Music of New York City - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The music of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

is a diverse and important field in the world of music. It has long been a thriving home for jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, rock and the blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

. It is the birthplace of hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

, Latin freestyle, disco

Disco

Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

, house music

House music

House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...

, and punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

as well as the birthplace of Salsa music

Salsa music

Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...

, born from a fusion of Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican influences that came together in New York's Latino neighborhoods in the 1960s. The city's culture, a melting pot

Melting pot

The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...

of nations from around the world, has produced vital folk music scenes such as Irish-American music

Celtic music in the United States

Irish, Scottish music and Welsh Music have long been a major part of American music, at least as far back as the 18th century. Beginning in the 1960s, performers like the Clancy Brothers became stars in the Irish music scene, which dates back to at least the colonial era, when many Irish...

and Jewish klezmer

Klezmer

Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...

. Beginning with the rise of popular sheet music in the early 20th century, New York's Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

musical theater and Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...

's songcraft, New York has been a major part of the American music industry.

Music author Richie Unterberger

Richie Unterberger

Richie Unterberger is a US author and journalist whose focus is popular music and travel writing.-Life and writing:Having worked as a DJ at WXPN in Philadelphia, he started reviewing records for Op magazine in 1983...

has described the New York music scene, and the city itself, as "(i)mmense, richly diverse, flashy, polyethnic, and engaged in a never-ending race for artistic and cosmopolitan supremacy". Despite the city's historic importance in the development of American music

Music of the United States

The music of the United States reflects the country's multi-ethnic population through a diverse array of styles. Among the country's most internationally-renowned genres are hip hop, blues, country, rhythm and blues, jazz, barbershop, pop, techno, and rock and roll. The United States has the...

, there are those who feel that its status has declined in recent years, due to a combination of increased corporate control over music media, an increase in the cost-of-living and the rise of local music scenes whose success is facilitated by the cheap communication provided by the Internet.

Institutions and venues

New York has been a center for the American music industry since the earliest records in the early 20th century. Since then, a number of companies and organizations have set up headquarters in New York, from the Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley

publishers and Broadway

Broadway theatre

to modern independent rock and hip hop labels, non-profit organizations and others. Many music magazines are headquartered in New York, including Blender Magazine, Punk Magazine, Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...

and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

.

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

is one of the most important music venues in the world, especially for classical music; the Hall is noted for its excellent acoustics

Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...

. The venue was named for philanthropist Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

, but fell into disrepair in the 20th century until being renovated between 1983 and 1995. Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...

was also a major venue after opening 1932, and was also recently renovated; it is now a significant architectural

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

attraction as an example of the Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

style.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...

is the largest performing arts center in the world and the Center is home to twelve resident organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

, New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, New York City Ballet

New York City Ballet

New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...

, Chamber Music Society

Chamber Music Society

Chamber Music Society is a jazz album by American bassist Esperanza Spalding. After Spalding's surprise Grammy win, the album re-entered the Billboard 200 at number 34 with sales of 18,000....

, New York City Opera

New York City Opera

The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...

, Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

, Lincoln Center Theater, and Jazz at Lincoln Center

Jazz at Lincoln Center

Jazz at Lincoln Center is part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. JALC's performing arts complex, Frederick P. Rose Hall, is located at West 60th Street and Broadway in New York City, slightly south of the main Lincoln Center campus and directly adjacent to Columbus Circle. Frederick P....

. The New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, which performs at Avery Fisher Hall

Avery Fisher Hall

Avery Fisher Hall is a concert hall, in New York City and is part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex. It is the home of the New York Philharmonic, with a capacity of 2,738 seats.-History:...

, is the oldest orchestra in the United States, founded in 1842. , Lorin Maazel

Lorin Maazel

Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...

is the conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

. The Philharmonic has made more than 500 recordings since 1917, and was one of the first to broadcast live performances, beginning in 1922. The New York Philharmonic produced celebrated composers such as George Bristow

George Frederick Bristow

George Frederick Bristow was an American composer. He advocated American classical music, rather than favoring European pieces. He was famously involved in a related controversy involving William Henry Fry and the New York Philharmonic Society.-Musical career:Bristow was born into a musical...

and Theodore Thomas; Bristow was a fiercely nationalistic composer who left the Philharmonic because he felt it did not glorify American music adequately, a situation he, and later Thomas, attempted to rectify.

Other institutions and organizations in New York include the Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....

, New York City Ballet

New York City Ballet

and the Jazz Foundation of America

Jazz Foundation of America

The Jazz Foundation of America is a non-profit organization based in Manhattan, New York founded in 1989. The JFA’s programs help jazz and blues musicians in need of emergency funds and connect them with performance opportunities in schools and the community...

. Notable venues that have closed include the Aeolian Hall

Aeolian Hall (New York)

Aeolian Hall was a concert hall near Times Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City located on the third floor of 29-33 West 42nd Street across the street from Bryant Park. The Aeolian Building was built in 1912 for the Aeolian Company, which manufactured pianos...

of Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....

fame and the old Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

(demolished 1967) at 1411 Broadway. The Apollo Theater

Apollo Theater

The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...

has long been a place for African American performers to begin their careers; it has such an iconic status that Congress has declared it a national landmark

National landmark

A National landmark is a site identified by a national authority as one possessing nationally–significant natural, historic, or scientific resources...

Club influence

The New York club

Club

A club is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.- History...

scene is an important part of the city's music scene, birthplace to many styles of music from disco

Disco

to punk rock

Punk rock

; some of these clubs, such as Studio 54

Studio 54

Studio 54 was a highly popular discotheque from 1977 until 1991, located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA. It was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming a CBS radio and television studio. In 1977 it...

, Max's Kansas City

Max's Kansas City

Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South, in New York City, which was a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s.-Origin of name:...

, Mercer Arts Center

Mercer Arts Center

The Mercer Arts Center was a group of live theaters on Mercer Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, and was part of the Broadway Central Hotel until its collapse on August 3, 1973....

, ABC No Rio

ABC No Rio

ABC No Rio is a social center located at 156 Rivington Street on New York City's Lower East Side that was founded in 1980. It features a gallery space, a zine library, a darkroom, a silkscreening studio, and public computer lab...

, and CBGB's, reached an iconic statuses in the United States and the world. New York is home to several major jazz clubs, including Birdland

Birdland (jazz club)

Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979...

, Sweet Rhythm (formerly Sweet Basil), Village Vanguard

Village Vanguard

The Village Vanguard is a jazz club located at in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. At first, it also featured other forms of music such as folk music and beat poetry, but it switched to an all-jazz format in 1957.-History:Over 100 jazz...

and The Blue Note, the latter being one of the premier spots for jazz lovers. There was a time—now long gone—when 52nd Street in Manhattan, with its numerous clubs, was one of jazz's epicenters. Future generations of music venues would retain the prolific elements of this culture. Since transmogrifying the local dance scene (deep house

Deep house

Deep house is a subgenre of house music that fuses elements of Chicago house into the 1980s jazz-funk and touches of soul music. In the early compositions , influences of jazz music were most frequently brought out by using more complex chords than simple triads which are held for many bars and...

) to form "acid-jazz" in the late 1980s, Groove Academy/Giant Step

Giant Step

Giant Step is a New York based concert promoter, marketing company, and record label.-1990-1995: The Groove Academy and Early Years:Giant Step began in 1990 as “a roving, freewheeling party” in New York City, a weekly production of British promoter, Maurice Bernstein, and his South African partner,...

has launched several major-label bands such as Groove Collective

Groove Collective

Groove Collective is a contemporary jazz group. In 2007 they were nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year for the release People People Music Music on the Savoy Jazz label.-Style:Groove Collective was formed in 1990...

and Nuyorican Soul.

The Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

folk scene is home to venues such as the long-standing landmark Bottom Line

Bottom Line

The Bottom Line was a music venue at 15 West Fourth Street between Mercer Street and Greene Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...

. New York's rock scene includes clubs such as Irving Plaza

Irving Plaza

Irving Plaza is a 1,200-person ballroom-style music venue at 17 Irving Place and East 15th Street in the Union Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...

and Maxwell's

Maxwell's

Maxwell's is a music club in Hoboken, New Jersey that also has a restaurant. The intimate venue often attracts a wide variety of acts looking for a change from the New York City concert spaces across the river.-History:...

(actually in Hoboken, New Jersey), while the city's avant-garde "downtown" scene includes The Kitchen

The Kitchen

The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary art and performance space located at at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...

, Roulette and Knitting Factory

Knitting Factory

The Knitting Factory is a music venue and concert house with locations in Brooklyn, Boise, Reno, and Spokane. The club originally specialized in jazz and experimental music and has expanded to showcasing all genres of music, performing arts and comedy....

. The Latin and world music scene features venues such as S.O.B.'s and the Wetlands Preserve, which closed in 2001.

Festivals, holidays and parades

New York City has a long history of using music in various festivals and parades, though the vibrant local music scene has meant that festivals aren't as big a draw as in many cities, since residents are near major sources of live music all the time. The diverse groups of immigrants living in New York have each brought with them their own holiday traditions. As a result, major festivals of music in New York include the Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...

celebrations, Pulaski Day Parade

Pulaski Day Parade, New York City

The Pulaski Day Parade is a parade held annually since 1937 on Fifth Avenue in New York City to commemorate Kazimierz Pułaski , a Polish hero of the American Revolutionary War. It is held on the first Sunday of October and closely coincides with the October 11th General Pulaski Memorial Day, a...

and the St. Patrick's Day Parade run by the Ancient Order of Hibernians

Ancient Order of Hibernians

The Ancient Order of Hibernians is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be Catholic and either Irish born or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in New York City in 1836...

