Learn Your Genres (and History)!

The way white people describing Black Americans and their music never ceases to shock me, especially from an older source like a 1920s newspaper article. In the specific article I will be referring to, the title is “Dancers Need Substitute for U.S. Jazz”. At first glance, I thought it was a flier notifying its readers that dancers for a show were needed, but this is not at all what the article dives into. 

 

It was hard to tell where this “article” came from because there was no author stated and all it says at the top is “Prague, Czech Home Service”. I was unsure if this was a newspaper or a subsection of a paper. This was extra confusing because the topic was on American music but there were European countries in it. However, after a closer look, I realized that it was a transcribed message from, likely, a radio show. 

 

The very first “ear” catching statement made by the narrator was quoted from a musical composer “many people are unable to realize the difference between jazz and dance music”(Par. 1) The narrator goes on to share their own thoughts on this statement. It is a bit hard to deduce who the narrator is and anything of their background, but it seems like they have only heard the white american perspective. Comments such as “Old Negro folk songs were only sung. Their rhythm originated from the rhythm of work. So-called modern jazz has no effect on feelings, but only on the lowest primitive urges.”, and “American owners of slaves and plantations”(Par. 3-4). This second comment alone lets me know that this narrator didn’t view these people as enslavers. This to me says that they don’t understand the trauma and suffering of slavery, therefore they don’t understand the meaning behind slave songs. Slave songs also aren’t jazz. They influenced jazz, but the reverse is not true.


Work Cited:

DANCERS NEED SUBSTITUTE FOR U.S. JAZZ. (1954, March 17) Prague, Czech Home Service. Translated in DAILY REPORT. FOREIGN RADIO BROADCASTS (Publication no. FBIS-FRB-54-053, published 1954, March 18), HH2-HH3. Available from Readex: American Race Relations: Global Perspectives, 1941-1996: https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.stolaf.edu/apps/readex/doc?p=TOPRACE&docref=image/v2%3A12895BC6AA32DB40%40FBISX-131CEE8714B10AF8%402434820-131CEE95A3BF5E00%4036-131CEE9605E97168%40DANCERS%2BNEED%2BSUBSTITUTE%2BFOR%2BU.S.%2BJAZZ.

Edgard Varése and William Grant Still – A Mentorship Gone Wrong?

William Grant Still

Edgard Varése

William Grant Still’s feelings on the importance of musical form could not possibly be made clearer than in his 1950 essay, The Structure of Music. He describes in detail the importance of learning the rules of musical form, and how laying out the form of a piece is integral to his composition process. However, most striking about this essay was the way that Still opens and closes by thoroughly berating composers who reject traditional musical form in favor of a modern, atonal sound. 

“They believe that in order to compose, one need only find a few bizarre harmonies, string them together without thought of melody, form or sequence, and emerge with a ‘composition’ that would bring them acclaim.”

“Indeed, it is hard to detect the actual themes, since the members of this school actually scorn what we know as melody.”

“Their occasional consonant intervals are weak because of bad handling; their vaunted counterpoint is incorrect, disjointed and muddled.”

These strong words left me with one particular question for Still. Who hurt you? In her introduction to Still’s essay within the collection Readings in Black American Music, Eileen Southern mentions that he had gone through a phase of writing “experimental music” before deciding to go in a different direction. In all of his admonitions against composers who abandoned form, was Still merely repeating what critics had said about his compositions from this experimental phase? In the beginning of his essay, he insists that “faulty form is immediately apparent” to a trained listener, and that an untrained listener “will wonder why he has not been able to retain a coherent impression of what has been performed.” This sounds to me like evidence taken from personal experience.

William Grant Still did indeed compose at least two works that were on the edgy side for his time, namely From the Land of Dreams in 1924 and Levee Land in 1925. Both works were performed and immediately withdrawn after puzzled reviews from critics. He received feedback that called his compositions “curious noises,” “unprofitable to compose or listen to,” and “a slavish imitation of the noises which Edgard Varése calls compositions.” 

Edgard Varése was a French-American composer who worked closely with Still as one of his mentors, even called one of his most influential teachers by several sources. His music, or as he called it, “organized sound,” fits all too perfectly into the category of music criticized by Still in 1950. In the 1920s, when he was working with Still, he was producing works like this:

By the 1950s, when Still had completely rejected any kind of experimental music, Varése was still going strong. 

This leads me to believe that sometime in between Still’s more experimental compositions and his complete rejection thereof, his relationship with Edgard Varése changed somehow. I’d like to imagine that there was a dramatic argument where the very purpose of musical composition was brought into question. Perhaps someday I can uncover some telltale correspondence between these two composers that will reveal the truth about their disagreement.

Sources:

“Edgard Varèse [1883-1965] – ‘Hyperprism’ [1923].” YouTube. YouTube, August 11, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWXRAOLMq1M. “

Edgard Varèse – Déserts.” YouTube. YouTube, August 9, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cnEo7-g880. 

