and Bristow, despite their support for American compositions, were very European in style. Fry's most notable composition was the opera Leonora, which received mixed reviews upon its opening and was criticized for its debt to Vincenzo Bellini's bel canto style. Bristow was also very European in his style, and was a violinist and conductor with the Philharmonic until the 1854 controversy, though he later rejoined. His most important work was the opera Rip Van Winkle, and was very popular at the time; most influentially, Rip Van Winkle used an American folktale rather than European imitations.[11]
The New York native
In the early 20th century, the New York classical music scene included
The best-known New York composer — indeed, the best-known American classical composer of any kind — was
Following Gershwin, the first major composer was
The early-to-mid 20th century New York classical music scene also produced composers such as Roger Sessions, an academically oriented composer known for operas such as Motezuma. The similarly academic William Schuman became known for such works as the New England Triptych and his Third Symphony. Schuman also became president of the Juilliard School, changing the school by forming the Juilliard String Quartet and merging the Institute of Musical Art with the Juilliard Graduate School, as well as hiring teachers including William Bergsma, Peter Mennin and Hugo Weisgall, whose pupils included future composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass.[11]
In the middle of the 20th century, the most influential New York composers included the Massachusetts native and conductor and composer
Many of the later 20th-century composers in various modernist and minimalist styles came from outside of New York, such as
Most recently, New York has become home to a Manhattan-based scene sometimes called
Popular music
New York has been the longstanding center of the American music industry, and by extension, a major center for popular music worldwide. Attaining iconic musical status in the early 20th century, New York retained its position despite the rise of other cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, and San Francisco. However, by the turn of the 21st century, Los Angeles had surpassed New York as the pop music mecca not only in terms of the sheer number of musicians, bands, songwriters, recording studios, and record labels, but also because of its affordability compared to New York, attracting transplants to emerging creative centers like Echo Park.[13]
The African American genre of jazz was closely associated with New York by the middle of the 20th century, when a number of avant-garde performers helped created styles such as hard bop and free jazz. Later still, New York was the major American home for the punk rock and new wave movements, and was the scene for the invention of both hip hop music and Latino salsa music. Musicians from New York have also dominated the Jewish-American klezmer scene, the Greenwich Village old-time music revival, and the straight 1960s pop music exemplified by the Brill Building sound.
Tin Pan Alley
In addition to the popular, mainstream ballads and other clean-cut songs, some Tin Pan Alley publishers focused on rough songs such as "Drill Ye Tarriers" in 1888, believed to have been written by an unskilled laborer turned stage performer named Thomas F. Casey. Coon songs were another important part of Tin Pan Alley, derived from the watered-down songs of the minstrel show with the "verve and electricity" brought by the "assimilation of the ragtime rhythm." The first popular coon song was "New Coon in Town," introduced in 1883, and was followed by a wave of coon shouters such as Ernest Hogan and May Irwin.[18]
Musical theatre
The early 20th century also saw the growth of
Professional Yiddish theater in New York began in 1882 with a troupe founded by Boris Thomashefsky. The plays in the late 19th century were realistic, while in the beginning of the 20th century, they became more political and artistic in orientation. Some performers were well-respected enough to move back and forth between the Yiddish theatre and Broadway, including Bertha Kalich and Jacob Adler. Some of the major composers included Abraham Goldfaden, Joseph Rumshinsky and Sholom Secunda,[11] while playwrights included David Pinski, Solomon Libin, Jacob Gordin, and Leon Kobrin.
Blues and jazz
The
In New York, jazz was fused with stride (an advanced form of ragtime) and became highly evolved, notably in the compositions of James P. Johnson in the 1920s. Fletcher Henderson's jazz orchestra, first appearing in 1923 and including Coleman Hawkins (and later New Orleans musician Louis Armstrong) became wildly popular and helped invent swing music. Though Henderson was among the first major New York jazz musicians, he was not as able to adapt to the rapidly changing style as some of his contemporaries, such as Duke Ellington. When Ellington moved to New York, he inaugurated a legion of jazz musicians that did the same and moved the center of jazz's development from Chicago to New York.