; New York is home to the largest St. Patrick's Day Parade in the world, a tradition that has continued since 1762 due to the large Irish population in New York. Irish folk music and folk-rock are the major styles at the two-day Guinness Fleadh festival. The College Music Journal Network's annual Music Marathon has been held since 1980, providing a major showcase for new music. Central Park Summerstage

Summerstage

SummerStage is an annual, free performing arts summer festival founded in 1986 which takes place at Rumsey Playfield in New York City's Central Park and, since 2010, in parks throughout the five boroughs of New York. In 1994, SummerStage was transferred to the City Parks Foundation, where it has...

, a series of free concerts presented by City Parks Foundation

City Parks Foundation

City Parks Foundation is the only independent, nonprofit organization to offer programs in parks throughout the five boroughs of New York City...

and hosting performers of many kinds, is also a major part of New York's summer music scene, which also includes the July Intel New York Music Festival. There are numerous New York jazz festivals, including the Texaco New York Jazz Festival, Panasonic Village Jazz Festival, the JVC Jazz Festival, and the free Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. City Parks Foundation

City Parks Foundation

City Parks Foundation is the only independent, nonprofit organization to offer programs in parks throughout the five boroughs of New York City...

also presents CityParks Concerts each summer, a series of thirty free concerts in ten parks across all five boroughs of the city.

Additionally, New York hosts the yearly ElectricZoo festival, second only to Miami's Winter Music Conference

Winter Music Conference

The Winter Music Conference is a weeklong electronic music conference, held every March since the mid-1980s in Miami, Florida, United States. Venues are hosted primarily in Downtown Miami and Miami's South Beach...

as a mecca for house and electronic music fans in the United States. It also holds the annual Dance Parade

Dance parade

Dance parade is an annual parade and festival that showcases dance of all kinds as an expression of art and culture. It takes place in New York City each May, on the Saturday before Memorial Day....

which brings together all types of dance-oriented music from across the world (both traditional and contemporary) in a combined parade down Fifth Avenue.

Music history

The first music performed in the area that is now New York City was that of the Lenape Native Americans

Native American music

American Indian music is the music that is used, created or performed by Native North Americans, specifically traditional tribal music. In addition to the traditional music of the Native American groups, there now exist pan-tribal and inter-tribal genres as well as distinct Indian subgenres of...

who lived there. However, little is known of these peoples' musical lives. The earliest documented music comes after the foundation of the city (then called New Amsterdam) by Dutch explorers, who controlled the area until the British conquest in 1664. The music of New York City's colonial era was primarily British in character, gradually evolving as the United States became independent and developed a distinct culture; the influence of African American music

African American music

African-American music is an umbrella term given to a range of musics and musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large and significant ethnic minority of the population of the United States...

became very important as the city's African American population increased throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

By the 1830s, New York City was gradually becoming the most important cultural center in the United States, and was a home for many varieties of folk, popular and classical music. Late in the 19th century, many influential conservatories and venues were founded, including the world-famous Metropolitan Opera House

Metropolitan Opera

and Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

. New York's status as a center for musical development continued into the 20th century, leading to the foundation of many companies associated with the American music industry in the city. These companies included sheet music publishers, based around an area called Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley

, and later record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

s and other organizations and institutions. The rise of the Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

s began in the early part of the century; the songs from Broadways musicals

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

became some of the earliest American popular music, and eventually came to be treated as pop standards.

Early history

As the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, New York City was populated by Dutch settlers who left little musical trace behind, excepting some songs such as "Dutch Prayer of Thanksgiving", "Rosa" and "The Little Dustman". Under English rule, sea shanties

Sea shanty

A shanty is a type of work song that was once commonly sung to accompany labor on board large merchant sailing vessels. Shanties became ubiquitous in the 19th century era of the wind-driven packet and clipper ships...

, open-air singing gardens, sometimes with fireworks

Fireworks

Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...

, ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

s and other Anglo-Irish traditions became widespread. New York's colonial ballads were often topical, concerning the events of the day and the local gossip. Beginning in 1732, ballads were placed together with a story tying them together, forming a performance genre called the ballad opera

Ballad opera

The term ballad opera is used to refer to a genre of English stage entertainment originating in the 18th century and continuing to develop in the following century and later. There are many types of ballad opera...

, the best-known of which is The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...

, first performed in 1752. The same period, the early to mid-18th century, also saw the first concerts held in New York City, and the arrival of William Tuckey

William Tuckey

William Tuckey was an American composer, who exerted important influence on the musical life of the Colonial United States. He was one of the first American composers to gain notability, and was also a choir master and organist...

, who helped establish church music in the city.

New York's rise as the intellectual and artistic center of the United States occurred in the 1830s. This period, which coincided with an upsurge in American nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, saw major growth in choral music, with musical societies being formed in most major cities, like New York; these choral societies remained a fixture of American music throughout the 19th century. Military bands were also common throughout the country, as was singing family troupes such as the Hutchinson Family. Later still, minstrel show

Minstrel show

The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....

s, comic and musical acts performed by whites in blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

, spread across the country. In New York, Italian operas were very popular throughout much of the century.

Near the end of the 19th century, modern conservatories

Music school

The term music school refers to an educational institution specialized in the study, training and research of music.Different terms refer to this concept such as school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department or conservatory.Music instruction can be provided...

opened in many cities, and New York became the home of the Metropolitan Opera House

Metropolitan Opera

in 1882 and Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

in 1891, the latter's opening being marked by an appearance by the famed Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

. In 1892, Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

became Director of the National Conservatory of Music

National Conservatory of Music of America

The National Conservatory of Music of America was an institution for higher education in music founded in 1885 in New York City by Jeannette Meyers Thurber...

. Dvořák, a Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

n composer, was fascinated with Native and African American folk music, and he was enthusiastic about encouraging a nationalist American field of music that utilized those fields. Dvořák only stayed on for three years before returning to Bohemia, though he influenced later composers such as his pupil, the African American composer Harry Thacker Burleigh.

George Bristow

George Frederick Bristow

was an important composer of the latter 19th century. He was a violinist with the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, later conducting an orchestra called the Harmonic Society. He attempted to popularize an indigenous American sound in his music, using nationalist elements such as a Native American melody

Native American music

in his Symphony No. 4. Theodore Thomas also worked at the New York Philharmonic before forming the New York Symphony Orchestra

New York Symphony Orchestra

The New York Symphony Orchestra was founded as the New York Symphony Society in New York City by Leopold Damrosch in 1878. For many years it was a fierce rival to the older Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York. It was supported by Andrew Carnegie who built Carnegie Hall expressly for the...

. He hired many of the best performers of the day in an attempt to lure in audiences, and he promoted a more casual atmosphere to encourage attendance and enthusiasm.

Classical and art music history

New York's position as a center for European classical music can be traced back to the early 19th century. The New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, formed in 1842, did much to help establish the city's reputation. In that same era was organized the short-lived rival to the Philharmonic, the American Academy of Music, founded by Charles Jerome Hopkins

Charles Jerome Hopkins

Charles Jerome Hopkins was a nineteenth century musician, composer and educator. He is often mistakenly referred to in some texts as Edward Jerome Hopkins or Charles Edward Hopkins, possibly due to the presence of a similarly named British musical peer, Edward Hopkins.-Early life and...

(born 1836 in Burlington, Vermont), William Fry

William Henry Fry

For the woodcarver and gilder, see William H. Fry.William Henry Fry was a pioneering American composer, music critic, and journalist. Fry was the first person born in the United States to write for a large symphony orchestra, and the first to compose a publicly performed opera...

, George Bristow

George Frederick Bristow

, and Charles Steele in 1856. Two of the first major New York composers were William Fry and George Bristow

George Frederick Bristow

, both of whom were involved in a well-known 1854 controversy over the Philharmonic's programming choices. The controversy consisted of a series of letters published in the Musical World and Times following a poor review of Fry's Santa Claus Symphony. Fry's first letter, responding angrily to the review, claimed that the Philharmonic had played no pieces by American composers, to which Bristow responded that the Philharmonic had played one piece, an overture he had composed. Henry Christian Timm

Henry Christian Timm

Henry Christian Timm was a German-born American pianist, conductor, and composer.Timm worked in New York as a concert pianist, teacher, organist, and chamber musician. He also helped conduct the New York Philharmonic and served as the President of the city's Philharmonic Society from 1847 to 1864...

, one of the founders of the Philharmonic, responded by noting a number of recently-composed works.

Both Fry and Bristow, despite their support for American compositions, were very European in style. Fry's most notable composition was the opera Leonora
Leonora (opera)
Leonora, ossia L’amore coniugale is an opera in two acts by the Italian composer Ferdinando Paer. The libretto, by Giovanni Schmidt, is based on Léonore ou L’Amour conjugal by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, which was also the source of Beethoven's Fidelio...

, which received mixed reviews upon its opening and was criticized for its debt to Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

's bel canto

Bel canto

Bel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...

style. Bristow was also very European in his style, and was a violinist and conductor with the Philharmonic until the 1854 controversy, though he later rejoined. His most important work was the opera Rip Van Winkle, and was very popular at the time; most influentially, Rip Van Winkle used an American folktale rather than European imitations.

