TRANSCRIPT:
Hi, I am Mark Rapp and this is Rapp on Jazz.
The Lowcountry of South Carolina and the coast of Georgia also played a crucial role in the development of jazz.
In the 1700s, this area had the most extensive, wealthiest plantations in the world, producing rice called Carolina Gold, the work of vast enslaved Africans. Known as Gullah or Geechee and isolated from the outside world, their evolved culture created its musical language, taking African rhythms and songs and combining them with new church traditions and Western music stylings. The resulting music included negro spirituals, field hollers, chants, work songs, and the blues.
These unique Gullah influences found their way into the music of Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and Dizzy Gillespie.
This has been Rapp On Jazz, a co-production of ColaJazz and SC Public Radio, made possible in part by Layman Poupard Publishers, producers of the Literary Criticism Series and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.