Bessie smith biography free essay sample

Bessie Smith was born In Chattanooga, Tennessee in April 15, 1894. She was the most popular female blues singer known as The Empress of the Blues. She started her career by singing in tent shows in 1912, alongside another blues specialist Ma Rained. Bessie influenced other singers including Earth Franklin, Nina Simons, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington and Janis Joplin. Bessie Smith was married to jack Gee on June 7, 1923. She made her first record with Columbia records Downhearted Blues in 1923. It was a hit selling 780,000 copies. It was the best selling blues record to date.Between 1923 and 1931, Smith recorded 160 songs for Columbia. Throughout the sasss, she recorded with many famous musicians, including Fletcher Henderson and members of his band, and the pianist James P. Johnson, with whom she recorded her masterpiece Backwater Blues. In addition to recording blues, Smith traveled around the South America with her own show, which was wildly popular, In 1929, smith made her film appearance, In SST. We will write a custom essay sample on Bessie smith biography or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Louis Blues. In the film, she sings the title song with members of Fletcher Henderson orchestra, the Hall Johnson Choir, pianistJames P. Johnson. Smiths marriage to gee ended in 1929; Columbia records ended its nine-year contract with her. In 1937 she was killed in a car accident In Tennessee. Bessie Smith died on September 26th, 1937. 5 Most well-known songs: Down Hearted Blues SST. Louis Blues Backwater Blues Gulf coast Blues Nobody Knows you when youre down and out Backwater Blues: 12 bar blues chord structure relaxed style. Smith has a laid-back, Smith frequently slides Into and out of notes (sliding in the vocals) The piano is responding to smiths melodic line. A lot of repetitionIn the 4th chorus the left hand is descending and low chords are played by the right hand. The tune changes. Smith remains in the same melody. The 5th chorus the piano sounds more march-like. Bessie Smith adds variation to certain pitches. Element of Improvisation Sad lyrics, slow tempo, steady beat, call and response In my opinion Bessie Smith has very strong and powerful vocal skills. I Like the way the pianist accompaniment style frequently changes during different verses of the song, he also tries to depict the meaning of the lyrics while playing. Bessie smith biography By troubleBessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in April 15, 1894. She was the most to Jack Gee on June 7, 1923. Masterpiece Backwater Blues. In addition to recording blues, Smith traveled around the South America with her own show, which was wildly popular. In 1929, Smith made her film appearance, in SST. Louis Blues. In the film, she sings the title nine-year contract with her. In 1937 she was killed in a car accident in Tennessee. Smith frequently slides into and out of notes (sliding in the vocals) The piano is Element of improvisation In my opinion Bessie Smith has very strong and powerful vocal skills.

Essay Sample on #8220;The Invisible Man#8221;