The New York native Edward MacDowell

Edward MacDowell

Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...

was a major late 19th century composer, though he spent most of his productive time in Boston. His first concerto was premiered in New York in 1888, and he returned the following year to premier another concerto. MacDowell eventually began using elements of American folk music in his compositions, especially the Woodland Sketches
Woodland Sketches
Woodland Sketches is a ballet made by Robert La Fosse to Edward MacDowell's eponymous music from 1896 for New York City Ballet's American Music Festival...

. The Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

n composer Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

came to New York in 1892 to head the National Conservatory

National Conservatory of Music of America

The National Conservatory of Music of America was an institution for higher education in music founded in 1885 in New York City by Jeannette Meyers Thurber...

. A fervent nationalist, Dvořák used the folk music of his native land in his music, and encouraged American composers to do the same. One of the Conservatory's students, the African American Harry Burleigh

Harry Burleigh

Henry "Harry" Thacker Burleigh , a baritone, was an African American classical composer, arranger, and professional singer...

, introduced him to the songs of the minstrel show

Minstrel show

s and spiritual

Spiritual (music)

Spirituals are religious songs which were created by enslaved African people in America.-Terminology and origin:...

s, and Dvořák was deeply moved, enough to write a well-known essay in an 1895 issue of Harper's declaring that American composers should use the diverse folk elements of their country in their compositions.

In the early 20th century, the New York classical music scene included Charles Griffes

Charles Griffes

Charles Tomlinson Griffes was an American composer for piano, chamber ensembles and for voice.-Musical career:...

, originally from Elmira, New York

Elmira, New York

Elmira is a city in Chemung County, New York, USA. It is the principal city of the 'Elmira, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area' which encompasses Chemung County, New York. The population was 29,200 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Chemung County.The City of Elmira is located in...

, who began publishing his most innovative material in 1914. His collaboration with other area performers and composers on The Kairn of Koridwen was an early attempt to use musical themes adopted from non-Western cultures, specifically, Japanese

Music of Japan

The music of Japan includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles both traditional and modern. The word for music in Japanese is 音楽 , combining the kanji 音 with the kanji 楽...

and Javanese music

Music of Java

The Music of Java embraces a wide variety of styles, both traditional and contemporary, reflecting the diversity of the island and its lengthy history...

. He was to continue in this vein with the score for Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke

Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...

's "Wai Kiki", the ballet Sho-Jo, or — the Spirit of Wine, A Symbol of Happiness and his orchestral composition The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan. Besides Griffes, New York composers included Marion Bauer

Marion Bauer

Marion Eugénie Bauer was an American composer, teacher, writer, and music critic. A contemporary of Aaron Copland, Bauer played an active role in shaping American musical identity in the early half of the twentieth century....

, Leo Ornstein

Leo Ornstein

Leo Ornstein was a leading American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century...

and Rubin Goldmark

Rubin Goldmark

Rubin Goldmark was an American composer, pianist, and educator. Although in his time he was an often performed American nationalist composer, his works are seldom played – instead he is known as the teacher of Aaron Copland and George Gershwin...

, all three of which were either Jewish immigrants or the children of Jewish immigrants.

The best-known New York composer, indeed, the best-known American classical composer of any kind, was George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

. Gershwin was a songwriter with Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley

and the Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

s, and his works were strongly influenced by jazz

Jazz

, or rather the precursors to jazz that were extant during his time. It is not clear that he was a classical musician, though neither is it clear that he worked in jazz, popular music or any other field — he primarily synthesized and utilized elements of many styles, including the music of New York's Yiddish theatre

Yiddish theatre

Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and...

, vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

, ragtime

Ragtime

Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

, operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

, jazz, Tin Pan Alley and Broadway songs, the music of the Gullah

Gullah

The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands....

people and the impressionist and post-Romantic music of European composers. Some of his most famous compositions were the Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....

and Concerto in F
Concerto in F (Gershwin)
Concerto in F is a composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and orchestra which is closer in form to a traditional concerto than the earlier jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue...

, both of which utilized jazz idioms. Gershwin's work made American classical music more focused, and attracted an unheard of amount of international attention.

Following Gershwin, the first major composer was Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

from Brooklyn, who used elements of American folk music, though it remained European in technique and form. His works included the Organ Symphony
Organ Symphony
This page lists the best known Symphonies for solo Organ and Symphonies for Orchestra and Organ. Organ concertos are not listed here.- Edward Shippen Barnes :...

(which was well-received, earning him comparisons to Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

), the jazz-affected Music for the Theatre, the music for the ballet Appalachian Spring
Appalachian Spring
Appalachian Spring is a modern score composed by Aaron Copland that premiered in 1944 and has achieved widespread and enduring popularity as an orchestral suite...

and the Piano Variations
Copland Piano Variations
The Piano Variations of American composer Aaron Copland were written for piano solo from January to October 1930. They were dedicated to American writer Gerald Sykes and were originally published by Cos Cob Press in 1932, which merged with Arrow Music Press in 1938 and was taken over by Boosey &...

. Later, he turned to the ballet and then serial music.

The early to mid 20th century New York classical music scene also produced composers such as Roger Sessions

Roger Sessions

Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...

, an academically oriented composer known for operas such as Motezuma
Motezuma
Motezuma is an opera in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi with an Italian libretto by Girolamo Giusti. The first performance was given in the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice on 14 November 1733...

. The similarly academic William Schuman

William Schuman

William Howard Schuman was an American composer and music administrator.-Life:Born in Manhattan in New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president, William Howard Taft, although his family preferred to call him Bill...

became known for writing symphonies such as Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 2 (Schumann)
The Symphony in C major by German composer Robert Schumann was published in 1847 as his Symphony No. 2, Op. 61, although it was the third symphony he had completed, counting the B-flat major symphony published as No. 1 in 1841, and the original version of his D minor symphony of 1841 The Symphony...

, New England Triptych
New England Triptych
New England Triptych is a symphonic composition by William Schuman. The work lasts about 16 minutes, and is written for an orchestra of 3 flutes , 2 oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion , and...

and the Third Symphony
Symphony no. 3 (Schuman)
American composer William Schuman's Symphony no. 3 was completed on January 11, 1941, and premiered on October 17 of that year by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitsky, to whom it is dedicated.-Instrumentation:...

; Schuman also became president of Juilliard, changing the school by forming the Juilliard String Quartet

Juilliard String Quartet

The Juilliard String Quartet is a classical music string quartet founded in 1946 at the Juilliard School in New York. The original members were violinists Robert Mann and Robert Koff, violist Raphael Hillyer, and cellist Arthur Winograd; Current members are Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes violinists,...

and merging the Institute of Musical Art with the Juilliard Graduate School, as well as hiring teachers such as Williams Bergsma, Peter Mennin

Peter Mennin

Peter Mennin was an American composer and teacher. He directed the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, then for many years ran the Juilliard School, succeeding William Schuman in this role...

and Hugo Weisgall

Hugo Weisgall

Hugo David Weisgall was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions...

, who went on to teach future luminaries such as Steve Reich

Steve Reich

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...

and Philip Glass

Philip Glass

Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...

.

In the middle of the 20th century, the most influential New York composers included the Massachusetts native and conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, known for his works Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs
Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs
Prelude, Fugue and Riffs is a "written-out" jazz-in-concert hall composition written by Leonard Bernstein for a jazz ensemble, which features a solo clarinet....

, Serenade, Chichester Psalms
Chichester Psalms
Chichester Psalms is a choral work by Leonard Bernstein for boy treble or countertenor, solo quartet, choir and orchestra...

and the musicals On the Town and West Side Story. Another major composer was Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

, whom John Warthen Struble claimed would likely be remembered as "the most significant of the mid-20th century... composers [because he] reconceived and restructured the fundamental language of Western art music in evolving his powerful personal style... his music has earned immense respect from colleagues of virtually every esthetic stripe, as well as three generations of performing musicians and audiences". Carter's compositions included the Wind Quintet
Wind quintet
A wind quintet, also sometimes known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players . The term also applies to a composition for such a group....

and the sonata for cello and piano. In addition to Carter and Bernstein, in the mid-20th century, New York produced the film composer Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...

, Gunther Schuller

Gunther Schuller

Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...

and serialist Leon Kirchner

Leon Kirchner

Leon Kirchner was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 3.Kirchner was born in Brooklyn, New York...

.

Many of the later 20th century composers in various modernist and minimalist styles came from outside of New York City, such as John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

from Los Angeles, though many studied, performed or conducted in New York, the center for American music. John Corigliano

John Corigliano

John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...

, however, is a New York native who has worked exclusively in tonal idioms for most of his career. Steve Reich

Steve Reich

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...

innovated a technique known as phasing

Phasing

In the compositional technique phasing, the same part is played on two musical instruments, in steady but not identical tempo...

, in which two musical activities are begun simultaneously and repeated, gradually drifting out of sync with each other in a natural evolution; Reich was also very interested in non-Western music, incorporating African rhythmic techniques in his compositions Drumming. Rhys Chatham

Rhys Chatham

Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...

as well as Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.-Beginnings: 1960s and early 1970s:Branca...

blended the minimal music with modern rock esthetics and began writing microtonal pieces for large orchestras of guitarists but also wrote other classical pieces with non amplified instruments. Kyle Gann

Kyle Gann

Kyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...

is a musicologist as well as a composer of post modern pieces.

Most recently, New York has become home to a Manhattan-based scene sometimes called New Music

Contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...

. These composers and performers are strongly influenced by the minimalist works of Philip Glass

Philip Glass

, a Baltimore native based out of New York, Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk

Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...

and others. One of the most famous persons from this scene is easily John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

, often cited as a jazz musician though he works in many fields and idioms. Others include Arto Lindsay

Arto Lindsay

Arthur Morgan Lindsay is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He is a 1974 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida....

