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Don Shirley
Born in Pensacola, Florida, Shirley was a promising young student of classical piano. Although he did not achieve recognition in his early career playing traditional classical music, he found success with his blending of various musical traditions.
During the 1960s, Shirley went on a number of concert tours, some in Deep South states. For a year and a half, he hired New York nightclub bouncer Tony "Lip" Vallelonga as his driver and bodyguard. Their story was controversially dramatized in the 2018 film Green Book. Source: Wikipedia
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Green Book: A Serious Comedy and Jazz Allegory
by Victor L. Schermer
Green Book DreamWorks Universal 2018 Starting perhaps in the 1930s, African American jazz musicians and bands from the north, midwest, and west toured the segregationist South. There they found to their dismay that as much as they were sought after for performances, they were compelled to live in separate hotels and use non-white bathrooms and restaurants, a humiliating experience for men and women who were just beginning to acquire self-respect through their music. After World War ...
read moreGreen Book Directed By Peter Farrelly
by Mike Perciaccante
Green Book Directed by Peter Farrelly Universal Pictures 2018 For those unfamiliar with the guide or simply too young to know, the Green Book was a handbook for African American travelers seeking safe haven when trekking through the segregated Jim Crow South. The Green Book was an indispensable travel guide published (by Victor Green, a postal worker who worked in New Jersey but lived in Harlem) between 1936 and 1966 that listed hotels, bars, ...
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