Essay Sample on #8220;The Invisible Man#8221; Free sample essay on The Invisible Man: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is true in The Invisible Man.Wells, one of the leading science fiction writers of his time has more than a handful of incredibly successful books accredited to his name. The book â€Å"The Invisible Man† is one of the crowning examples of XIXth century fantastic fiction. Even though it is an early work of science fiction I feel that it is much more than that. The nature of the plot of the story encourages one to come to the conclusion that there is more to this saga than science fiction. â€Å"The Invisible Man†, is a book about human nature and the intricacies of the thoughts, opinions and judgments intrinsically made in their minds when confronted with scenarios they fail to understand. Wells wrote this marvelous story as something of a lesson about scientists playing God, and placing themselves above normal people. In his book, HG Wells ventures into the abstract concept of invisibility and the human emotions and reactions involved in the attainment and realization of this amazingly incomprehensible power. A once sensible scientist is engulfed by the power he feels when unseen, and this power mongering eventually leads into insanity. He carries a sociopath anger that explodes at random, causing as much damage to himself as to others. There is a pervading angst and cynicism running through the story that makes the science aspect of it mere background. According to me, in his book, Wells has taken us on a tour of the extremes which human emotions and feelings can reach when confronted with situations requiring immediate action. The story is filled with innuendoes as indications of how petty, vindictive and suspicious the lay man can get. Wells expresses this by eluci dating accounts involving the lame and unintelligent villagers with the invisible man. All the people Griffin encounters after he becomes invisible, right from the marching crowd of the Salvation Army to the people he comes across in Iping, start to panic and cause havoc and chaos uncontrollably with the intention of escaping the danger that might occur if they are targeted by the invisible man. Wells describes how people react when they look at peril and jeopardy at its face, how one behaves in â€Å"the moment of truth†. He gives instances of people like Mr. Heelas who break, and go to any extremes including befriending a close one as long as their safety is insured. He describes the strong character of people like the police constables who are ready to sacrifice their safety to ensure that of another. He depicts the innocence of a child by including in his book, the narrative of a girl who witnesses the Wickstead murder. Wells shows how unfaithful and greedy people can get by giving the instance of Mr. Marvel, and how he tries to steal the Invisible Manâ€⠄¢s books after promising to work loyally for him when given a death threat. He instantiates the curiosity invoked in people when they see outlandish things by describing incidents involving the invisible man which portray the inquisitiveness of villagers like Mr. Henfrey, Mr. Hall, Mr. Fearenside, and Mr. Cuss. Of all the human feelings and emotions described in the book, the one Wells focuses on the most is the one a person would experience when granted absolute power. Wells portrays that once a person is granted a method by which he is convinced that he is uniquely more powerful than anyone else, he becomes insane and power-hungry and ultimately resorts to destruction and plunder in order to dominate everyone else. Wells gives Griffin the stereotyped character of a mad scientist who is out to prove his intelligence to the world by trying to become more powerful than anyone else. As in other stories this one too ends in the failure of the mad scientist, the death of the invisible man in this case. Griffin says once to Dr. Kemp, â€Å"The more I thought it over, the more I realized Kemp what a helpful absurdity an invisible man was . . . Before I made this mad experiment I had dreamt of a thousand advantages. No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them once they are got.† Besides science and human nature, the book is also about learning a lesson from the mistakes of Griffin. The story has a moral that nobody can ever be fully satisfied with the attainment of absolute power. Wells vision of the future is dire: even as man stumbles upon incredible new sciences, he will simply end up destroying others as he does himself. As clearly described above, I feel that this book is more about humanity than about science and technology. The fact that the story involves the realization of a scientific discovery cannot merely be used as a reason for summing up the entire book as one about science and technology. The detailed description of the human character makes the scientific aspect of the book nothing more than a requirement for the completion of the story. Putting it in John Calvin Bachelors own words, â€Å"Yes, the story of Griffin is propped up with speculation about blood chemistry, but at its heart it is not a novel about optics and laboratory work gone wrong but rather about compassion and desire gone wrong.†. Despite the fact that the book focuses mainly on human nature, it has a fair share of science in it too, and it satisfies the average science fiction reader. In the second half of the book, Wells introduces a new character, Dr. Kemp, a man of science. A man who is on the verge of making a scientific discovery that is going to alter his life and those of many others in some significant way or the other. It is this man who defeats the invisible man in achieving his goal by using his scientific mind to analyze and predict the invisible mans moves. Dr. Kemp sends out orders based on his scientific thinking that people should commute with hounds as the nose is to a dog as what the eyes are to a man, and the hound would be able to detect the presence of the invisible man. He also gives orders to lock up all food, as he understood that Griffins would ultimately feel hungry again and would some out in search of food. Wells designs the book so that Dr. Kemp being a man of science realizes tha t invisibility is not something unique in living organism’s, by recalling how most organisms in the sea are invisible and not visible. It is here in the book where science and its implications start being used. When the invisible man comes across Kemp by coincidence, he narrates to Kemp the story of how he attained invisibility. In this part of the book, Wells makes Griffin describe the concept of visibility and explain in detail, the phenomenon of reflection and refraction that take place in everyday life. He also mentions how the movement of light and hence visibility can be altered by changing the refractive index: the amount by which light changes direction when passing through bodies with different densities. He gives real life examples of light performing its tricks in front of our eyes, which occur in our day to day lives. Hence the style of the book takes a turn and it starts to sound like a science fiction due to the recurring use of scientific concepts. Griffin finally mentions that he had discovered a formula involving four dimensions using which he was able to understand how to complete the process of be coming invisible and by altering the refractive index of a body without altering any of its other properties. Griffin elucidates how he finally discovered how to make blood invisible, completing the requirement for the whole body not to be seen by a normal naked eye. Griffin describes how he verified his discovery by experimenting on the landlady’s cat and a piece of cloth. We can see that Wells takes minute details involving science into consideration, as he explained how Griffin encountered a slight hitch in his experiment because the nails and the Tapetum of the cat’s eye did not become invisible. This demonstrates the aspects of a good science fiction author. Even later on when Griffin describes how he felt when he ventured on the streets for the first time after he became invisible, Wells did not forget to take specific minute details into consideration, which a non-science fiction author would have otherwise overlooked, for example, dust sticking on to Griffins b ody, rain outlining the shape of his body and the fact that he would leave footmarks on the ground if his feet were dirty. Hence, we can see that the book is not entirely about human nature and has quite a few instances of science and technology in it. Therefore, the book can be categorized as a science fiction, as it evokes interest in the reader due to the fact that it contains enough material to appease his appetite for science fiction.

