Category: 1940s

In 1941, Billie Holiday released a song that would become one of the most enduring and poignant entries in the American songbook: “God Bless the Child.” Co-written with Arthur Herzog Jr., the song is as much a reflection of Holiday’s personal struggles as it is a universal meditation on independence, self-reliance, and the hardships of…

Dizzy Gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia is one of those rare jazz compositions that transcends its genre to become a universal symbol of innovation, creativity, and virtuosity. Recorded in 1946, the piece marked a turning point in the evolution of jazz, blending bebop complexity with Afro-Cuban rhythmic elements in a way that had never been…

There are pieces of music that transcend their form, compositions that seem less like creations of man and more like things discovered, unearthed from some hidden well of emotion and sound. Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” belongs to that rare category. Written in the early 1940s and first recorded in 1947, it has become perhaps the…