Quiana parler biography sample format

It specializes in jazz-influenced arrangements of traditional Gullah music, a culture that originated among descendants of enslaved Africans in the Lowcountry region of the US Southeast. Their debut album, Ranky Tanky , was released in October By the week of February 10, , it was listed number one in the Billboard jazz charts, a position it held for two weeks.

Baxter, Hamilton, and Ross met while studying music at the College of Charleston in the s. Singleton met up with them after he had returned to the Lowcountry after studying music at South Carolina State University. Shortly thereafter they formed a jazz quartet called Gradual Lean. After splitting up to pursue individual careers for the following two decades, an idea came from Ross to reform the group, this time as an exploration of Gullah music, a cultural tradition from which Baxter, Hamilton, and Singleton have roots.

As lead vocalist, lyricist, and composer for internationally- and critically- acclaimed Grammy Award-winning roots music group, Ranky Tanky, Parler spent weeks at #1 on several Billboard .

While Ross and Parler are not themselves from a Gullah community, all the band members grew up in South Carolina. The name "Ranky Tanky" comes from a Gullah expression roughly translated as 'get funky. Ranky Tanky's debut studio album featured 13 tracks, all of which are arrangements of Gullah folk songs. The Gullah lyrics and melodies that Ranky Tanky uses range from traditional spirituals , to children's rhymes and dance music.

Due to its relative geographic isolation, the Sea Islands region preserved more of the West African rhythms, dialects, and musical traditions than the mainland US, which once combined with British colonial influence emerged as the distinct Gullah culture.

Quiana Parler began her professional career singing for Calvin Gilmore of the "The Carolina Opry".

Ranky Tanky's use of instruments like the electric guitar and trumpet are novel additions to Gullah music, which was historically performed using only a cappella voices and body percussion. Ross credits the 20th century African American folk singer Bessie Jones as laying much of the groundwork for the band, due to her extensive recording and documentation of the songs and rhymes later used in Ranky Tanky.

Akornefa Akyea's review of their song "That's Alright" on Afropop Worldwide stated that: "you hear the common theme in most spirituals of looking to life after death as a welcome reprieve from the inhumane conditions experienced by enslaved black people in America