The style that developed from New York's big jazz bands became known as swing music; it was a very danceable and catchy style, played originally by large black orchestras. Later, white bands led by musicians such as Jimmy Dorsey and Benny Goodman began to dominate. These large orchestras produced a number of instrumentalists that had a profound effect on the later evolution of jazz, including Coleman Hawkins' tenor saxophone innovations, electric guitarist Charlie Christian, and improvisational Lester Young. Star vocalists also emerged, mainly women, such as the bluesy Billie Holiday and the scat singer Ella Fitzgerald.[1]
New York's jazz scene was the home of bebop, which evolved over many years and reached its full identity in the mid-1940s. Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk were among the major innovators of the style. Bebop "polarized listeners, critics and musicians alike" because it differed from swing in many important ways, including a lack of typical riffs and danceable beats, the use of melodic progression and the chords as the basis for all soloing and improvising.
In the 1950s, jazz began to diversify into a number of new genres, spread out into many cities. The West Coast became a home for cool jazz, though the style's major innovator was New York-based Miles Davis. New York was also a major center for hard bop, and was home to Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey. Late in the 1950s, the Los Angeles-based Ornette Coleman moved to New York, bringing with him the nascent style of free jazz. He was later joined by a number of others, most famously including John Coltrane and his contemporaries, such as Albert Ayler and Sun Ra.[1]
The last few decades have seen a further diffusion of jazz from New York and other major long-time capitals, to cities and regions across the United States and the world. Many New York jazz performers during this period played fusions of jazz with rock and other styles; among the earliest of these modern musicians was
The Neo-Soul/Jazz band Youman Wilder/Featuring Weird Stories is a New York-born-and-bred band with a following in Europe, Canada, and Asia. Wilder was one of late Grammy Award-winning[19] singer Amy Winehouse's favorite vocalists.
The sweet multi-part harmonies of Doo-Wop originated on the street corners of Harlem and Brooklyn. Although other cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago would have strong Doo-Wop scenes, the sound was nurtured on the streets of New York by early pioneers of the sound such as
List of notable doo wop groups from New York
- The Bobbettes
- The Bonnie Sisters
- The Brooklyn Bridge
- The Cadillacs
- The Capris
- Cathy Jean and the Roommates
- The Chantels
- The Chimes
- The Chords
- The Cleftones
- The Crests
- The Crows
- The Danleers
- Dion & The Belmonts
- Don & Juan
- Save the Last Dance For Me" in 1960), sang "On Broadway"
- The Dubs
- The Hearts
- The Impalas
- The Jive Five
- Johnnie & Joe
- Little Anthony & The Imperials
- The Mystics
- The Quin-Tones
- Randy & The Rainbows
- The Rays
- The Tokens (#1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in 1961)
Greenwich Village
Beginning in the 1940s, New York was the center for a
The performers associated with the Greenwich Village scene, many of whom were not originally from New York, had sporadic mainstream success in the 1940s and 1950s; some, such as
List of notable singer-songwriters and folk artists from New York
- Joan Baez
- Keith Barbour
- Harry Chapin #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "Cat's in the Cradle" in '74
- Alana Davis
- Art Garfunkel
- Terry Gilkyson
- Arlo Guthrie
- Lotti Golden
- Richie Havens
- Sophie B. Hawkins
- Janis Ian
- Carole King #1 Hot 100 hit with "It's Too Late" in '71
- Melanie #1 Hot 100 hit with "Brand New Key" in '71
- David Cassidy
- Ingrid Michaelson
- Maria Muldaur
- Harry Nilsson #1 Hot 100 hit with "Without You (Badfinger song)" in '72
- Laura Nyro
- Michael Penn
- The Rooftop Singers #1 Hot 100 hit with "Walk Right In" in '63
- John Sebastian #1 Hot 100 hit with "Welcome Back" in '76
- Carly Simon #1 Hot 100 hit with "You're So Vain" in '73
- Suzanne Vega
- Peter Yarrow
Electronic dance music
Disco is an up-tempo style of dance music that originated in the early 1970s, with its center in the United States in New York. As discothèques grew more popular later in the decade, they began moving to larger venues as the sound became popularized by artists such as Newark native Gloria Gaynor. Many of these were in New York, including Paradise Garage and Studio 54.
