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Freedom Now!: Four Hard Bop And Avant-Garde Jazz Musicians' Musical Commentary On The Civil Rights Movement, 1958-1964., Lucas Aaron Henry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I examined musical recordings from the jazz idiom that relate to events or ideas involved in the Civil Rights Movement during the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s. The study focused on the four following musicians' recordings: Charles Mingus, Fables of Faubus; Sonny Rollins, The Freedom Suite; Ornette Coleman, Free Jazz; and John Coltrane, A Love Supreme. The study relies primarily on the aforementioned recordings, critics analysis of those recordings, and events that took place during the Civil Right Movement.

The study concludes that these recordings are not only commentary about ideas and events but …