Women in Muslim Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Women in Muslim Society - Essay Example Therefore, the requisite of belief for Muslims is a relatively simple one; if you recognize that the ancient prophets had some conception of the true nature of God, then you are capable of leading a holy and virtuous path. Faith demands adherence to the code of laws, and a recognition of the nature of mankind and his place within the world. The Qur'an makes it clear that no restrictions should be placed upon who can be saved spiritually based upon sex, culture, race, class, or the actions of others. However, these stipulations upon entry into heaven do not formally empower women in their social relationships. Although a person of any sex or ethnicity possesses the capacity to recognize Allah as the one true God and Muhammad as his prophet in virtually all Muslim societies, many of these societies rely upon tribal law and gender traditions to determine particular power structures. The consequence of this is that in a number of Muslim societies women are explicitly identified as being inferior to men and, accordingly, are forced to occupy purely subservient positions. Of course, violence against women has been recognized as a global pandemic, which is not at all exclusive to the Islamic world: "The situation has lead public health experts to consider violence against women a global public health issue, one requiring a public health approach."1 Domestic abuse is common across virtually all cultures and religions to a very high degree; but in many Islamic societies - the Arab world in particular - violence against women could be far more prevalent than in the West, stemming partially from the underground, behind-closed-door character of women in these societies and partially from the widespread acceptance of domestic violence by the male-dominated, ruling sects. As a result, "Research carried out in several Arab countries, however, shows that at least one out of three women is beaten by her husband."2 It has been argued by a number of Western theorists that violence is endemic to Muslim societies; violence against those of other religions and violence against those occupying a lower-rung on the social ladder - women - are both justified within the overall Muslim worldview, according to these theorists. In Islam, within any given community, the rights of the underprivileged are such that they are justified in overthrowing those institutions that are deemed unjust, so long as the injustice lies clearly outside the teachings of the Qur'an. One of the difficulties with this position is that if the practices of other societies are unjust with respect to the teachings of Muhammad and Islam, then there is good reason to work to physically bring down these societies so they better adhere to the paths of virtue. So, quite often, cross-societal violence is clearly justified. But the reverse of this situation is also superficially justified; if the underprivileged of society are deemed to be behaving in an immoral manner, then violence against them is also justified. Although comprehensive studies and, therefore, accurate data is scarce, is has been often suggested that this justification for violence against women is quite prevalent in nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.3 Efforts to overcome these rationalizations for such violence have come largely from the West, though much of the propaganda has been aimed at appealing

The Paradoxical Relationship Between Atheism and Communism Term Paper

The Paradoxical Relationship Between Atheism and Communism - Term Paper Example On the other hand, communism was a sociopolitical movement which was made famous by Karl Marx in the early 19th century. This movement was related by Marx as the solution to the problems which the world was facing back then, and still is, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Marx suggested that there should be a system in which all material goods are owned by the entire community so that the poor are not working to make the rich even richer. The society would have no class and the resources would be used keeping in mind the best interests of everyone (Marx & Engels, 1948). The relation between communism and atheism emerges where Karl Marx states, â€Å"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.† It needs to be noted here that communism, th e idea which was proposed by Karl Marx is the one which incorporates atheism into it. Atheism does not incorporate into it any kind of social or political belief or agenda. Thus the relationship which is being discussed here is of the involvement of the idea that religion is detrimental to the human in communism. While atheism negates the idea of a religion being in anyway beneficial to man, it itself provides a belief system along with a set of rules to follow, in short, it provides a religion. While religion may make a man secondary to a deity or a God, it makes every man secondary to a power which is far greater than man himself where as communism in giving man the power to make his own decisions, provides him with a system to which he is secondary, a system that is ultimately run by a human. And as someone so eloquently put it, as long as it is human, it is flawed (Markham, 2010). While supposedly giving humans who are poor the freedom to not be forced to bring up their children in less then desirable conditions, communism impresses upon them the importance of following the system, again, where it gives freedom in one way, it takes it away on the other hand. One can say, while looking at this, that atheism while denying religion and grading it the root of all evils, provides to the people a system of belief. One very much like a religion, that would give people hope that someone up their, whether in the skies or sitting on a chair is looking out for their freedom and betterment. Here, atheism in relation to communism contradicts itself. While it denies people the right to follow a deity of their choice, it forces them to follow one which it puts into place. And while it claims that the human mind is free and should be developed enough not to believe in a deity or anything supernatural, it also makes it very clear that there is indeed a higher power which is communism (Marx & Engels, 1948). The problem which arises when communism and atheism are discussed i n relation to each other is the fact that all definitions of communism are decidedly vague. While it explains very clearly why communism would work, it does not say how. It explains how religion could be detrimental, but does not say why. There are no set of rules which put communism into action, thus the derivations of communism were many and varied. And by co-incidence or by pure irony,

