Brand from Home | February 10, 2022

Music Playlists

Listen to a streaming playlist from Freegal Music, Naxos Music Library,Naxos Jazz Music Library, Hoopla or Music Online from Alexander Street free with your library card. Alexander Street will ask for an academic institution, use Glendale Public Library.

Here are some new CDs we have received in the last few weeks.

Here are some new music books we received in 2022

Tiny Desk Concerts

NPR is celebrating Black History Month with a fantastic set of Tiny Desk Concerts featuring legends in the world of R&B, jazz, gospel and hip hop. Artists include El Debarge, Shirley Ceasar, Kirk Franklin and Patti Labelle. Check it out!

Learn more about Black History

Sign up for 28 Days of Black History a free, daily email series to celebrate Black History Month this February. This series centers on stories of Black marginalized voices that are often overlooked in Black history narratives. By prioritizing their work, we reshape and contextualize the breadth of the Black experience throughout history. Published by the Anti-Racism Daily, a project of Reclamation Ventures.

From the National Park Service in celebration of Black History Month, explore people, places, and stories from more than 400 national parks and communities across the country through National Park Service programs and partners.

Explore Art Online

From the National Museum of African American History & Culture explore Make Good the Promises: Reconstruction and Its Legacies focusing on the story of Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War, through an African American lens. Read the companion volume to the exhibit documenting the brief period of post Civil War uplift that delivered citizenship, voting rights, and, in some cases, land to newly liberated African Americans. The contributors also detail how so-called Redeemers worked feverishly to claw back gains that Congress granted, resulting in Blacks' hopes for true equality being dashed.

From the National Portrait Gallery Collection: Portraits of African Americans. The National Portrait Gallery’s collection is home to more than 1,000 portraits of African American history-makers. From eighteenth-century poet Phillis Wheatley to former First Lady Michelle Obama, discover portraits of African Americans whose lives and achievements have contributed to the history and development of our nation. These extraordinary men and women dealt with some of the most explicit racism and violence in American history.

From the High Museum of Art in Atlanta: Photos From the Civil Rights Movement, From Rosa Park's arrest to the Freedom Rides. Including photographs that document the social protest movement, from Rosa Parks’s arrest to the Freedom Rides to the tumultuous demonstrations of the late 1960s this collection captures the courage and perseverance of individuals who challenged the status quo, armed only with the philosophy of nonviolence and the strength of their convictions.

Check out Black Power in Print from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Modern Art. In the late 1960s and ’70s, the Black Power movement utilized graphic imagery to promote and communicate Black experience to broad communities. These images tell fragments of that story.

Explore our collections to learn more in celebration of Black History Month!

Can't find it at the library? Try out Link+ our network of 70 public and academic libraries from across California and Nevada. Just click on the link from the catalog or watch a tutorial to learn more.

Brand Library Staff Reviews

André Leon Talley released his memoir, The Chiffon Trenches, in 2020 to immediate controversy thanks to its wonderfully candid nature. Talley was a long-time fashion journalist for many publications including Andy Warhol’s Interview, W, Women’s Wear Daily, and The New York Times. His memoir highlights the instability of his career at Vogue, which included being the first Black creative director in the magazine’s history under editor Anna Wintour, then his good friend. Opulence defined his early years at the magazine—think expense accounts, bespoke fashion, fine dining, extravagant gifts, partying and vacationing with designers across Europe whose careers Talley helped further. Unfortunately, after nurturing friendships with many in fashion over decades, Talley notably had a falling out with Wintour and designer Karl Lagerfeld for reasons not entirely clear (even though several possible and revealing ones are given). There’s much more to Talley’s memoir than the Vogue years, and it gives a lot of insight into how much has changed in fashion and print media over the last fifty years, Talley’s contributions to that change, and what hasn’t changed nearly enough in terms of representation in the industry. Talley passed away only a couple of years after his memoir’s publication, in January of this year, and it is regrettable that he wasn’t more at peace in his later years thanks to the petty and prejudiced nature of fashion. For a visual retelling of Talley’s extraordinary life, Hoopla has the 2017 Kate Novack documentary The Gospel According to André. -SB

Granada 1013-1502 - Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI. The Kingdom of Granada was founded in 1013 by the Berber ruler Zawi ibn Ziri. This concert and live recording was commissioned by the Granada Festival of Music and Dance to celebrate the millenary of Granada in 2013. The concert of this live recording took place on July 1, 2013 at the Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra. Granada had a long history under Muslim control but also had large Jewish and Christian populations. There were periods of harmony, cultural exchange and influence between the groups but also much tragedy, cruel persecution and conflict. Through wars Granada finally came under Christian control and in 1502 all of the Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity. Jordi Savall is a renowned early music performer and scholar with many fascinating albums covering historical periods through music. He employs singers and instrumentalists from Syria, Morocco, Turkey, Greece and Israel. Islamic, Christian and Jewish music is all represented as the Spain of three cultures. The program is arranged in chronological order with texts and poems from the period. For example, the 11th century piece Preces: Penitentes orate is Christian prayer under Islamic rule. It’s all beautifully performed and recorded - a joy to listen to. The accompanying booklet is extensive, fascinating and discusses their sources of the text and music. Brand Library owns the recording on CD and streaming on both Naxos Music Library and Alexander Street but unfortunately the booklet is only included with the CD. -BW