, Marc Ribot

Marc Ribot

Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...

, John Lurie

John Lurie

John Lurie is an American actor, musician, painter and producer. He is co-founder of The Lounge Lizards, a jazz ensemble. Lurie has acted in 19 films including Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, composed and performed music for 20 television and film works, and he produced and starred in...

, Laurie Anderson and Bill Laswell

Bill Laswell

Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....

Popular music

New York is the center of the American music industry, and by extension, is one of the major centers for popular music worldwide. The city attained an iconic musical status in the early 20th century. Later, New York retained its position as the major center for the American music industry, despite the rise of other cities such as Detroit, Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

, and San Francisco

The African American genre of jazz

Jazz

was closely associated with New York by the middle of the 20th century, when a number of avant-garde performers helped created styles such as hard bop

Hard bop

Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...

and free jazz

Free jazz

Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...

. Later still, New York was the major American home for the punk rock

Punk rock

and New Wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

movements, and was the scene for the invention of both hip hop music

Hip hop music

and Latino salsa music

Salsa music

Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...

. Musicians from New York have also dominated the Jewish-American klezmer

Klezmer

scene, the Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

old-time music

Old-time music

Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also...

revival, and the straight 1960s pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

exemplified by the Brill Building

Brill Building

The Brill Building is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood...

sound.

Tin Pan Alley

was a center for music publishing around the turn of the 20th century. Numerous professional songwriters lived in the area, churning out songs ready for mainstream America during a time that music, like other aspects of American culture, was becoming a national rather than a regional affair. Tin Pan Alley was originally in an area called Union Square

Union Square (New York City)

Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...

, and it had become the major center for music publishing by the mid-1890s. The songwriters of this era wrote formulaic songs, many of them sentimental ballads. Some of the most notable publishers included Willis Woodward, the Witmark

Witmark

Witmark was a catalog showroom and jewelry/electronics chain that operated in West Michigan from 1969 to 1997. The chain was founded by Paul Leven.Over its nearly 30 year history, Witmark dominated the jewelry market with an average of a 34% market share...

house of publishing, Charles K. Harris

Charles K. Harris

Charles Kassel Harris was a well regarded American songwriter of popular music. During his long career, he advanced the relatively new genre, publishing more than 300 songs, often deemed by admirers as the "king of the tear jerkers"...

, and Edward B. Marks and Joseph W. Stern. Stern and Marks began writing together as amateurs in 1894, with "The Little Lost Child

The Little Lost Child

The Little Lost Child is a popular song of 1894 by Edward B. Marks and Joseph W. Stern which sold more than two million copies of its sheet music following its promotion as the first ever illustrated song, an early precursor to the music video...

"; the song became a hit selling more than two million copies of its sheet music after its successful promotion as an illustrated song and after it attracted the attention of popular stage performer Della Fox

Della Fox

Della May Fox was an American singing comedienne, whose popularity peaked in the 1890s when the diminutive Fox appeared opposite the very tall De Wolf Hopper in several musicals. She also toured successfully with her own company.-Biography:Fox was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of...

. However, Paul Dresser

Paul Dresser

Johann Paul Dresser, Jr. was a popular American songwriter of the late 19th century and early 20th century. As a child and adolescent he was frequently in trouble and spent several months in jail before joining a band of traveling minstrels...

was, in the words of David Ewen, the "richest contributor of sentimental ballads to Union Square". He was an original composer, less maudlin, less cloyingly sentimental and less cliché-ridden than his contemporaries.

In addition to the popular, mainstream ballads and other clean-cut songs, some Tin Pan Alley publishers focused on rough songs such as "Drill Ye Tarriers" in 1888, believed to have been written by an unskilled laborer turned stage performer named Thomas F. Casey. Coon song

Coon song

Coon songs were a genre of music popular in the United States and around the English-speaking world from 1880 to 1920, that presented a racist and stereotyped image of blacks.-Rise and fall from popularity:...

s were another important part of Tin Pan Alley, derived from the watered-down songs of the minstrel show with the "verve and electricity" brought by the "assimilation of the ragtime rhythm". The first popular coon song was "New Coon in Town", introduced in 1883, and was followed by a wave of coon shouters such as Ernest Hogan

Ernest Hogan

Ernest Hogan was the first African American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show and helped create the musical genre of ragtime....

and May Irwin

May Irwin

May Irwin , was a Canadian actress, singer and star of vaudeville.-Early life and career:Born at Whitby, Ontario 1862 as Georgina May Campbell, her father, Robert E. Campbell of Whitby, Ontario, died when she was 13 years old and her stage-minded mother, Jane Draper, in need of money, encouraged...

Musical theatre

The early 20th century also saw the growth of Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

, a group of theatres specializing in musicals. Broadway became on the preeminent locations for musical theater in the world, and produced a body of songs that led Donald Clarke to call the era (ca. 1914 to 1950), the golden age of songwriting. The need to adapt enjoyable songs to the constraints of a theater and a plot enabled and encouraged a growth in songwriting and the rise of composers such as George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

, Cole Porter

Cole Porter

Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...

, Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...

and Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

. Most of these songwriters were Jewish

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, descended from Jews who immigrated from Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

.

Professional Yiddish theater in New York began in 1882 with a troupe founded by Boris Thomashefsky

Boris Thomashefsky

Boris Thomashefsky was a Ukrainian-born Jewish singer and actor who became one of the biggest stars in Yiddish theatre; born in Tarashcha , a shtetl near Kiev, Ukraine, he emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12 in 1881...

. The plays in the late 19th century were realistic, while in the beginning of the 20th century, they became more political and artistic in orientation. Some performers were well-respected enough to move back and forth between the Yiddish theatre and Broadway, including Bertha Kalich

Bertha Kalich

Bertha Kalich, was a Jewish actress, born in Lemberg, Galicia...

and Jacob Adler

Jacob Pavlovich Adler

Jacob Pavlovich Adler , born Yankev P. Adler, was a Jewish actor and star of Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and New York City....

. Some of the major composers included Abraham Goldfaden

Abraham Goldfaden

Abraham Goldfaden ; was an Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays.Goldfaden is considered the father of the Jewish modern theatre.In 1876 he founded in...

, Joseph Rumshinsky

Joseph Rumshinsky

Joseph Rumshinsky , Jewish composer born near Vilna in Lithuania . Rumshinsky - with Sholom Secunda, Alexander Olshanetsky, and Abraham Ellstein - is considered one of the "big four" of American Yiddish theater....

and Sholom Secunda, while playwrights included David Pinski

David Pinski

David Pinski was a Yiddish language writer, probably best known as a playwright. At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the industrial revolution, Pinski was the first to introduce to its stage a drama about urban Jewish workers; a dramatist of ideas, he was notable also...

, Solomon Libin, Jacob Gordin and Leon Kobrin

Leon Kobrin

Leon Kobrin was a playwright in Yiddish theater, writer of short stories and novels, and a translator. As a playwright he is generally seen as a disciple of Jacob Gordin, but his mature work was more character-driven, more open and realistic in its presentation of human sexual desire, and less...

Blues and jazz

The New York blues

New York blues

The New York blues is a type of blues music, characterized by significant jazz influences and a more modernized, urban feel than the country blues...

was a type of blues

Blues

music, characterized by significant jazz influences and a more modernized, urban feel than the country blues. It arose in New York City in the early part of the 20th century, and quickly spread to other urban areas and, often, more affluent listeners than country blues, which is distinctively rural in nature. Prominent musicians from this field include Lionel Hampton

Lionel Hampton

Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...

and Joe Turner

Big Joe Turner

Big Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and...

.

In New York City, jazz

Jazz

was fused with stride (an advanced form of ragtime

Ragtime

) and became highly evolved. Fletcher Henderson

Fletcher Henderson

James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast...

's jazz orchestra, first appearing in 1923, included Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...

and later, New Orleans musician Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

, became wildly popular and helped invent swing music. Though Henderson was among the first major New York jazz musicians, he was not as able to adapt to the rapidly changing style as some of his contemporaries, such as Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

. When Ellington moved to New York City, he inaugurated a legion of jazz musicians that did the same and moved the center of jazz's development from Chicago to New York.

The style that developed from New York's big jazz bands became known as swing music; it was a very danceable and catchy style, played originally by large black orchestras. Later, white bands led by people such as Jimmy Dorsey

Jimmy Dorsey

James "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...

and Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

began to dominate. These large orchestras produced a number of instrumentalists that had a profound effect on the later evolution of jazz, including Coleman Hawkin's tenor saxophone innovations, electric guitarist Charlie Christian

Charlie Christian

Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...

and improvisational Lester Young

Lester Young

Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....

. Star vocalists also emerged, mainly women such as the bluesy Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...

and the scat singer

Scat singing

In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

.

New York's jazz scene was the home of bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

, which evolved over many years and reached its full identity in the mid-1940s. Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

, Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

and Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...

were among the major innovators of the style. Bebop "polarized listers, critics and musicians alike" because it differed from swing in many important ways, including a lack of typical riff

RIFF

The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....

s and danceable beats, the use of melodic progression and the chords as the basis for all soloing and improvising.

In the 1950s, jazz began to diversify into a number of new genres, spread out into many cities. The West Coast became a home for cool jazz

Cool jazz

Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...

, though the style's major innovator was New York-based Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

. New York was also a major center for hard bop

Hard bop

, and was home to Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins

Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...

and Art Blakey

Art Blakey

Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....

. Late in the 1950s, the Los Angeles-based Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....

moved to New York, bringing with him the nascent style of free jazz

Free jazz

. He was later joined by a number of others, most famously including John Coltrane

John Coltrane

John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...

