Rhapsodies in Black at Music Hills.com

Music CD 1

Negro Speaks of Rivers
Cotton Club Stomp
The Harlem Strut
Brother Low Down
Letter from Aaron Douglas to Langston Hughes
There'll Be Some Changes Made
Sounds of Africa
Sweet Man O' Mine
The Weary Blues
Blues Ain't Nothin' Else But!
Kansas City Main Blues
Indianola
Hard Hearted Hannah
Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem
St. Louis Blues
Copenhagen
Cake Walking Babies from Home
Long Gone
Railroad Blues

Music CD 2

Smoke, Lillies and Jade!
(Lookie, Lookie, Lookie) Here Comes Cookie
Charleston
Chili Pepper
Lucy Long
Chain Gang Blues
Mother to Son
Deep River
East St. Louis Toodle-Oo
Lazy Drag
How It Feels to Be Colored Me
Sengalese Stomp
After You've Gone
Dead Drunk Blues
Woke Up With the Blues in My Fingers
Worried Blues
Humpty Dumpty
Ham and Eggs
Sugar

Music CD 3

If We Must Die
Honey, I'm All out and Down
My Handy Man
Ain't Misbehavin'
A Handful of Riffs
Bright Boy Blues
Harlem Fuss
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
Fare Thee Honey Blues
Soon
Smashing Thirds
Do Shuffle
Wherever There's a Will There's a Way
Dee Blues
Odyssey of Big Boy
Minnie the Moocher
Panama
Royal Garden Blues
America
Jesus Gonna Make up My Dying Bed

Music CD 4

I Want to Die While You Love Me
Stormy Weather
Corrine, Corrina
Sweetie Dear
The Damnation of Women
Baby!
Happy as the Day Is Long
I Got Rhythm
Let's Get Together
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Oh, Lady Be Good
Symphony in Riffs
Sendin' the Vipers
Down South Camp Meeting
She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain
Minor Mania
Sensemayá - Chant for Killing a Snake
Symphony in Black
Echoes of Spring
(Lookie, Lookie, Lookie) Here Comes Cookie
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
It Never Dawned on Me
Honey Dripper Blues
I'm in the Mood for Love

Music reviews of Rhapsodies in Black

Music Review: Fantastic and essential
Rating: 5 Stars

This is a project that is so generous, so full, and so nicely focused that all one can do is read the booklet, and listen to the readings and the music in a sort of awed appreciation - for the greatness of it. Amos was painstakingly thoughtful and careful, and it shows at every turn. The essays are informative, thoughtful, and utterly absorbing. All the poetry and short story excerpts are included, too. So it's a field day for lovers of liner-notes and lyrics.

The music is thrilling. Much of it will be familiar, some less so. (Mastering Engineer Patrick Kraus weighs in, too, in a note regarding changes in sound quality over the years.) The pieces are arranged chronologically, and sensitively. Spoken word compliments music and song. This is something that requires a curatorial sensitivity that Amos clearly possesses. My only mild gripe is that I longed for several additional seconds of silence after each of the spoken-word pieces, before the music started. The power of the poems, for example, requires a little awed silence (the listener's) afterwards. Alfre Woodard's interpretation of Georgia Douglas Johnson's gorgeous, erotically triumphant poem "I Want to Die While You Love Me," deserves those seconds of silence. After Quincy Jones' interpretation of Langston Hughes' "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," you want some extra time, too.

Eartha Kitt interprets Cuban-born Marxist poet Nicolas Guillen's "Sensemaya - Chant for Killing a Snake" and it is spellbinding.

The terrific poems and short stories that are read in this compilation were for the most part recorded by Amos himself. He crisscrossed the country, LA and NY, at least a few times to do it - taping in an attic (Branford Marsalis) and in a variety of venues. The performances are fantastic.

These four CDs knocked me out. I've listened to them repeatedly, with no loss of enthusiasm. Buy this box set - a very good value considering the high quality of the book that comes with it - if you have an interest in the fabulous sound of the Harlem renaissance, and in an artful and wonderful project.