This Is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins' Life in Music

FAIN: FZ-287155-22

Gayle F. Wald
George Washington University (Washington, DC 20052-0001)

Research and writing of a biography of the musician-educator Ella Jenkins (b. 1924).

"This Is Rhythm" will be the first biography of the musician-educator Ella Jenkins (b. 1924), a pioneer of “multicultural” children’s music. Beginning with her 1957 Folkways debut "Call-and-Response Rhythmic Group Singing," Jenkins, a self-taught artist, reimagined American children’s music by grounding it in the sonic traditions of the African American diaspora. Before Jenkins, music for young audiences was geared either toward diversion or cultural uplift, with European art music as a pinnacle. In contrast, by taking Black music—from the playground chants of Black girls to the gospel music of Black churches—as a paradigm, Jenkins envisioned music-making as a practice of community and cooperation. "This Is Rhythm" traces Jenkins’ life from her South Side childhood to her receipt of a lifetime Grammy Award (2004), positioning her not only as a recording artist and performer, but as a grassroots African American female educator who advanced civil rights through rhythm and song.