Hrm510

Harambee Festival”

Music from the Harlem Renaissance

Assignment Three

Tamika M. Lawrence

Dr. Cassel

HUM112

June 7, 2012

On May 5, 2012 I attended the Harambee Festival in Rocky Mount, NC. The Harambee Festival is a cultural celebration that celebrates the African American heritage of Rocky Mount, NC. The event brought families, friends, and communities together for a celebration of cultural and arts. The Harambee has been going on for 20 years and I have been attending for the last five years. The festival consisted of culturally-mixed activities including musical performances by local and national gospel artists, rhythm and blues, African dance, jazz, food, arts and crafts, rides, and exhibits.

I chose this event as my cultural event assignment because the music performed by the performers was music from the Harlem Renaissance Era. The feature performance was a jazz band “Plunky & Oneness” and other Blues bands. The performance I chose to write about was a local band out of my hometown of Richmond, VA. Plunky and Oneness was a versatile funk and jazz band that blew my mind. The bands consist of: one saxophonist, one trumpeter, one drummer, one key broad player, two base players, and three vocalists.

The first selection was “Take the A Train”, by Duke Ellington. This was a very great piece to get the concert started. This piece had a medium tempo that put you in a very calm and relaxed feeling. The bass played the lead which allowed the other instruments rhythms to follow its flow throughout the song. The key broad also followed the bass rhythm and played the melody at the same time. It was a great piece which was not too fast which allowed the audiences to get ready for the next song.

The title of the second piece was “Blues in My Heart”, by Cab Calloway. The tempo of this song was fast and expressed magnificent feeling from all the different kinds of...