; Coltrane and his contemporaries, such as Albert Ayler

Albert Ayler

Albert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer.Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved...

and Sun Ra

Sun Ra

Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...

.

The last few decades have seen a further diffusion of jazz from New York and other major long-time capitals, to cities and regions across the United States and the world. Many New York jazz performers during this period played fusions of jazz with rock and other styles; among the earliest of these modern musicians was Carla Bley

Carla Bley

Carla Bley, née Borg, is an American jazz composer, pianist, organist and band leader. An important figure in the Free Jazz movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera Escalator Over The Hill , as well as a book of compositions that have been performed by many other...

, cofounder of the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association, an independent distribution company for avant-garde and jazz artists. The city has also been home to the well-known modern performer from New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

, Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...

and the large M-Base Collective, as well as people such as John Zorn

John Zorn

who use jazz as a prominent part of their experimental music in many different styles.

Greenwich Village

Beginning in the 1940s, New York City was the center for a roots revival

Roots revival

A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...

of American folk music

American folk music

American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music or roots music. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American...

. Many New Yorkers, especially young people, became interested in blues

Blues

, Appalachian folk music and other roots styles. In Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

, many of these people gathered; the area became a hotbed of American folk music as well as leftist political activism.

The performers associated with the Greenwich Village scene, many of whom were not originally from New York, had sporadic mainstream success in the 1940s and 50s; some, such as Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

and the Almanac Trio, did well, but most were confined to local coffeehouses and other venues. Performers such as Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....

and Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

helped expand the scene by appealing to college students, while Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

became a mainstream folk-rock star in the 1960s.

Disco and house

Disco

is an up-tempo style of dance music

Dance music

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

that originated in the early 1970s, with its center in the United States in New York. As discothèques grew more popular later in the decade, they began moving to larger venues. Many of these were in New York, including Paradise Garage

Paradise Garage

The Paradise Garage was a discotheque notable in the history of modern gay and nightclub cultures and in dance and pop music. It was founded by Michael Brody, its sole proprietor, and was located at 84 King Street, in the Hudson Square neighborhood of New York City. It operated from 1976 to 1987...

and Studio 54

Studio 54

.

In the early 1980s, house music

House music

, a direct descendent of disco, was forged in the underground clubs of Chicago, Detroit, and New York. The common element of most house music is a 4/4 beat generated by a drum machine or other electronic means (such as a sampler), together with a solid (usually also electronically generated) bassline. Upon this foundation are added electronically generated sounds and samples of music such as jazz, blues and synth pop.

Salsa

Salsa is a style of Latin music

Latin American music

Latin American music, found within Central and South America, is a series of musical styles and genres that mixes influences from Spanish, African and indigenous sources, that has recently become very famous in the US.-Argentina:...

that incorporates multiple styles and variations. It was developed by mid-1970s groups of New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

-area Cuban and Puerto Rica

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

n immigrants to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and stylistic descendants such as 1980s salsa romantica

Salsa romantica

Salsa Romántica, also known as Salsa Erotica, is a soft form of salsa music that emerged between the mid 1980s and early 1990s in New York City and Puerto Rico...

and recently salsa dura

Salsa dura

Salsa dura, also known as salsa gorda, describes salsa music from the 1970s, which emphasizes strong percussion and horns over vocals. This is in contrast to salsa romantica, from the 1990s to the present.- External links :...

. Salsa, along with other Latin American genres, has become extremely popular in New York City. Latin dancing is also very popular.

Salsa, a music predominantly derived from the Cuban son montuno

Son montuno

The son montuno is a style of the Cuban son, but exactly what it means is not an easy question to answer. The son itself is the most important genre of Cuban popular music. In addition, it is perhaps the most flexible of all forms of Latin-American music...

was imported back to Latin America were it has become insanely popular over the past 40 years. Salsa aficionados the world over know that the origin of the music is uniquely tied to New York City.

The same phenomenon has recently occurred with yet another type of Latin rhythm, bachata. Bachata is dominated by Dominicans, especially Dominicans from New York's Washington Heights

Washington Heights, Manhattan

Washington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the...

neighborhood.

Hip hop

New York City is a prominent part of hip hop music

Hip hop music

. The genre began there at neighborhood block parties

Block party

A block party is a large public party in which many members of a single neighbourhood congregate, either to observe an event of some importance or simply for mutual enjoyment. The name comes from the form of the party, which often involves closing an entire city block to vehicle traffic...

when DJs, such as Kool Herc, began isolating percussion breaks in funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

and R&B songs, eventually rapping while the audience danced. For many years, New York was the only city with a major hip hop scene, and all of the early recordings came from New York. People such as Kurtis Blow

Kurtis Blow

Kurt Walker , better known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper and record producer. He is one of the first commercially successful rappers and the first to sign with a major record label...

and LL Cool J

LL Cool J

James Todd Smith , better known as LL Cool J , is an American rapper, entrepreneur, and actor...

brought hip hop to the mainstream for the first time, while so-called East Coast rap was perfected by artists including Eric B. & Rakim

Eric B. & Rakim

Eric B. & Rakim were a hip-hop duo composed of DJ Eric Barrier and MC Rakim .Hailing from Long Island, New York, the pair are generally considered by hip hop enthusiasts to be one of the most influential and innovative groups in the genre...

.

Hip Hop's early years saw an ongoing rivalry between the boroughs of New York City, with each seeking credit for its rightful contributions to the culture. The original "beef" pitted the Bronx, led by Boogie Down Productions, against Marly Marl's Juice Crew (Queens).

By the early 1990s, however, West Coast rap, from Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, was gaining national fame. In 1992, Dr. Dre

Dr. Dre

Andre Romelle Young , primarily known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American record producer, rapper, record executive, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and a former co-owner and artist of Death Row Records...

's The Chronic
The Chronic
The Chronic is the solo debut album of American hip hop artist Dr. Dre, released December 15, 1992, on his own record label Death Row Records, and distributed by Priority Records. Recording sessions for the album took place in June 1992 at Death Row Studios in Los Angeles and at Bernie Grundman...

became a national hit and made the West Coast the most popular center of hip hop. However, in 1993 with release of Black Moon's Enta Da Stage and later on Wu-Tang Clan's 36 Chambers in the same year, East Coast hip hop made a major comeback. The release of Nas's Illmatic and Notorious BIG's Ready to Die in 1994 made New York city the most popular center of Hip Hop once again in just a time frame of two years. The west coast never again enjoyed such levels of success as they did in 1992 and 1993. However the east coast delivered one classic album after another for the rest of the decade. Most prominent of the releases include Mobb Deep's The Infamous and Hell On Earth, Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt and DMX's It's Dark And Hell Is Hot. Ma$e's Harlem World cemented him as the most popular MC in New York in the late 90's however he left the industry to pursue other callings. The East coast still remains a prominent center of hip hop in the current scene but their mainstream appeal has been somewhat taken over by the rappers from the Southern states of USA.

Each borough or area of New York City

New York City

has its fair share of associated Hip Hop acts, both commercially successful and underground. KRS-One

KRS-One

Lawrence Krisna Parker , better known by his stage names KRS-One , and Teacha, is an American rapper...

, Fat Joe

Fat Joe

Joseph Antonio Cartagena , better known by his stage name Fat Joe, is an American rapper, CEO of Terror Squad Entertainment, and member of musical groups D.I.T.C. and Terror Squad....

, Big Pun

Big Pun

Christopher Lee Rios , better known by his stage name Big Pun , was an American rapper who emerged from the underground rap scene in The Bronx in the late 1990s...

, and Slick Rick

Slick Rick

Richard Walters , better known by his stage name Slick Rick is a Grammy-nominated English-American rapper...

all grew up in The Bronx, although the latter is an implant from London, England. Wu-Tang Clan

Wu-Tang Clan

The Wu-Tang Clan is a hip-hop group from Staten Island that consists of RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard. They are frequently joined by fellow childhood friend Cappadonna, a quasi member of the group...

put Staten Island

Staten Island

Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...

on the Hip Hop map, renaming the borough "Shaolin." LL Cool J, Run-D.M.C.

Run-D.M.C.

Run–D.M.C. was an American hip hop group from Hollis, in the Queens borough of New York City. Founded by Joseph "Run" Simmons, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, and Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell, the group is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop culture.Run–D.M.C...

, Eric B. & Rakim

Eric B. & Rakim

, Black Sheep

Black sheep

In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family. The term has typically been given negative implications, implying waywardness...

, A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...

, Akinyele, Ja Rule

Ja Rule

Jeffrey Atkins , better known by his stage name Ja Rule, is an American rapper, singer, and actor.Born in Hollis, Queens, he began his career in the group Cash Money Click and debuted in 1999 with Venni Vetti Vecci and its single "Holla Holla"...

, Pharoahe Monch, Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj

Onika Tanya Maraj , better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj; ), is a Trinidadian-born American recording artist...

(an implant from Trinidad & Tobago) and 50 Cent

50 Cent

Curtis James Jackson III , better known by his stage name 50 Cent, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, investor, record producer, and actor. He rose to fame with the release of his albums Get Rich or Die Tryin and The Massacre . Get Rich or Die Tryin has been certified eight times platinum by...

all represent Queens. Additionally, the Queensbridge Projects in the borough of Queens

Queens

Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

have been an epicenter of Hip Hop, producing the Juice Crew (Marley Marl, MC Shan, Roxanee Shante), Mobb Deep

Mobb Deep

Mobb Deep is an American hip hop duo from Queensbridge, Queens, New York, U.S., that consists of Havoc and Prodigy. The duo is "one of the most critically acclaimed hardcore East Coast hip-hop groups." The group is best known for its dark, hardcore delivery, as exemplified by the single "Shook Ones...