As the disco trend faded, dance clubs continued to have a home in New York into the 1980s in trendy clubs such as
In the early 1980s, house music, a direct descendant of disco, was forged in the underground clubs of Chicago, Detroit, and New York.
List of notable contemporary R&B and club artists from New York
- Alisha (singer)
- BB&Q Band
- Brass Construction
- Breakfast Club (band)
- Sharon Redd
- B. T. Express
- Jimmy Castor Bunch
- C+C Music Factory (#1 Hot 100 hit with "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" in 1991)
- Cameo
- Irene Cara (#1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "Flashdance... What a Feeling" in 1983)
- Chic (2 #1 Hot 100 hits, including "Le Freak" in 1978)
- Corina (American singer)
- The Cover Girls
- Crown Heights Affair
- Deee-Lite
- David Cassidy
- Kat DeLuna
- Carol Douglas
- D Train
- Evelyn "Champagne" King
- Fatback Band[20]
- Lady Gaga (has had 5 #1 Billboard Hot 100 hits)
- Freddie Jackson
- LCD Soundsystem
- Kashif
- Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam (2 #1 Hot 100 hits, including "Head to Toe" in 1987)
- Lisette Melendez
- Melba Moore
- Mtume[21]
- Odyssey (band) sang "Native New Yorker" in 1977
- Reel 2 Real
- Robin S.
- Vicki Sue Robinson
- Sa-Fire
- Seduction (band)
- Brenda K. Starr
- Sweet Sensation
- Lana Del Rey
Latin music
The same phenomenon has recently occurred with yet another type of Latin rhythm, bachata. Bachata is dominated by Dominicans, especially Dominicans from New York's Washington Heights neighborhood. From The Bronx came bachata's most popular band Aventura, whose lead singer Romeo Santos embarked on a successful solo career in 2011.
.Hip hop
New York gave rise to the creation of
By the early 1990s, however,
Each borough or area of
In modern day, New York City's
Rock
Since the beginning of the genre, New York has been a vital force in the shaping of rock 'n' roll. DJ
List of notable rock artists from New York
- Billy Joel
- Blondie
- Blood, Sweat & Tears
- Blues Magoos
- Blue Öyster Cult
- Walter Egan
- Lotti Golden
- Every Mother's Son
- Gary Lewis & The Playboys
- Kiss
- Cyndi Lauper (2 #1 Hot 100 hits, like "Time After Time" in 1984)
- The Lovin' Spoonful (#1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "Summer in the City" in 1966)
- Interpol
- Mountain
- Orleans
- Patti Smith
- Ramones
- LCD Soundsystem
- Lou Reed
- Sonic Youth
- Spider
- Spin Doctors
- Steely Dan
- Stories (band)
- The Strokes
- Talking Heads
- Television
- Vanilla Fudge
- The Velvet Underground
- The Fleshtones
- New York Dolls
- White Lion
- Winger
- Peter Wolf
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Proto punk, punk, new wave and no wave
New York had the earliest documented
Hardcore punk and ska
In the early 1980s,
Heavy metal
New York has also contributed to the heavy metal genre, with bands such as Sir Lord Baltimore and Blue Öyster Cult gaining attention from the early 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s, it was a major center of the East Coast thrash metal scene, which produced the bands Anthrax and Nuclear Assault. Funk metal groups such as Living Colour and 24-7 Spyz, and alternative metal groups such as Prong and Helmet, also emerged from the growing New York metal scene. Three other major metal bands from New York are Type O Negative, Emmure, and Life of Agony, all from Brooklyn.
In the 1990s and later, New York and its environs developed a small but influential death metal scene. Suffocation, one of the best-known bands to emerge from the scene, earned a good deal of notoriety for their brutal, complex, and uncompromising style. Another long-lived New York death metal group is Immolation, whose innovative use of dissonance helped to establish them as underground favorites. Other bands associated with New York death metal are Mortician and Incantation, the latter being originally from Pennsylvania.
