Musicians & Entertainers Black History Posters & Prints, “C...-”
for the classroom, home schoolers, inspirational images for the home or office.

Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra at the Cotton Club, New York City, 1931, Art Print

Cabell “Cab” Calloway
b. 12-25-1907; Rochester, NY
d. 11-18-1994; Delaware

Cab Calloway, a master of energetic scat singing, led a popular African American big band in the 1930s through the late 1940s. Calloway is also associated with the dance term jitterbug.

FYI - scat singing is vocal improvisation with nonsense syllables that make the voice into an instrument.

• Are You Hep to the Jive?, CD

Benny Carter
b. 8-4-1907; New York
d. 7-12-2001; Los Angeles

Benny Carter, who was recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as a Jazz Master (1986) and National Medal of Arts recipient in 2000, also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987 and a Grammy Award in 1994.

Carter, who received piano lesson from his mother, was largely self taught, playing the saxophone, clarinet, and trumpet; he was also a composer, arranger, and a bandleader.

Ray Charles, Photographic Print

Ray Charles
(born Ray Charles Robinson)
b. 9-23-1930; Albany, GA
d. 6-10-2004; Beverly Hills, CA (liver cancer)

The quintessential musical artist - pianist and vocalist Ray Charles, lost his sight between ages 5 and 7, and was orphaned by age 15. He attended the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, Florida from 1937-1945, where he was taught classical music. He left school after the death of his mother and by 1947 had moved to Seattle where he formed his own band and began recording.

Ray Charles quotea ~
• “I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.”
• “There's nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, "If you believe in Me, you ain't going to have no troubles.”
• “I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me – like food or water. ”
• “Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.”

• Genius! - The Ultimate Ray Charles Collection, CD

Chubby Checker, Photo

Chubby Checker
(born Ernest Evans)
b. 10-3-1941; Spring Gulley, South Carolina

Singer-songwriter Chubby Checker is known for popularizing the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard's R&B hit “The Twist”.

• Chubby Checker, CD

Charlie Christian
b. 7-29-1916; Texas, raised in Oklahoma
d. 3-2-1942; Staten Isl, NY (tuberculosis)

Swing and Jazz guitarist Charlie Christian was an early performer on the electric guitar and was a key influence on in the development of bebop and cool jazz.

Nat King Cole, Photo

Nat “King” Cole
née Nathaniel Adams Cole
b. 3-17-1919; Montgomery, AL
d. 2-15-1965; California

Nat “King” Cole was an accomplished jazz pianist with a distinctive soft baritone voice. Cole, one of the first black Americans to host a television variety show is considered one of the most important musical personalities in United States history.

• The Very Best of Nat King Cole, CD

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
b. 8-15-1875; London, England
d. 9-1-1912 - pneumonia

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, often called the “African Mahler”, was born in London to an English mother and Sierra Leonean Creole father. He studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford, collaborated with Edward Elgar, and set some of Paul Laurence Dunbar's poems to music. Coleridge-Taylor's most famous work is probably his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast; he was also a highly regarded teacher and conductor.

• Black History posters

John Coltrane, Art Print

John Coltrane
b. 9-23-1926; Hamlet, NC
d. 7-17-1967; NY (cancer)

Jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane worked in bebop and later was at the forefront of free jazz. He organized at least fifty recording sessions and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk.

• A Love Supreme, CD

Will Marion Cook
b. 1-27-1869; Washington, DC
d. 7-19-1944

Composer, conductor, and violinist Will Marion Cook was a key figure in the development of American music from the 1890s to the 1920s. Among his notable works is In Dahomey (1903), the first all-Black musical on a major Broadway stage.