, Capone-N-Noreaga and Nas

Nas

Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who performs under the name Nas , formerly Nasty Nas, is an American rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in hip hop and one of the most skilled and influential rappers of all-time...

. In order of appearance, Brooklyn has produced Whodini, Newcleus, Audio Two, Full Force, Gang Starr

Gang Starr

Gang Starr was an influential East Coast hip hop duo that consisted of the late MC Guru and DJ/producer DJ Premier. Their style combined elements of New York jazz and hip hop.-Background:...

, Jeru the Damaja, Masta Ace, Boot Camp Clik, AZ, Busta Rhymes

Busta Rhymes

Trevor Tahiem Smith, Jr., better known by his stage name Busta Rhymes ,Smith is an American rapper, producer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the alias Busta Rhymes after NFL wide receiver George "Buster" Rhymes...

, Foxy Brown, Talib Kweli

Talib Kweli

Talib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...

, Afu-Ra, M.O.P., Shyne, and Siah and Yeshua DapoED. The Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood has been a hotbed successful Hip Hop artists, including Junior M.A.F.I.A.

Junior M.A.F.I.A.

Junior M.A.F.I.A. is an American hip hop group from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. The acronym M.A.F.I.A. stands for Masters At Finding Intelligent Attitudes. They were formed and mentored by New York rapper, The Notorious B.I.G., in the early 1990s and released their debut album,...

(Notorious B.I.G, Lil Kim, Lil' Cease

Lil' Cease

James Lloyd, is an American rapper and member of hip hop group Junior M.A.F.I.A..Cease's first album release was Conspiracy with the Junior M.A.F.I.A in 1995....

, Mase

Mase

Mason Durell Betha , better known by stage name Mase who was previously known as Murda Ma$e, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor and inspirational speaker...

,etc.), Big Daddy Kane

Big Daddy Kane

Antonio Hardy better known by his stage name Big Daddy Kane, is an American rapper who started his career in 1986 as a member of the rap group the Juice Crew. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential and skilled MC's in Hip Hop...

, Jay-Z

Jay-Z

Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...

, Killah Priest

Killah Priest

Walter Reed, better known as Killah Priest, Iron Sheik from the Middle East, or Masada, is an American rapper and Wu-Tang Clan affiliate who was raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant & Brownsville neighbourhoods in Brooklyn. He is known for intensely spiritual lyrics loaded with metaphors and religious...

and Mos Def

Mos Def

Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...

. Lastly, the island of Manhattan, particularly Harlem, is home to artists such as Kurtis Blow, Doug E. Fresh

Doug E. Fresh

Douglas E. Davis , better known by the stage name Doug E. Fresh, is an American rapper, record producer, and beat boxer, also known as the Human Beat Box...

(an implant form Barbados

Barbados

Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

), Biz Markie

Biz Markie

Marcel Theo Hall better known by his stage name, Biz Markie, is an American rapper, beatboxer, DJ, comedian, singer, reality television personality, and commercial spokesperson. He is best known for his single "Just a Friend", an American Top 10 hit in 1989...

, Big L

Big L

Big L may refer to:* Lamont Coleman , better know by Big L, American hip-hop artist.Or a number of British radio stations:*Big L 1395, a British radio station.*Radio Luxembourg's English-language progammes ....

, Immortal Technique

Immortal Technique

Felipe Andres Coronel , better known by the stage name Immortal Technique, is an American rapper of Afro-Peruvian descent as well as an urban activist. He was born in Lima, Peru and raised in Harlem, New York. Most of his lyrics focus on controversial issues in global politics...

, Cam'ron

Cam'ron

Cameron Giles , better known by his stage name Cam'ron or "Killa Cam", is a Grammy-nominated American actor. He is the founder of the hip-hop group The Diplomats , and also of The U.N. group....

, Mase

Mase

Mason Durell Betha , better known by stage name Mase who was previously known as Murda Ma$e, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor and inspirational speaker...

, Black Rob

Black Rob

Black Rob is a rapper who was formerly signed to Bad Boy Records.-Music career:Black Rob began associating with the label as early as 1996, appearing on the Bad Boy remix to 112's "Come See Me"...

, MIMS

Mims

Mims or MIMS may refer to:* Mims, D. Jeffrey, American artist, born 1954* Mims , stage name for American rapper Shawn Mims* Mims, Florida, USA* Forrest Mims, magazine columnist and author.* Mims, Leland G., Louisiana local politician...

, Street P, Dipset & Eyston.

Proto punk, New Wave & No Wave

New York City had the earliest documented punk rock

Punk rock

scene in the United States. Drawing on local influences such as The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...

, Richard Hell

Richard Hell

Richard Hell is a singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer.Richard Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion. He was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins...

and the New York Dolls

New York Dolls

The New York Dolls is an American rock band, formed in New York in 1971. The band's protopunk sound prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era; their visual style influenced the look of many new wave and 1980s-era glam metal groups, and they began the local New York scene that later...

, punk music developed at clubs such as CBGB

CBGB

CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...

and Max's Kansas City

Max's Kansas City

. Patti Smith

Patti Smith

Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....

, Talking Heads

Talking Heads

Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...

, Blondie

Blondie (band)

Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...

, Suicide

Suicide (band)

Suicide is an American electronic protopunk musical duo, intermittently active since 1970 and composed of vocalist Alan Vega and Martin Rev on synthesizers and drum machines. They are an early synthesizer/vocal musical duo....

, and other artsy New Wave

New Wave music

artists were popular in the mid to late 1970s, as bands like the Ramones

Ramones

The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...

were establishing an American punk rock sound. CBGB

CBGB

and Max's Kansas City

Max's Kansas City

opened their doors and became influential venues. No Wave

No Wave

No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...

was a short lived movement in New York and raised James Chance

James Chance

James Chance, also known as James White , is an American saxophonist, songwriter and singer....

, DNA

DNA (band)

DNA was a No Wave band formed in 1978 by guitarist Arto Lindsay and keyboardist Robin Crutchfield. Rather than playing their instruments in a traditional manner, they instead focused on making unique and unusual sounds...

, Rhys Chatham

Rhys Chatham

Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...

, Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca

, Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene...

, Rat At Rat R

Rat at rat r

-Overview:Noise-rock quartet Rat at Rat R was formed in 1981 by guitarist Victor Poison-tete. Originally hailing from Philadelphia, the band soon relocated to New York City's Lower East Side and became one of the highlights of the NYC noise-rock scene...

, Swans

Swans (band)

Swans are an influential American post-punk band initially active from 1982 to 1997, led by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira. The band was one of the few groups to emerge from the early 1980s New York No Wave scene and stay intact into the next decade. Formed by Gira in...

, Live Skull

Live Skull

-Overview:Live Skull created abrasive no wave music not unlike their 1980s contemporaries Sonic Youth, Swans, Rat at Rat R, The Chameleons, Mars, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and Band of Susans. Their music featured angular guitar parts interspersed with bleak, quieter passages, for a haunting...

, Band of Susans

Band of Susans

Band of Susans was a noise rock band formed in New York City in 1986. It originally consisted of Robert Poss , Susan Stenger , Ron Spitzer , with Susan Lyall , Susan Tallman , and Alva Rogers . However, the band would undergo several permutations over the years, usually involving guitarists...

, Ut

Ut (band)

Ut originated from New York City's downtown No Wave scene in December 1978. The inheritors of the fertile collision between rock, free jazz and the avant garde that first manifested itself in the Velvet Underground, Ut soon became a serious force within the New York music scene.- History :Ut's...

and most prominently Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

Hardcore punk & Ska

In the early 1980s, hardcore punk

Hardcore punk

Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...

was developing primarily in Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

and Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. The New York hardcore

New York hardcore

New York hardcore refers to hardcore punk and metalcore music created in New York City and to the subculture associated with that music. New York hardcore grew out of the hardcore scene established in Washington, D.C., by bands such as Bad Brains and Minor Threat. Hardcore '81 is an album by the...

scene was founded by 1981, and bands such as Reagan Youth

Reagan Youth

Reagan Youth is an American punk rock band formed by singer Dave Rubinstein and guitarist Paul Bakija in Queens, New York in early 1980. They are known for introducing the style of hardcore punk to the East Coast punk scene, but were also a part of the peace punk movement...

and Kraut

Kraut (band)

Kraut was a New York band who started playing in 1981. Their very first performance was opening for the Clash at Bonds in NYC . Members Include: Davey Gunner , Doug Holland Don Cowan , and Johnny Feedback , and Ryk Oakley, producer...

led the initial charge. By 1985, the New York hardcore scene had become inhabited by straight edge

Straight edge

Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...

rs and skinhead

Skinhead

A skinhead is a member of a subculture that originated among working class youths in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, and then spread to other parts of the world. Named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, the first skinheads were greatly influenced by West Indian rude boys and British mods,...

s, including bands such as Agnostic Front

Agnostic Front

Agnostic Front is an American hardcore band. The band began playing hardcore similar to their contemporaries, and were thrust to the forefront of the burgeoning New York hardcore scene in the mid-1980s with their widely regarded 1984 classic Victim in Pain before evolving to incorporate thrash...

, Cro-Mags

Cro-Mags

Cro-Mags are a hardcore punk turned crossover thrash band from New York City. The band, which had a strong cult following, released many records, their first two considered the most influential...