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h Richie Unterberger, The Rough Guide to Music USA, pgs. 1-65
- Pitchfork Media, based out of Chicago, as a source for New York music info; since Pitchfork is not a New York-based company, this is held to be evidence of a decline in New York's importance (note: Pitchfork's popularity is cited to The New York Observer)
- ^ "Has the Music Scene Died in New York?". Gotham Gazette. Retrieved September 7, 2005.
- ^ "New York City's Radio Music Hall Recaptures Its Past". National Trust. Retrieved March 3, 2009.
- ^ "About Lincoln Center". Lincoln Center. Retrieved August 29, 2005.
- ^ "History of the New York Philharmonic". New York Philharmonic. Retrieved August 29, 2005.
- ^ ISBN 0-697-12516-5.
- ^ Flick, Larry (1997-11-01). "Diverse notes define New York City soundscape; club DJs step into star role on dance scene". Billboard. Vol. 109, no. 44. pp. 1–3.
- ^ "Roz Nixon Entertainment.com". Roz Nixon Entertainment.com.
- ^ Burk, Cassie, Virginia Meierhoffer and Claude Anderson Phillips, America's Musical Heritage
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Struble, The History of American Classical Music
- ^ Struble, pg. 122 . After Gershwin, American classical music became focused as it had never been focused before. And the world began to sit up and listen.
- ^ Bain, Katie (23 January 2014). "Los Angeles Is the Best City For Music. Period".
- ^ ISBN 0-312-11573-3.
- ^ Ewen, David (1957). Panorama of American Popular Music. Prentice Hall.
- ^ Ewen, pg. 94 (T)hese publishers devised formulas by which songs could be produced with speed and dispatch... Songs were now to be produced from a serviceable matrix, and issued in large quantities: stereotypes for foreign songs, Negro songs, humorous ditties, and, most important of all, sentimental ballads.
- ^ Ewen, pg. 98 Less disposed toward clichés than so many of his rivals, elss inclined to stretch an emotion to the point of maudlin and cloying sentimentality, Dresser was a composers whose finest ballads have a winning charm and a lingering fragrance.
- ^ Ewen, pg. 101 and Clarke, pg. 62 Ewen attributes "New Coon in Town" to Paul Allen, yet Clarke attributes it to J. S. Putnam, though both agree on the year, 1883
- ^ "Youman Wilder Talks About His Return To The New York Performing Stage, His Stroke, And How He Overcame The London Drug Scene And Childhood Abuse". 16 August 2016.
- ^ "Home". www.fatbackband.com. Retrieved Aug 25, 2021.
- ^ "Mtume | Biography, Albums, Streaming Links". AllMusic. Retrieved Aug 25, 2021.
- ^ Lopez, Ashleyan. "21 Quest goes on 'Where I'm From' tour". AXS.
- ^ "Sample Drill Is Taking Over New York Rap". Complex. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
- ISBN 978-1-906155-02-5.
References
- ISBN 9780922915712. Retrieved Aug 10, 2017.
- Burk, Cassie, Virginia Meierhoffer and Claude Anderson Phillips (1942). America's Musical Heritage. Laidlaw Brothers.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Clarke, Donald (1995). The Rise and Fall of Popular Music. ISBN 0-312-11573-3.
- Ewen, David (1957). Panorama of American Popular Music. Prentice Hall.
- Ferris, Jean (1993). America's Musical Landscape. Brown & Benchmark. ISBN 0-697-12516-5.
- "Has the Music Scene Died in New York?". Gotham Gazette. Retrieved September 7, 2005.
- "About Lincoln Center". Lincoln Center. Retrieved August 29, 2005.
- "New York City's Radio Music Hall Recaptures Its Past". National Trust. Retrieved August 29, 2005.
- "History of the New York Philharmonic". New York Philharmonic. Retrieved August 29, 2005.
- Unterberger, Richie (1999). Music USA: The Rough Guide. The ISBN 1-85828-421-X.