TRANSFORMATIONS
The Power of Black Music

Samuel A. Floyd Jr.

MAINTAINING UNITY AND AFFIRMING IDENTITY IN A NEW LAND.
                                                        The Christian God was substituted for the African High God - an easy  transition, since the concept of a supreme god was not new to the transplanted Africans.  This new God became central to ring ritual, with Christ substituting for all the divinities. In ring ritual, Christ, not the orisha, rode the participants, and for those slaves introduced to Roman Catholicism, this African-Catholic syncretism made the transition for Africans to Western culture easier in Latin America and in some parts of the United States, particularly New Orleans, and served as support for the continuation of African traditions in the New World. But it was Protestantism that fueled the religion and religious fervor of enslaved and free blacks in the United States. Protestantism, with its more direct access to the High God through song and praise, made possible the emergence of a new song for Africans, a new song in which they could express themselves as freely as they had in their homeland. This new song was the African-American spiritual.


        
       In the circumstance of slavery, the spiritual was the transplanted Africans' primary means of expressing their current struggles and fulfillments while maintaining contact with the traditions and meanings of the past.  While they contained the African characteristics of call-and-response and textual improvisation, these songs derived directly from the black experience in America.  As in African song, myth, and tale, figures of speech were prominent and important, for in their use of simile, metaphor, and personification, the spirituals were also imbued with a surreptitiously rebellious spirit that reflected the militant refusal of large numbers of slaves to cooperate with the practice of slavery.  The slaves used these techniques with ingenuity and with the drama that is central to African music and ritual, reflecting their sophisticated understanding of the struggles and fulfillments of slave life.  The focus of the songs was on slavery and on the possibility of freedom for slaves in America. Freedom, was the principal idea of the spirituals.



      It was in the ring and through the ring that the spiritual had its most dramatic use, with the ring's diverse manifestations depending on local customs and occasions.  For example, in southwestern Louisiana among the Creoles of color, whom some whites call "black Cajuns," there exist performances called jure (joo-ray) ---"testifying shouts"---based on African Catholic beliefs and practices and performed by men during Lent.  Whatever its manifestation and whatever it was called, the shout's essentials were always present in early black religious practices of burial ceremonies "reflected a base so broad that slaves from almost any section of West Africa could rest their religious beliefs on it, however different those beliefs in other respects".  For Africans, song and dance were religious affirmation; they were urgently compelled to perform music and dance as a means of keeping in contact with their ancestors in order to "retain their power of self-definition or (they would) perish."  For African Americans, the spiritual was the musical vehicle within the ring for this affirmation and unity, for these songs were "masterful repositories of an African cultural spirit" and, through the shout and its developments, they proved central to the maintenance and perpetuation of African cultrual values.

        
     The manifestation of these elements in Dance, Drum, and song, together with the social and religious values of the ring, the  "motor-memory" and cultural memory of transplanted Africans, the exigencies of slave life in a foreign land, and the necessity of conforming to the expectations of the dominant culture created an African-American ethos, a common consciousness, a cultural unity, that is reflected also in "our language, ... our thought patterns, our laughter, our walk," and other aspects of African Americans' being.  It is this ethos and this being that make black American culture distinctive, that create its aesthetic.


       This African-American legend seemes remarkably consonant with, and a logical extension of, the Yoruba myth-an embroidered and African-Americanized revision of it.  In the context of African and African-American mythology, such events can be accepted simply as being in the order of things; and in the first thirty years of the twenttieth centruy, African cultural memory was vivid.  This myth engaged the imagination of Rovert Johnsohn, Tommy Johnson, Peetie Wheatstraw, and other bluesmen who would, in turn, perpetuate it in their life-styles and in their music.  Robert Johnson became obsessed with and fatalistic about  "the forces against him,  eloquently expressing this obsession and fatalism in  "Hell-Hound on My Trail,"  "Crossroads Blues, " and "Me and the Devil Blues".   