, Heart Attack

Heart Attack (band)

Heart Attack was an early New York hardcore band, formed in 1980 and active until 1984.-History:Formed in the suburban area of Whitestone, Queens, they were probably the youngest punk band in the NYC area at the time, according to some flyers and fanzines, as the first line up was formed by people...

, Youth of Today

Youth of Today

Youth of Today is an American hardcore punk straight edge band, formed in 1985 and still in activity. The band played a major role in establishing the Youth Crew subculture of hardcore, both espousing and evolving the philosophies of the straight edge and vegetarian lifestyles.-History:Youth Of...

, Warzone

Warzone (band)

Warzone was an American hardcore punk band formed on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1982. The band helped develop the New York hardcore sound, the hardcore skinhead style and the youth crew subgenre...

and Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law (band)

Murphy's Law is an American hardcore band from New York City, New York, formed in 1982. While vocalist Jimmy Gestapo remains the only founding member of the band, the line-up has consisted of former members of bands such as Skinnerbox, Danzig, The Bouncing Souls, Mucky Pup, Dog Eat Dog, Hanoi...

. With the collapse of the CBGB hardcore matinees, due to constant violence, a more activist DIY scene began to develop around ABC No Rio

ABC No Rio

and the squats

Squatting

Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....

of the Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

. New York has been at the center of the United States third wave ska scene. The founders of third wave ska, which drew on British Two-Tone ska, were New York bands such as the Toasters

The Toasters

The Toasters was one of the first American bands in the third wave of ska, and is one of the longest active third wave ska bands.They have released nine studio albums, most of them on Moon Ska Records. The Toasters experienced a small degree of commercial success in the late 1990s due to the...

and Urban Blight

Urban Blight (band)

Urban Blight is a New York City band. The seven-member group plays crossover music with varied styles, including ska, reggae, and new jack swing, and includes elements of lyrical humor....

. In the early 1980s, Toasters singer/guitarist and songwriter Robert 'Bucket' Hingley established Moon Ska Records; the label operated until the late 1990s, giving many ska bands from New York and elsewhere international exposure. Some of the other ska bands to come from the New York scene were Skinnerbox

Skinnerbox

Skinnerbox is a third wave ska band formed in New York City in the early 1990s by King Django.-Full Length:*Instrumental Conditioning 1990)*Now & Then *Tales of the Red...

, The Slackers

The Slackers

The Slackers are a New York City band, formed in Brooklyn in 1991. The band's sound is a mix of ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub, soul, garage rock, and jazz...

, Agent 99 and Mephiskapheles

Mephiskapheles

Mephiskapheles was a third wave ska band based in New York. Originally called "Skatterbrains," their later name is a portmanteau of "ska" and "Mephistopheles", of Goethe's Faust...

. Other major hardcore punk bands from New York are Sick of It All

Sick of It All

Sick of It All is an American hardcore punk band from Queens, New York. Formed in 1986, the band consisted of brothers Lou Koller on vocals and Pete Koller on lead guitar, Rich Cipriano on bass, and Armand Majidi on drums. There have been only two member changes since their inception, with Max...

, H2O

H2O (American band)

-Prologue:Prior to the formation of H2O, in the early-mid-1980s, Todd Morse and Rusty Pistachio were part of the speed punk band "Roadside Petz". This band featured Wayne Williams on drums...

and Madball

Madball

Madball is a New York-based hardcore band that originated in the late 1980s, as a side-project of Agnostic Front .- History :Madball was founded in 1988 and featured most of Agnostic Front's members...

Heavy metal

New York City has also contributed to the heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

genre. During the 1980s and 1990s, it was a major center of the East Coast thrash metal scene, which produced the bands Anthrax

Anthrax (band)

Anthrax is an American heavy metal band from New York City, formed in 1981. Founded by guitarists Scott Ian and Danny Lilker, the band has since released ten studio albums and 20 singles, and an EP featuring Public Enemy. The band was one of the most popular of the 1980s thrash metal scene...

, Nuclear Assault

Nuclear Assault

Nuclear Assault is an American thrash metal/crossover thrash band formed in 1984.-History:After the release of Anthrax's debut album Fistful of Metal, bass player Danny Lilker, a founding member of the group, was fired by the band...

, and Overkill

Overkill (band)

Overkill is an American thrash metal band, formed in 1980 in New Jersey. They have gone through many line-up changes, with singer Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth and bassist D.D. Verni remaining from the original lineup. Along with Anthrax , the band is one of the most successful East Coast thrash metal...

. Funk metal

Funk metal

Funk metal is a subgenre of funk rock that fuses elements of heavy metal and funk. Allmusic has claimed that "funk metal evolved in the mid-'80s when alternative bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, Infectious Grooves, Mordred and Fishbone began playing the hybrid with a stronger...

groups such as Living Colour

Living Colour

Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. Stylistically, the band's music is a creative fusion influenced by free jazz, funk, neo-psychedelia, hard rock, and heavy metal...

and 24-7 Spyz

24-7 Spyz

24-7 Spyz are a band from the South Bronx, New York, formed in 1986, originally consisting of Jimi Hazel , Rick Skatore , Kindu Phibes , and P. Fluid . The band is best known for mixing soul, funk, reggae, and R&B with heavy metal and hardcore punk...

, and alternative metal

Alternative metal

Alternative metal is a genre of alternative rock and heavy metal that gained popularity in the early 1990s. Most notably, alternative metal bands are characterized by heavy guitar riffs and experimental approaches to heavy music.-Origins:...

groups such as Prong and Helmet

Helmet (band)

Helmet is an alternative metal band from New York City formed in 1989. Founded by vocalist and lead guitarist Page Hamilton, Helmet has had numerous lineup changes, and Hamilton has been the only constant member....

, also emerged from the growing New York metal scene. Two other major metal bands from New York are Type O Negative

Type O Negative

Type O Negative was a gothic metal band from Brooklyn, New York City. The band also incorporated elements of doom metal and thrash metal. Their dramatic lyrical emphasis on themes of romance, depression, and death resulted in the nickname "The Drab Four"...

and Life of Agony

Life of Agony

-Formation and River Runs Red :The band was formed in the summer of 1989 by singer Keith Caputo, bassist Alan Robert and guitarist Joey Z. After playing with several drummers, they enlisted Type O Negative drummer Sal Abruscato before recording the debut album River Runs Red after they signed to...

, both from Brooklyn.

In the 1990s and later, New York City and its environs developed a small but influential death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

scene. Suffocation

Suffocation (band)

Suffocation is an American death metal band that was formed in 1989 in Long Island, New York. The band comprises vocalist Frank Mullen, guitarists Terrance Hobbs and Guy Marchais, drummer Mike Smith and bassist Derek Boyer. Suffocation rose to prominence of death metal and created a blueprint for...

, one of the best known bands to emerge from this scene, earned a good deal of notoriety for their brutal, complex, and uncompromising style. Another long-lived New York death metal group is Immolation

Immolation (band)

-History:The band formed in May 1986 by Andrew Sakowicz and Dave Wilkinson under the name Rigor Mortis . The name was changed to Immolation in April 1988, after the Warriors of Doom demo which was recorded as Rigor Mortis and Demo I which was recorded as Immolation...

, whose innovative use of dissonance helped to establish them as underground favorites. Other bands associated with New York death metal are Mortician

Mortician (band)

Mortician is a death metal / deathgrind two piece band from Yonkers, New York founded in 1989. They have released most of their albums since the House by the Cemetery EP on Relapse Records but have released their latest album on their own label, Mortician Records. They have toured several times...

and Incantation

Incantation (band)

Incantation is an American death metal band that was formed by John McEntee and Paul Ledney in 1989. They are one of the leaders in the New York Death Metal scene along with fellow bands Suffocation and Immolation, even though the band is currently located in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.The band has...

(the latter being originally from Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

Indie rock

New York City has long been one of the leading centers of the indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

movement. During the mid-to-late 90s, bands such as Blonde Redhead

Blonde Redhead

Blonde Redhead is an American alternative rock band composed of vocalist/rhythm guitarist Kazu Makino and twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace , which formed in New York City in 1993....

, The Van Pelt

The Van Pelt

The Van Pelt is an American Indie band, who formed in 1993 at New York University. The band released two albums, Stealing From Our Favorite Thieves and Sultans Of Sentiment, on Gern Blandsten Records in 1996 and 1997 respectively...

, The Lapse

The Lapse

The Lapse was an American indie band formed in late 1997. The band was first signed to Gern Blandsten, then Southern Records. The Lapse was the duo of then boyfriend/girlfriend Chris Leo and Toko Yasuda . They formed The Lapse after the breakup of their previous band, The Van Pelt...

, Enon

Enon

Enon was an indie rock band founded by John Schmersal, Rick Lee and Steve Calhoon. Currently, Enon is situated in Philadelphia, though the band is known for being part of the New York music scene.-Biography:...

and Les Savy Fav

Les Savy Fav

Les Savy Fav is a New York City indie rock band. Their style is influenced by art rock and post-hardcore. The group is known for the stage presence of lead singer Tim Harrington...

were part of the New York indie rock scene

Indie music scenes

An independent music scene is a localized independent music-oriented community of bands and their fans. Local scenes can become a key role in musical history and lead to influential genres, for example No Wave from New York City, Madchester from Manchester and Grunge from...

.

