William Grant Still

1940-1944

1940

Duncan Still born in Los Angeles, California. He is the first son of William Grant Still's second marriage.

William Grant Still composes And They Lynched Him on a Tree, for two choruses, narrator, and contralto, with orchestra.

The Cotton Club closes in Harlem.

Wendell Logan born in Thomson, Georgia.

1941

William Grant Still completes the operas A Bayou Legend and Troubled Island

Dream Aria from Troubled Island

Plain-Chant for America composed by William Grant Still.

Howard University awards William Grant Still an honorary doctorate.

The National Negro Opera Company, the first permanent black opera company in the U. S., organized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by Mary Cardwell Dawson. The organization continues until 1962.

1942

Judith Anne Still born in Los Angeles, California.

Congress of Racial Equality founded.

1943

William Grant Still composes In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers who Died for Democracy, for orchestra.

William Grant Still composes a suite for violin and piano.

Nat "King" Cole makes his first recording, "Straighten Up and Fly Right."

1944

Dizzy Gillespie begins to play at the Onyx Club in New York City. He is joined by jazz saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker; the bebop style emerges.