          The blues is a solo manifestation of the values of lthe ring, possessing similar cathartic, affirming, and restorative powers.  For African Americans, Esu's appearance as the Devil at the crossroads affirmed African custom and tradition, an affirmation so vital to their spiritual survival that they treasured the memory of this trickster and behaved as if the legend were true long after they had stopped believing it , as evidenced, as we have seen, by the music ad the statements of bluesmen such as Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, and Peetie Wheatstraw.  Armed with the elements of the ring and the interpretive gifts of Esu, early bluesmen brought a new music into the twentieth century.   

         The lyrics of the blues were acquired from two primary sources:  From life as the singer saw it, lived it, and survived it, and from the "traveling" lyrics of African-American culture.  They represent a wide expressive spectrum, spanning "proverbial wisdom, folk philosophy, political commentary, ribald humor, elegiac lament, and much more," including satire; they describe social phenomena and treat romantic relationships.  Unlike the spiritual----a communal testimony oriented toward the next world---the blues song is a personal statement about an individual's view of his or her current circumstances.  Blues singers composed their songs by combining fragments and verses from the hundreds or thousands of formulas that were floating around in black communities everywhere, spread by the traveling songsters.  Black creativity combined these fragments with African-American performance practices, transforming them into original works of musical poetry..


NEXT:  African-American Modernism, Signifyin(g), and Black Music.

 

The effervescent Jessye Norman is one of the most celebrated sopranos, best known for singing arias on opera stages around the world. But opera lovers may be surprised to hear Norman's new CD, Roots: My Life, My Song, her first solo album in more than 10 years. Recorded live in Berlin, it's a cross-genre celebration of American music — ranging from jazz standards to spirituals and gospel. Norman calls it the music of her heart.

 

"This music has been playing in my spirit and in my soul all of my life," she says, "and I was remembering all of the things I used to listen to as a child."

Roots begins with an African drumbeat, but soon moves on to iconic songs from some of the biggest names in American music: Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Ethel Waters and Nina Simone. Norman never met Ellington, but she did have the memorable experience of seeing him cross the street in New York, in her student days.

"Somebody said, 'Look, there's Duke Ellington,' and we simply stopped in our tracks and stared. No one would have thought of going up to him and actually saying anything. It was enough to know that this incredible spirit was actually walking across the road, and we could see him," Norman says.

Covering standards as popular as "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," "Stormy Weather" and "Mack the Knife" might intimidate some performers, but not Norman.

"I feel so at home with these composers, I didn't feel intimidated. I felt, in a different way, overwhelmed by the enormous choice there was," she says. "I don't believe in standing on the sidelines and seeing whether or not something's going to work. I believe in jumping into something and enjoying it."

Norman clearly enjoys the only nod to opera on the new disc, a jazzed-up version of the "Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen.

"The 'Habanera' comes from the folklore of Cuba," she says. "This isn't something that has a great deal to do, originally, with Spain, and certainly not with France. So the idea of it as a jazz piece is the most natural thing in the world."

Norman's approach to performance has changed over the years. Her vocal expression remains effortless. But she agrees that it does get harder to produce the high notes.

"The high note is always hard to hit," she says. "The vocal cords have to vibrate so very quickly. This takes a great deal of physical energy, as well as a great deal of mental concentration. It makes perfect sense that as one becomes older, that it would become more of an effort to make sure that those notes are absolutely where they are supposed to be. Things that are done in the wonderfulness of youth have to be done with more thought later on."

Norman, 64, has had a glittering career by any standards — five Grammy Awards to go with time spent singing in the world's best opera houses. So what is there left to do?

"I've had a lot of lovely things happen to me in my professional life up to now," Norman says. "But one of the things that really just makes me coo is that, with my little jazz group, we are going to open the Montreux Jazz Festival on the Fourth of July this year. Isn't that just the coolest thi

2009 DEPARTURES

BEN ALI, 82 - Founder of Ben's Chili Bowl Landmark Diner, Washington, D.C..

