Despite his importance and influence, jazz musician, educator, and community leader Horace Tapscott remains relatively unknown to most Americans. In Songs of the Unsung Tapscott shares his life story, recalling his childhood in Houston, moving with his family to Los Angeles in 1943, learning music, and his early professional career. He describes forming the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1961 and later the Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension to preserve African American music and serve the community. Tapscott also recounts his interactions with the Black Panthers and law enforcement, the Watts riots, his work in Hollywood movie studios, and stories about his famous musician-activist friends. Songs of the Unsung is the captivating story of one of America’s most unassuming heroes as well as the story of L.A.'s cultural and political evolution over the last half of the twentieth century.

An introduction to contemporary literature in Malawi, comprising short stories, poetry, and some opening essays on literary genres. The anthology contains pieces from some fifty writers, amongst whom are Immanuel Bofomo; Steve Chimombo; Andrew Tilimbike Kulemeka; Ken Lipenga; Levi Zeleza Manda - author of the title story; Jack Mapanje; Francis Moto; Lupenga Mphande; Edson Mpina - President of Malawi Pen and Malawi Writers Union; Felix Mnthali; Anthony Nazombe; Norah Ngoma; and David Rubadiri. The editors have been or are all engaged in various literary and research activities at the University of Malawi.

“A japa mala of an ordinary life, 108 beads woven around a thread of thoughtful awareness of the creator and all creatures great and small” This is the third, enlarged, edition of a collection of poems celebrating epiphanic moments that illumined the author’s life. Readers have greatly liked the previous editions for their simple, straightforward, giving impulse to share the ordinary day to day things that made up the kaleidoscope of an obviously much cherished life journey, for its sensitive sublimation of an individual experience to a more universally shared humanity. The collection stands out for its portrayal of nature and human relations and the close bonds between nature and man, resting on a perceptible substratum of sensitive thoughtfulness and spirituality.

Examines the contributions of women instrumentalists, composers, teachers, and conductors to American music, and suggests why they have gone unnoticed in the past.

A tale set against a backdrop of slave rights conflicts in the nineteenth-century Chesapeake Bay region finds young runaway Liz Spocott inadvertently inspiring a slave breakout from the attic prison of a notorious slave thief who vengefully calls slave catcher Denwood Long out of retirement. 100,000 first printing.

This work looks at the "voices" that speak to us through 19th-century classical music and opera. It proposes interpretive strategies that seek the polyphony and dialogism of music, celebrating musical gestures often marginalized by conventional musical analysis.

Samuella Conteh's THE UNSUNG SONG is a collection of poems with a rallying call for global peace; a hymnal of religious tolerance and a praise-song celebrating the joys of motherhood; an anthem to patriotism and a jingle for social justice; particularly, the roles and rights of women and youths. It is rather ironic to think of these sonnets, elegies and lyrics as 'Unsung Songs' when most of them have already been prize winning poems that have featured in online publications and magazines in and out of Africa. Is it not equally strange to think of Samuella Conteh herself as an 'Unsung' poet, when she is serving as an ambassador of poetry, adding many accolades to her growing trophies on her mental piece? True to the nature of this poet, humility is a recurrent theme throughout this orchestra of peace that calms our turbulent world, while serenading the hearts and minds of all readers as they join the poet in her soulful requiem evoking the 'unsung songs' of humanity. By Njanguma S. Momodu

The Coretta Scott King Honor-winning author tells the moving story of the friendship between a young white boy and a Black WWII veteran who has recently returned to the unwelcoming Jim Crow South. For Gabriel Haberlin, life seems pretty close to perfect in the small southern town of Birdsong, USA. But on his twelfth birthday, his point of view begins to change. It all starts when he comes face-to-face with one of the worst drivers in town while riding his new bicycle--an accident that would have been tragic if Mr. Meriwether Hunter hadn't been around to push him out of harm's way. After the accident, Gabriel and Meriwether become friends when they both start working at Gabriel's dad's auto shop, and Meriwether lets a secret slip: He served in the army's all-black 761st Tank Battalion in World War II. Soon Gabriel learns why it's so dangerous for Meriwether to talk about his heroism in front of white people, and Gabriel's eyes are finally opened to the hard truth about Birdsong--and his understanding of what it means to be a hero will never be the same.