Most American popular music through the nineteenth century emphasized the rhythm on the first or first-and-third beats of a four-beat frame. But in the late nineteenth century, and into the twentieth, rhythms based in African roots began to work their way into the mainstream, emphasizing the second or second-and-fourth beats of a four-beat frame, influencing worship music, jazz, and the blues. As the twentieth century continued, the backbeat became a defining element of both rhythm & blues and rock & roll. The origin of the backbeat came from, and the innovators most closely associated with it, are all drummers, but so many of the artists out front behind the microphone we still listen to today benefitted from this beat. In this series, we sample the performances and stories of some of these artists from the 1950s to the twenty-first century, including Aretha Franklin in Amazing Grace, Thelonious Monk and Louis Armstrong in Jazz on a Summer’s Day, Darlene Love and Merry Clayton in 20 Feet from Stardom, and Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, and B.B. King in Summer of Soul.
Dates and Titles:
February 6: Amazing Grace (Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack, 2018, 89 min., DCP)
February 13: Jazz on a Summer’s Day (Bert Stern, Aram Avakian, 1959, 88 min., DCP)
February 20: 20 Feet from Stardom (Morgan Neville, 2013, 91 min., DCP)
February 27: Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (Questlove, 2021, 118 min., DCP)