Scientific method Essay Example for Free

Scientific method Essay Do we start thinking of some type of formal process that will answer all our scientific questions or problems. When I was in school many years ago, we were taught that scientists go through a series of steps to find a solution to a problem or find evidence to support or disprove a theory. It all seemed rather cold, and formal. Going back to school, school has taught me that science has undergone significant changes and has moved away from the rigidity of a fixed series of steps in what was formerly called the scientific method. The Scientific Method Geophysicists opposed his suggestion that the continents glide across the ocean floor, asserting that the ocean floor did not contain adequate power to hold the continents and moreover considerable frictional opposition would transpire (Nelson, 2003). In the 1950s and in the 1960s, reports of the Planets magnetic field and in what way it varied across time, a study known as, presented different support that would confirm that the continents do definitely move (Nelson, 2003). The method by which an expert discovers clarification to an occurrence is named the scientific method. Tracing the Scientific Method After the experiment, any findings should be analyzed to decide whether the hypothesis was correct, incorrect, or somewhere in-between. In this experiment, which was reported in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (Yamauchi et al, 2010), the researchers sought to find out what relationship, if any, coffee had upon the development of diabetes. Previous studies had indicated that coffee might be of use to ward off the development of diabetes in humans. The scientists behind this experiment wanted to investigate this possibility in a more focused study than had been previously done.: Scientific Research

Organizational Behavior and Its Importance to a Company Essay -- Organ

Organizational Behavior and Its Importance to a Company What is organizational behavior and why is it important for a company to understand it? There are several crucial reasons why companies should utilize the concepts of organizational behavior, as well as understand the key terms that are associated with organizational behavior. To understand and utilize organizational behavior there are several key terms that must also be understood, for example organizational culture, diversity, communication, organizational effectiveness and efficiency, organizational learning. Intracorp, a bill review company, has the potential to be more efficient and employees could possibly be more eager to meet intended goals. Definition of Organization Behavior Organizational behavior is defined as â€Å"Organizational Behavior is the study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations† (Clark, 1998). Being able to understand how individuals act within the organization gives management the tools needed to develop an â€Å"effective leadership guide† (Clark, 1998). Should management try and implement a way of leadership that most of the employees are not familiar with will only lead to conflict. It is important that management develop and interpersonal relationship and understand their employees goals should they want the most out of their employees. Intracorp could be one of the leading bill review companies should they have happy and willing emp...

Article Rebutal Essay

The flu shot. Should you or shouldn’t you get one? That is a very common question to ask as flu season quickly approaches. The Mayo Clinic offers an article on their website stating that the best way to avoid the flu is primarily by means of vaccination. Does this mean one cannot avoid the flu if they don’t receive the immunization? What happens to the people who cannot afford the shot, or those who cannot access the places to receive one? Is one to be plagued by sickness if they were to go against injecting the inoculation? While the Mayo clinic itself is a reputable hospital and research facility, the article, â€Å"Flu shot: Your best bet for avoiding influenza† (Mayo 2012) offered no evidence or support for the claim. There was support for avoiding getting the flu, but no proof that the shot itself would offer such protection. After further investigation, there were numerous studies repudiating the claims that are made regarding the efficacy of the flu shot. One such study (which was actually pro-vaccination) stated that the shot only provided moderate protection and was lacking in evidence in the 65 and up age range (Lancet). In another finding, namely the leaflet that comes inside the drugs packaging, the insert for FLULAVAL states â€Å"there have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with FLULAVAL†. Then why take it? While the side effects of the flu shot can be mild such as soreness at the injection site or aching muscles, they can also be as severe as an allergic reaction causing, guess what, flu like symptoms. Who wants that? Plus there is the chance that the vaccines don’t match the viruses circulating (Mayo). Now wait a minute, somebody is predicting the upcoming viruses and then making the immunization? How does that work? Are these same people consulting a crystal ball or palm reading the other doctors and scientists by any chance? While it may be medically necessary for a person to receive an influenza vaccination while in a hospital setting or nursing home, the bottom line is sick people get sick while healthy people do not. To avoid the flu this season, eat well, exercise regularly, manage stress and take some vitamins. Keep your hands clean by washing them regularly and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth whenever possible but especially if the hands are not clean. Prevention is still the best medicine and as Thomas Edison so fabulously quantified, â€Å"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease†. References (Sept. 2012) Mayo Clinic Staff. Flu shot: Your best bet for avoiding influenza retrieved online from: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/flu-shots/ID00017 (Jan 2012). The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Volume 12, Issue 1, Pgs 36 – 44, retrieved online from: http://www.naturalnews.com/033998_influenza_vaccines_effectiveness.html (Oct 2011). Adams, M. Natural News, retrieved online from: http://www.naturalnews.com/033998_influenza_vaccines_effectiveness.html