John Michael Cooper
AN AUSPICOUS ANNIVERSARY:
The story of the life, work, and legacy of Will H. Dixon may be the first major musical rediscovery of the 21st century.
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John Michael Cooper
Mar 24, 20234 min read
MARGARET BONDS, LANGSTON HUGHES, AND THE JOY OF “JOY”:
A Conspirare Premiere and a Gratuitous Youthful Photo Langston Hughes’s poem Joy was first published in the collection The Weary Blues...
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John Michael Cooper
May 31, 20223 min read
OF HOPE AND NEW BEGINNINGS
A Commencement Letter from Langston Hughes, Shared with Margaret Bonds We are in an age of marches, of collective protests against...
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John Michael Cooper
Jan 2, 20222 min read
THE FIRST LIVE RECORDING OF AN AFRO-MODERNIST “COTTON DANCE” (ca. 1940) BY FLORENCE B. PRICE
performed by Michael Lu On New Year’s Eve of the rough-and-tumble year 2021 I got a fabulous musical surprise – 365 days late. The...
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John Michael Cooper
Dec 16, 20215 min read
“THE THREE WISE MEN”:
A Seasonal Blessing in Word and Song from the Pen of W.E.B. Du Bois (1913) W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was a male womanist as well as an...
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John Michael Cooper
Dec 10, 20215 min read
A MARGARET BONDS CHRISTMAS -- NORTH AND SOUTH, EAST AND WEST
[This post is about two compositions of Margaret Bonds that are gaining a new foothold on modern musical life. One is a short but...
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John Michael Cooper
Aug 28, 20214 min read
FLORENCE PRICE V. LANGSTON HUGHES AT THE “FEET O’ JESUS”
Langston Hughes’s relationship with the Christian church was . . . complicated. Except that it wasn’t. While he acknowledged that the...
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John Michael Cooper
Mar 7, 20213 min read
THE BEAUTY OF BLACKNESS
Florence B. Price’s “Night” (Text by Bessie Mayle) The poetry, music, and other artworks of the Harlem Renaissance and Chicago Black...
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John Michael Cooper
Jan 18, 20214 min read
“YES, IT’LL BE ME!”
Margaret Bonds, Langston Hughes, and the Note on Commercial Theater In the chapter titled “When the Negro Was in Vogue” of his 1940...
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John Michael Cooper
Apr 8, 20205 min read
THE ARTS LEAD
The arts are where our imagination grows the strange new fruit of new world-views that open the way to a brighter future.
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