BETTY ALLEN, 82 - Operatic Mezzo-Soprano

HELEN ANGLIN, 80 - Soul Queen Restaurateur

GERTRUDE BAINES, 115 - Oldest Woman In The World

ERNIE BARNES, 70 - Artist

GLORIA BENNETT, 78 - Journalist

EDWIN JOSEPH BOCAGE (EDDIE BO), 79 - Singer, Pianist

RUTH BOWEN, 85 - Agent for Music Legends

ANNE BROWN, 96 - Soprano, Orginal Bess in Porgy and Bess

MEL BROWN, 69 - Blues Guitarist

RANDY CAIN, 63 - Performer (The Delfonics)

JOHNNIE CARTER, 75 - Singer (The Dells)

CAROLE COLE, 64 - Actress (Sanford And Son, Grady), Sister of Natalie Cole

HANK CRAWFORD, 74 - Jazz, Frhyhm & Blues Saxophonist

ALTOVISE DAVIS, 65 - Actress, Dancer, Widow of Sammy Davis Jr.

ROY DeCARAVA, 89 - Photographer

MICHAEL JACKSON, 50 - Entertainer

WILLIE KING, 65 - Blues Musician

EDDIE LOGAN, 98 - Negro League Baseball Player

HUEY LONG, 105 - Guitarist (The Ink Spots)

JUDI ANN MASON, 54 - Television Writer (Good Times) and Playwright

STEVE McNAIR, 36 - Football Player (Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens)

BUDDY MONTGOMERY, 79 - Jazz Musician

DAVID "FATHEAD" NEWMAN, 75 - Jazz Saxophonist

.
Art of the Harlem Renaissance

 

           The fact that the Harlem Renaissance is especially significant for black British artists and writers today should come as no surprise. A common language and connected histories are reason enough; but the developing dialogue between diasporan people on both sides of the Atlantic gives an additional impetus to a collaboration such as this, which draws on the experience, knowledge and skills of art historians and curators in Britain and the United States. The premise behind the collaboration was that these differing perspectives can bring something new to the subject, something of interest to both the British and American public. In thinking if black cultural movements outside America, it was clear to us that there were certain parallels between the ideas and issues that concerned the artists and writers of the Harlem Renaissance and those of black artists in Britain during the 1980s. There was in Britain at that time what could be described as a black renaissance movement, in which black artists, curators and cultural practitioners began developing work which prised open new perspectives on black experiences and identities.
 


         One cannot, for example, look at the work of independent film-makers such as Isaac Julien and Martina Attille without seeing parallels with the work of Oscar Micheaux; the writings of Rhodes scholar Stuart Hall with the philosophy of Rohdes scholar Alain Locke; the theatrical work of Double Edge Theatre with the work of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre Group; the music of Courtney Pine, Sade and Soul To Soul with the sound of Fletcher Henderson and Bessie Smith; or the visual art of Keith Piper, Sonia Boyce, Zarina Bhimji, Sokari Doouglas Camp and Rotimi Fani-Kayode with the work of Aaron Douglas, Lois Mailou Jones and Richmond Barthe. All of these artists from the diaspora have produced modernist autobiographical works that explore issues of representing the body, migration, memory and cultural hybridity. One of the best photographers of Harlem, along with Roy DeCarava (born 1919), was James Van Der Zee (1886-1983). He photographed people and events in Harlem during the 1920's such as the "Croix De Guerre" given to the African-American soldiers who battled with the French Army during World War 1, Henry Johnson, Countee Cullen but also unknown places and persons.

       Much of excitement of Paris was to be found in the street life of Montmartre, he said: Any time you walked down the streets you'd run into four or five people you knew---performers, entertainers, all kinds of people who had real talent in them...you'd start to go home, and you'd never get there. There was always some singer to hear or someone who was playing. You'd run into some friends and they were off to hear this or to do that and you just went along. It seemed like you just couldn't get home before ten or eleven in the morning.

    There was even an African-American welterweight boxer, Panama al Brown, who went to France in 1926 and became a circus performer with Jean Cocteau who helped him. However, you ended out being famous as everybody and they all had special qualities.

