There's a lively track by Fess Williams, Charlie Mingus' uncle, and a stimulatingly eccentric clarinetist and alto saxophonist, as well. The final disc contains mostly 1930s material. Represented again are Armstrong, Calloway, Ellington, and Henderson. The swing era is on the way and we hear it in their big bands as well as those of Teddy Hill, Carter, Claude Hopkins, Tiny Bradshaw and Chick Webb, who had the house band at the Savoy Ballroom. The readings are done by, among others, musicians Quincy Jones, Joshua Redman and Branford Marsalis, and rappers Ice T and Coolio.
Nobody's outstanding, but generally they get into the spirit.
Some scholars think of the Harlem Renaissance mainly as a literary, political and social movement, and don't pay a lot of attention to its jazz and pop music. Harvey Pekar has written about jazz for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Jazz Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Boston Herald, and is a commentator for WKSU-FM in Kent, Ohio.