Posted on January 26, 2004 at 2:00 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The Alys Stephens Center presents the New York Festival of Song performing “At Harlem’s Height,” at 8 p.m. Friday, February 13, at the Alys Stephens Center, 1200 10th Avenue South. This show is part of the Viva Health Classically Inclined Series and is co-presented by The Birmingham Music Club. WBHM, NBC 13 and The Birmingham News/Birmingham Post-Herald sponsor the show. A Prelude, or 30-minute discussion of the music and the artists, begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $42, $32 and $22. Call (205) 975-2787 or go to www.AlysStephens.org.

Founded in 1988 by its co-artistic directors, pianists Michael Barrett and Steven Blier, the New York Festival of Song is championed as a preservationist of the art of song. The ensemble will perform “At Harlem’s Height,” songs from 1920s Harlem, featuring the music of Eubie Blake, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Harry T. Burleigh and William Grant Still. For more information, go to www.nyfos.org.

New York Festival of Song features Dana Hanchard, soprano; Darius de Haas, tenor; James Martin, baritone; Michael Barrett, pianist; and Steven Blier, pianist and arranger. On the program for their show at the Alys Stephens Center are songs including “The Joint is Jumpin’,” “Capricious Harlem,” “Aint’cha Glad,” “Li’l Gal,” “Death of an Old Seaman,” “The Breath of a Rose,” “Day Dream,” “I’ve Heard of a City Called Heaven,” “Mule Walk Stomp,” “Mo’ Lasses,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” “I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So,” “The Harlem Blues,” “My Handy Man Ain’t Handy No More,” “What’s The Use,” “What Harlem Is to Me” and many more.

A combination of factors made Harlem the capital of black culture. By around 1915 the stream of blacks leaving the South grew to a deluge. The Great Migration, as it is called, was a response to the entrenched racism of the South. New York was one of the most exciting and attractive options.

At that time New York’s black ghetto was in a crowded slum called the Tenderloin. Blacks were starting to migrate to the equally congested San Juan Hill area, populated by Irish-Americans. But farther uptown, Harlem had been badly overbuilt with middle-class and upper middle-class housing. Both black and white landlords needed tenants to fill their buildings. For once, real estate competition worked in the favor of black people, overcoming the discriminatory policies that had previously kept them out.

Seeing the possibilities of the situation, a black businessman named Philip A. Payton bought up property in Harlem and then sold or rented it to blacks. As James Weldon Johnson wrote in “Black Manhattan” (1930): “Harlem has provided New York Negroes with better, cleaner, more modern, more airy, more sunny houses than they ever lived in before. And this is due to the efforts made first by Mr. Payton.”

As new black residents poured into northern cities, tensions rose. The black community united, gathering strength and solidarity. They also began to attract interest as a unique artistic culture. The New Negro Movement embraced social debate and political reform, but its leaders realized that it was their artists who would be the best emissaries to society at large. The leaders of the Harlem Renaissance encouraged artists to create serious works, in order to lend dignity and gravitas to the cause.

But the Harlem Renaissance was also famous for its parties: rent parties for the lower middle classes crammed into crowded apartments, hot nightclubs both integrated and segregated and high-toned evenings where the cream of white and black society gathered to drink and make music till dawn. Accompanying the revels was a musical groundswell of jazz and blues, performed by black orchestras, singers like Bessie Smith and pianists like James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. All-black revues enjoyed runs both uptown and on Broadway. Harlem musicians may not have created the Jazz Age alone, but they helped launch one of the great periods of American popular song. This was the first time that African-American culture rose to public visibility within the larger white-controlled culture. Ultimately it was the music that conquered the world.

Founded in 1988 by its co-artistic directors, pianists Michael Barrett (pictured, left) and Steven Blier (pictured, right), the New York Festival of Song is championed as a preservationist of the art of song. Photo credit: Steve J. Sherman.