Panama Al dressed elegantly, enjoyed public apperances immensely, and frequented bars and jazz clubs. He drifted away from professional fighting and tried his hand as a circus entertainer, engaged by the Cirque medrano to tap-dance, sing, lead a jazz band, and skip rope to swing tunes under the big top. All these African-Americans expatriates made their community look elegant and fashionable. Montmartre adopted an intelligent, artistic, cultured and weathy society, that is to say, a high class society.  French people also adopted them, enjoying Jazz music, admiring the black beauty and accepting their traditions.

 

 

Sharing Life with French Citizens

African-Americans arrived in France mentally prepared and faithful, as they knew that France claimed for their music and their exoticism. The art, style and music of Montmartre's Black community was new to French citizens who were then fascinated. African-Americans were able to perform and live their culture freely as there was no segregation. French did not mind if they had dark skin, on the contrary they admired it because it was exotic.  

   According to the African-American History, Black culture came from Africa, being brought later to the United States during slavery. When African-Americans were in Paris, they lived as if they were in America, cooking their traditional meals, "chitlins" for example, having their own fashion style and, of course, their own music, Jazz and Gospel. Their culture was, and still is today, very rich, that is why French tried to copy them. They learnt how to dance, how to play an instrument with Black rhythms. African-Americans were a great inspiration for European writers and artists, such as Pablo Picasso or Boris Vian for example. The fact that they were in France made the Harlem Renaissance movement look glamorous and exotic. They respected French citizens and the French respected African-Americans. The Black community was unique but they hardly spoke French that is why they didnot really shared life with French citizens.

 Black Beauty

In Europe as well as in the United States, before slavery was abolished in 1865, after the Secession War, Blacks have been considered as inhuman, as ugly people because of the dark color of their skin, because of the texture of their hair and their large features.

     The 1920's and 1930's were a "Golden Era" for Black beauties. Parisians had a taste for exotic entertainment and they discovered it thanks to Josephine Baker's performance in the "Revue Negre", October 2, 1925, who then became a Black beauty: she was even called "Black Venus."

     One the one hand, fashion style was the same for White and Black people, they followed the 1920's trend. But, on the other hand, what was very important for Blacks, and almost a ritual, was hair style and make up. Even if Black color was very chic at the time, a fact favorable to Blacks, they wanted to look European. Men and women, mostly singers and musicians, used to do their hair very flat and straightened. They got the result thanks to an iron and a home made mixture called 'congalene" (egg white, washing powder and potatoes) which damaged their hair and produced a bad smell. That hair style was called "conk".

     During the Golden Era, if you were Black you were "in". Parisians admired African-American exoticism. However, what is contradictory is that Black people wanted their skin to be lighter in order to look like Europeans. So,for that they used to scrub their skin with lemon. You could admire these Black beauties and culture mostly during the night, in Montmartre. At that moment of the day, African-Americans and French people shared life enjoying Montmartre's street and cabarets,thanks to stars, Jazz and shows,where dreams came true.

Black Stars and Personalities

In order to know who these stars and personalities were, it is important to write short biographies about them, starting with the most known, Josephine Baker, then Sidney Bechet, Ada "Bricktop" Smith, Eugene Bullard, Langston Hughes and Louis Mitchell.

Josephine Baker, the "Black Pearl" (1906-1975)

In 1925, she traveled with an orchestra from NewYork(Sidney Bechet made part of it) to Paris, in order to perform in a new show, La Revue Negre", at the Theatre des Champs Elysees, where she captivated the audience and she immediately became a star because of her dances, songs and excoticism. She even made records and movies. Josephine decided to live in France even if she fought against racism in the United States. She gained popularity and lived a rich life. Meanwhile, she used to spend her nights in Montmartre and she even opened her own nightclub, "Chez Josephine", (40, rue Fontaine). Baker married four times and adopted twelve children from around the world and she called them "The Rainbow Tribe".

     During World War 11, Josephine served the French Red Cross, then in 1940, she became active in the French Resistance movement, and later, she worked as a correspondent agent. Josephine was awarded the Croix de Guerre and received a medal of the Resistance in 1946, because of her undercover work. In 1961, she received the Legion d' Honneur from Charles de Gaulle.

