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In order to familiarize yourselves with Langston Hughes’s cultural background, the Harlem Renaissance and the history of African-American music, please find below a selection of films dedicated to blues & jazz music, followed by a selection of Hughes’s favorite tunes (as compiled in his 1955 children’s book The First Book of Jazz [1], from which all illustrations on this page are also drawn).

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A Blues & Jazz Filmography

The Jazz Singer, Alan Crosland (1927; starring Al Jonson)

Stormy Weather, Andrew L. Stone (1943; starring Lena Horne & Fats Waller)

New Orleans; Arthur Lubin (1947; starring Louis Armstrong & Billie Holiday)

Lady Sings the Blues, Sidney J. Furie (1972; starring Diana Ross & Richard Pryor)

New York New York, Martin Scorsese (1977; starring Robert de Niro& Liza Minelli)

The Cotton Club, Francis Ford Coppola (1984; starring Richard Gere & Gregory Hines)

Bird, Clint Eastwood (1988; starring Forest Whitaker)

Ray, Taylor Hackford (2004; starring Jamie Foxx)

Whiplash, Damien Chazelle (2014; starring Miles Teller & J.K. Simmons)

Bessie, Dee Rees (2015; HBO TV; starring Queen Latifah)

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A Blues & Jazz Discography [2]

Louis Armstrong, “The St Louis Blues,” 1929.

____________, “West End Blues,” 1928.

Count Basie, “Good Morning Blues,” 1937.

Cab Calloway, “Minnie the Moocher,” 1931.

King Cole Trio, “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” 1933.

__________, “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” 1943.

Duke Ellington, “Skin Deep,” 1951.

___________, “The Mooche,” 1928.

Dizzy Gillespie, “Salt Peanuts,” 1947.

Lionel Hampton, “Hey Baba Rebop,” 1946.

Billie Holiday, “God Bless the Child That’s Got His Own,” 1941.

Thelonious Monk, “Round About Midnight,” 1944.

Jelly Roll Morton, “Mamie’s Blues,” ?

Charlie Mingus, “II B.S. (Haitian Fight Song),” 1963.

___________, “Pithecanthropus Erectus,” 1956.

___________ (w Leonard Feather), The Weary Blues, 1959. [poems recited by Langston Hughes.]

Charlie Parker, “Lover Man,” 1946.

Artie Shaw (w Billy Holliday), “Any Old Time,” 1938.

Nina Simone, Backlash Blues, 1967. [lyrics of the song “Backlash Blues” by Langston Hughes]

Bessie Smith, “Back Water Blues,” 1927.

_________, “St Louis Blues,” 1929.

_________, “Yellow Dog Blues,” 1925.

Art Tatum, “Tea for Two,” 1939.

_______, “Tiger Rag,” 1933.

Fats Waller, “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” 1929.

Randy Weston, Uhuru Afrika, 1960. [lyrics and liner notes by Langston Hughes]

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Langston Hughes on Record

The Voice of Langston Hughes (1995): http://www.deezer.com/album/408886

Harlem In Vogue: The Poetry and Jazz of Langston Hughes (2011): http://www.deezer.com/album/1129815

Langston Hughes Reads Langston Hughes (2013): http://www.deezer.com/album/7267270

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[1] For more information about this book, please access the following websites:

– We Too Were Children, Mr Barrie

– Cliff Roberts: The First Book of Jazz

[2] All tunes and songs are accessible for free on Youtube and Deezer.