New York City also was one of the primary centers of the Garage Rock Revival of the early 2000s, most notably with bands such as The Strokes

The Strokes

The Strokes are an American indie rock band formed in 1999 in New York City. Consisting of Julian Casablancas , Nick Valensi , Albert Hammond, Jr. , Nikolai Fraiture and Fabrizio Moretti ....

and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are an American indie rock band formed in New York City in 2000. The group is composed of vocalist and pianist Karen O, guitarist and keyboardist Nick Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. They are complemented in live performances by second guitarist David Pajo, who joined as a touring...

as well as less popular bands such as The Bravery

The Bravery

The Bravery is an American rock band from New York City that consists of Sam Endicott , Michael Zakarin , John Conway , Mike Hindert , and Anthony Burulcich...

, The Mooney Suzuki

The Mooney Suzuki

The Mooney Suzuki is an American garage rock band that formed in New York City in 1996. Originally comprising vocalist and guitarist Sammy James, Jr., guitarist Graham Tyler, bassist John Paul Ribas and drummer Will Rockwell-Scott, the band has released four studio albums – People Get Ready ,...

, The Walkmen

The Walkmen

The Walkmen are an American indie rock band, with members based in New York City and Philadelphia. The band formed in 2000 with three members from Jonathan Fire*Eater—Paul Maroon , Walter Martin , and Matt Barrick —and two from The Recoys, Peter Bauer and Hamilton Leithauser . All but Bauer...

, The Hold Steady

The Hold Steady

The Hold Steady is an American indie rock band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2004. The band consists of Craig Finn , Tad Kubler , Galen Polivka , Bobby Drake , and Steve Selvidge...

, The Virgins

The Virgins

The Virgins are an American band formed in 2006 in New York, consisting of Donald Cumming , Wade Oates , and Nick Ackerman .Their first outing on the road was a 7-week American tour in direct support for the Australian band Jet...

and The Rapture

The Rapture (band)

The Rapture is an Indie rock band based in New York City. The band mixes influences from many genres including post-punk, acid house, disco, electronica and rock, pioneering the post-punk revival genre...

. Interpol

Interpol (band)

Interpol is an American indie rock and post-punk revival band from New York City. Formed in 1997, the band's original line-up consisted of Paul Banks , Daniel Kessler , Carlos Dengler and Greg Drudy . Drudy left the band in 2000 and was replaced by Sam Fogarino...

drew influences from garage rock, post-punk and indie rock for their critically acclaimed 2002 debut album Turn on the Bright Lights
Turn on the Bright Lights
Turn On the Bright Lights is the debut studio album by American post-punk revival band Interpol, released in August 2002. The album was recorded in November 2001 at Tarquin Studios in Connecticut, and was co-produced, mixed and engineered by Peter Katis and Gareth Jones...

, and they have seen some mainstream success. A highly experimental indie rock scene that emerged during the 2000s has seen such bands as Liars

Liars (band)

Liars is a three-piece band formed in 2000 consisting of Angus Andrew , Aaron Hemphill , and Julian Gross...

, Black Dice

Black Dice

Black Dice is an experimental electronic music group currently based in Brooklyn, New York, USA.-Early years:Black Dice formed in spring 1997 soon after guitarist Bjorn Copeland met drummer Hisham Bharoocha and bassist Sebastian Blanck when they were students at the Rhode Island School of Design...

, Le Tigre

Le Tigre

Le Tigre is an American electroclash band, formed by Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman in 1998. It also featured Sadie Benning from 1998 until 2001, and JD Samson for the rest of the group's run...

, Parts & Labor

Parts & Labor

Parts & Labor is an American experimental rock/noise rock band. The group was formed in 2002 by B.J. Warshaw and Dan Friel in Brooklyn, NY. Drummer Joe Wong joined the band in 2007. Parts & Labor has released five albums, two EPs, one split album , and numerous 7"s and compilation tracks...

and These Are Powers

These Are Powers

These Are Powers is an experimental music group from Brooklyn, New York and Chicago, Illinois. The band mixes polyrhythm with samples and other electronic sounds and noise rock.-History:...

take influences from a variety of sources, including dance-punk

Dance-punk

Dance-punk is a music genre that emerged in the late 1970s, and is closely associated with the post-punk and No Wave movements.-Predecessors:...

, synth punk, electroclash

Electroclash

Electroclash is a style of music that fuses New Wave and electronic dance music. It emerged in New York and Detroit in the later 1990s, pioneered by acts including I-F and those associated with Gerald Donald, and is associated with acts including Peaches, Adult, and Fischerspooner...

, noise rock

Noise rock

Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...

, psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

and no wave

No Wave

. Brand New

Brand New

Brand New is an American rock band from Long Island, New York. Formed in 2000, the band currently consists of vocalist/guitarist/lyricist Jesse Lacey, guitarist/vocalist/lyricist Vincent Accardi, bassist Garrett Tierney, drummer Brian Lane, and guitarist/keyboardist Derrick Sherman.In the late...

, from the New York City suburb of Levittown

Levittown, New York

Levittown is a hamlet in the Town of Hempstead located on Long Island in Nassau County, New York. Levittown is midway between the villages of Hempstead and Farmingdale. As of the 2010 census, the CDP had a total population of 51,881....

, has gained critical acclaim by emerging from their post-hardcore roots to becoming one of the more unique indie rock bands with their most recent release, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me is the third full length album by the alternative rock band Brand New, and their major label debut on Interscope Records. It was released on November 20, 2006 in the United Kingdom, on November 21, 2006 in the United States and Canada, November 25, 2006 in...

(2006).

In more recent years, indie rock, indie pop and indie electronic artists such as LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem was a prominent American dance-punk band from New York City. It was fronted by American singer-songwriter and producer James Murphy, co-founder of record label DFA Records...

, Antony and the Johnsons

Antony and the Johnsons

Antony and the Johnsons is a music group presenting the work of Antony Hegarty and his collaborators.-Career:British experimental musician David Tibet of Current 93 heard a demo and offered to release Antony's music through his Durtro label. The debut album, Antony and the Johnsons, was released...

, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is an American indie rock group based in Brooklyn, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their debut album, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, was self-released in 2005.-History:...

, Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend is an American indie rock band from New York City that formed in 2006 and signed to XL Recordings. The Band has four members: Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio. The band released its first album Vampire Weekend in 2008, which produced the singles "Mansard...

, Yeasayer

Yeasayer

-History:The band's three core members, Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton, and Anand Wilder, first came to attention after appearing at the SXSW festival in early 2007. Their first single consisted of a double A-side of the tracks "Sunrise" and "2080"...

, French Kicks

French Kicks

French Kicks are an indie rock group from New York City, USA. Their sound is a mix of garage rock, post-punk, and modded pop.Three of the original four band members, bassist Jamie Krents, vocalist/drummer Nick Stumpf, and vocalist/guitarist Matthew Stinchcomb, are from Washington, D.C. They were...

, Vivian Girls

Vivian Girls

Vivian Girls are an American band from Brooklyn, New York.- History :Vivian Girls, named after the magnum opus of outsider author Henry Darger, started in Brooklyn, NY in March 2007 as the trio of Cassie Ramone ; Katy "Kickball Katy" Goodman; and Frankie Rose...

, High Places

High Places

High Places is a band originating from Brooklyn, NY, recently relocated to Los Angeles, CA. The band is a duo comprising multi-instrumentalist Rob Barber and vocalist Mary Pearson.-History:...

, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are an indie pop band from New York City. Their first album was a self-released EP which came out in 2007 through the Painbow label. Their debut self-titled full length album was released on February 3, 2009 via Slumberland Records. The band name comes from an...

, Animal Collective

Animal Collective

Animal Collective is an experimental psychedelic band originally from Baltimore, Maryland, currently based in New York City. Animal Collective consists of Avey Tare , Panda Bear , Deakin , and Geologist...

, Battles

Battles (band)

Battles is an American experimental rock group, founded in 2002 in New York City, comprising guitarists Ian Williams and Dave Konopka , and drummer John Stanier .-Biography:...

, Dirty Projectors

Dirty Projectors

The Dirty Projectors aka David Longstreth includes Amber Coffman , Angel Deradoorian , Brian McOmber , Nat Baldwin , and Haley Dekle during live performances...

, Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear (band)

Grizzly Bear is a Brooklyn-based indie rock band, composed of Edward Droste , Daniel Rossen , Chris Taylor and Christopher Bear . The band employs traditional and electronic instruments...

, Gang Gang Dance

Gang Gang Dance

Gang Gang Dance is an American experimental music band based in Manhattan, New York City. The band is known for its distinctive sound which features synthesized electronics and percussion, plus the varied vocal styles of singer Lizzi Bougatsos...

, TV on the Radio

TV on the Radio

TV on the Radio is an American art rock band formed in 2001 in Brooklyn, New York, whose music spans numerous diverse genres, from post-punk to electro and free jazz to soul music....

, The National

The National (band)

The National is an indie rock band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1999 and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. The band's lyrics are written and sung by Matt Berninger, a baritone...

and MGMT

MGMT

MGMT is an American alternative rock band founded by Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. After the release of their first album, the members of their live band, Matthew Asti, James Richardson and Will Berman, joined the core band in the studio...

have further solidified New York City's stance as one of the leaders of the indie rock scene.

Institutions and venues

Club influence

Festivals, holidays and parades

Music history

Early history

Classical and art music history

Popular music

Tin Pan Alley

Musical theatre

Blues and jazz

Greenwich Village

Disco and house

Salsa

Hip hop

Proto punk, New Wave & No Wave

Hardcore punk & Ska

Heavy metal

Indie rock

See also