     At age 68, Josephine performed for the last time at the Bobino Theatre in Paris and she died from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1975. Joesphine became the first American woman to receive French military honors at her funerals. (to be continued)

 

The Moors of Spain

   In the centuries following the demise of Egypt and Kush, a new culture began to develop that would generate a resurgence of activity in the arts and sciences, as well as the fiery passion of a new religion. The religion was Islam, and those who carried it to the corners of the East were the Moors.

The term Moor orginated with the Romans, who, in about 46 B.C., entered West Africa; there they encountered black Africans, which they called "Maures" from the Greek adjective mauros, meaning dark or black. To truly understand the historical role played by the Moors, one must begin with the prophet Mohamet and the Arab jihads, or crusades.  Islamic historian and scholar Aljahiz wrote in A.D. 860 that "Mohamet's grandfather Al Matilib was the Grand Shariff of Mecca. He fathered ten sons, all whom were 'as black as the night and magnificent." One of these ten was the father of Mohamet." The two closet figures to Mohamet were both Moors. One was Bial-i-Habesh, Mohamet's closest friend, who in the hereafter was chosen by the prophet to protect him. The other was Zayd bin Harith, a great Morrish general who led the conquest of Mohamet's legions.  Historian Drusilla Houston states that arabia itself had been first populated by black people: "The Cushites (Ethiopians) were the orginial Arabians, for Arabia was the oldest Ethiopian colony.

    It is because of the Moors that Europe was Catapulted from the Dark Ages into what came to be called the Renaissance. The Moors embraced the sciences and arts of Egypt, Greece, China, India, and Mesopotamia, which they brought to Europe via Spain. They were the first to trace the curvilinear path of rays of light through air. They not only enhanced the chemical composition of gunpowder, a Chinese invention, but invented the rifle. From India they brought astronomy, and they introduced the compass and astrolabe into Europe. Their houses in Spain were air conditioned in summer by ingeniously arranged drafts of fresh air drawn from the garden over beds of flowers; they were warmed in winter by hot air conveyed through pipes embedded in walls.

    Bathrooms supplied hot and cold running water, and libraries, hospitals, and stores were abundant. The genius exhibited by the Moors seems all the more phenomenal when one realizes that these accomplishments took place between the seventh and fourteenth centuries. The Moors ruled Spain for eight hundred years. As one Historian describes it, "the Moors were a borrowed light; then came the eclipse, and in that darkness Spain has groveled ever since."

 

From the autobiography of- RUTH BROWN - Miss Rhythm

    Chapter 9 "Oh, What a Dream"

Chuck Willis and I were discussing material at Atlantic one day in the spring of '54. "When are you going to write a song for me?" I asked him, half-joking. "Are you kidding?" he replied. "Do you really want a song from me?"

    "Of course I do. I've never been more serious about anything. " I was simply staggered at his modesty. "Well," he said, "I may have something that could be perfect for you. It's not finished yet, but i'll show it to you when it is.

    A few weeks later he produced a set of lyrics written out on yellow legal pad paper, and proceeded to hum the tune for me. In view of what I was going through with Willis, "Oh, What a Dream" was a killer title, but I fell in love right away with the wonderful slow, bluesy mood he'd created in his combination of words and music. All we needed was for Jesse Stone to come up with an arrangement to match, and we were home free--well, almost. The record was barely on the streets when the inevitable happened. You guessed it, a Patti Page duplicate on Mercury.

    Patti page make Billboard's mainstream Top Forty; I settled as usual for the upper reaches of the R-and-B chart. It would be nice to report that my original had crossed over to the white chart. Instead, the reverse happened. "The Singing Rage" crossed over to the black R-and-B list! Later that same year I hit again with the topical "Mambo Baby." Mercury, not to be outdone, hit back with a Georgia Gibbs duplicate. Same result, the bulk of the sales creamed off. Never mind, the tunes kept the name of Ruth Brown hot, hot, hot in the same year that Atlantic, with its black orginals, was declared the "most-covered label" in the U.S. Personally i think "most-covered" was a misnomer; I would have termed it "most-duplicated." (to be continued

Reading Music

Though a musician needs a good ear to play jazz well, it is possible to be musically illiterate and still excel in jazz. Erroll Garner was the most shining example. Erroll had such a quick ear as a child that he never bothered to learn to read. One hearing was usually enough for him to learn any piece of music. When someone mentioned his not being able to read music. Garner said, "Hell, man, nobody can hear you read."

