MUSIC + REVOLUTION: Featuring Students from The New School's School of Jazz & Contemporary Music
Even before the Beatnik Riots of 1961, Greenwich Village was the epicenter of revolutionary movements in American music and culture. But, in the 1960s, a new wave of writers and performers inspired by the folk music revival of the 1950s created socially aware and deeply personal songs that spoke to a generation like never before. These writers—Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Phil Ochs to name a few—changed the folk repertoire from traditional songs to songs sprung from personal, contemporary experiences and the nation's headlines, raising the level of political self-expression to high art. Message and music merged and mirrored society. The Bitter End played a major part in this musical evolution. Before long, the Blues Project and Jimi Hendrix came on the scene, turning things psychedelic.
In his book Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village in the 1960s, and in his course of the same name at the New School's School of Jazz & Contemporary Music, musician/author/professor Richard Barone unrolls a freewheeling historical narrative, peppered with personal stories and insights from those who were there.
On this evening, Barone's students will take the historic Bitter End stage, to perform songs from the incredible songwriters who shook the world with their words and music all those years ago.