In the early days, a jazz musician who could read music was usually called "Professor." Written notes were viewed with suspicion by the unschooled and were considered to be devoid of soul. But men like Eubie Blake could read and write music very well. He said:

     In those days Negro musicians weren't even supposed to read music. We had to pretend we coouldn't read; then they'd marvel at the way we could play shows, thinking we'd learned the parts by ear.

Nowadays most jazz players can read, but they still may run into situations they aren't prepared for. Saxophonist Jack Nimitz, a Stan Kenton alumnus, had no problem with reading or improvising, but when he took a job with a club date band that faked harmony to standard tunes, he had trouble.  Club date fake bands play long medleys, one chorus of each song.  The trumpet or the lead alto will play the melody, and the rest of the horns find harmony parts by ear.

   Jack was doing all right with the harmony lines until the band began to play a tune he didn't know.  He tried to catch it by ear, but in the process he played a few wrong notes. The leader shouted over the music, "if you don't know the tune, just play the melody! 

BEGINNINGS

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis took a pragmatic approach to becoming a jazz player:

   I didn't buy an instrument for the sake of the music. It's different if someone says he likes music and wants to get an instrument to try to be a musician. In my case I wanted the instrument for what it represented.

   By watching musicians I saw that they drank, they smoked, they got all the broads and they didn't get up early in the morning. That attracted me. My next move was to see who got the most attention, so it was between the tenor saxophonist and the drummer. The drums looked like too much work, so I said I'll get one of those tenor saxophones. That's the truth.

 

Nat Cole's wife Maria discussed the legend that Nat's singing career had begun when a drunk had insisted he sing "Sweet Lorraine" until he finally gave in and sang it:

   The incident of the insistent barroom customer, a guy who often spent as much as "three bucks a night" in the Swanee Inn, did happen. As Nat explained it, "This particular customer kept insisting on a certain song, and I told him I didn't know that one but I would sing something different, and that was "Sweet Lorraine."

   The trio was tipped fifteen cents-a nickel apiece-for that performance, and the customer requested a second tune. Again, Nat didn't know it but asked, "Is there something else you would like?"

   "Yeah," the customer said, " I'd lkie my fifteen cents back."

 

Wynton Marsalis had a trumpet long before he developed an interest in being a trumpet player. He said:

   I was about five or six, and Miles (Davis), Clark Terry, Al Hirt, and my father were all sitting around a table in Al's club in New Orleans-this was when my father was still working in Al's band. My father, just joking around because there were so many trumpet players sitting there, said,

   "I better buy Wynton a Trumpet," And Al said,

   "Ellis, let me give your boy one of mine." It's ironic looking back on it, because Miles said, "Don't give it to him. Trumpet's too difficult an instrument for him to learn." Ha!

 

 

HAPPINESS

Happiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil, live under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within; it is the revelation of the depths of the inner life as light and heat proclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm glow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with high ideals.

For what a man has, he may be dependent on others; what he is, rests with him alone. What he obtains in life is but acquistion; what he attains, is growth. Happiness is the soul's joy in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, continuous happiness in life, is impossible for the human. It would mean the consummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a perfectly fufilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may coexist with trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the heart, --rising superior to all conditions.

THE JAZZI

It is necessary to understand this: Jazz has to do with quality. For musicians the music has to be first and foremost "good" to be perceived as jazz. All other criteria play a secondary role, however important that may be.

...James "the jazzi" Harber

 

"This we know, all things are connected, like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.

Teach your children that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself."

Chief Seattle
Native American
1854