“Edgard Varèse.” Smithsonian Institution. Accessed December 20, 2021. https://www.si.edu/object/edgard-varese:npg_NPG.97.120. 

Griffiths, Paul. “Varèse, Edgard [Edgar].” Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press, January 20, 2001. https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com.ezproxy.stolaf.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000029042?rskey=FVClre&result=2#omo-9781561592630-e-0000029042-section-3. 

Murchison, Gayle, and Catherine Parsons Smith. “Still, William Grant.” Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press, January 20, 2001. https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com.ezproxy.stolaf.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000026776?rskey=PNPQkx.

Peyton, Dave. “THE MUSICAL BUNCH: THINGS IN GENERAL.” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Nov 13, 1926. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/musical-bunch/docview/492099005/se-2?accountid=351.

Smith, Catherine Parsons. William Grant Still: A Study in Contradictions. Berkeley, Calif:  University of California Press,  c2000 2000. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft1h4nb0g0/

Smith, Catherine Parsons. “William Grant Still, Darker America, Africa, Symphony No. 2.” American Symphony Orchestra. American Symphony Orchestra, April 22, 2020. https://americansymphony.org/concert-notes/darker-america-1924-africa-1930symphony-no-2-1937/. 

Southern, Eileen, and William Grant Still. “William Grant Still.” Essay. In Readings in Black American Music, 314–17. New York, New York: W.W. Norton, 1983. 

“William Grant Still, 1895-1978.” The Library of Congress. Accessed December 20, 2021. https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200186213. 

 

Music Education in 1882 Was A Dark Place

The coverpage of the J. W. Pepper’s French Horn book.

For today’s blog post, I decided to search up something I find interesting, which is French horn. I went onto the Library of Congress database, and I found this horn method book. I thought that was an interesting primary source to look into, and see if there are any interesting things in here that reflect social issues and surprise surprise, we did find something. 

What we are looking at today is a horn method book, specifically the J. W. Pepper’s Self Instruction for French Horn. It was published by J. W. Pepper in Philadelphia in 1882. This was an ongoing collection of self instruction method books for instruments, and I thought that was quite cool. I am not entirely sure what age group this collection is marketed towards, because adults would be able to read this book and get a vague idea of how to play the french horn, but kids would literally stare at this book and not know what to do. 

I mean… the book wasn’t really marketed towards kids, but this is still way too much method way too little fun. XD

Compared to method books nowadays, such as Standard of Excellence, it is a lot more readable for kids because the amount of information presented on the page would not overwhelm them. There are also graphics so that the children can be entertained, whereas this book is a lot more bland. The instruments selected are mostly band and orchestra instruments, and there were also books on Fife, Accordion and Flageolet, which is an instrument I have never heard of before. I did a quick search about its origin, and according to Encyclopedia Britannica, it originated and developed in Paris, France, and it served the role of modern day piccolo in an orchestra. However, in that collection, there is already a piccolo method book. Hmmm. Eurocentrism? 

I might be jumping the gun here, but let’s take a closer look at the excerpts provided here. It is all, yes, ALL European music. The title of this section says Fifty Classic, Popular and Operatic Melodies, but there is no variety in representation. On top of that, there is a lot of patriotism snuggled in, such as tunes like Stars Spangled Banner and America. What really made me question the legitimacy of this collection is the actual music itself. In a lot of the tunes, the highest pitch is a horn G, which is not beginner friendly at all. When I played the horn, it took about two to three years to get there. Wow, music education sure was a lot darker back then.

 

Works Cited

“Flageolet.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/art/flageolet-musical-instrument.

J. W. Pepper’s Self instructor for french horn. Pepper, J. W., Philadelphia,monographic, 1882. Notated Music. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/sm1882.15228/>.

Standard of Excellence: Comprehensive Band Method Book 1 (French Horn). Kjos (Neil A.) Music, 1997. Print.

Villancico

As I embarked on mapping the musical traditions in colonial Mexico, my teammates and I were quite frankly overwhelmed with a vast time period, the vast geography, and despite the amount of music being made, we were faced with a scarcity of primary and secondary sources alike. One way in which we were able to come into contact with primary sources is through the online database at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. This database has a large amount of the Villancicos which were a popular form of music at the time. A villancico is now known as a Christmas carol, but during the colonial period in Mexico, these songs were often set to love poems, poetry, or religious text. They were sung in the vernacular and had an alternating refrain and verse. Moreover, villancico’s varied widely and there were different genres such as a villancico negrilla which depicted the style and dance of African slaves in the colonies1.

Before we begin, I do want to clarify what a chapelmaster was. During the era of colonization, chapelmasters were in charge of all music at a cathedral and often composed and performed in the cathedral. The job of Chapelmaster was reserved for individuals with musical talent and Spain sent chapelmasters from all over Europe to preside over the cathedrals in the Spanish colonies. Furthermore, cathedrals were the place in which all ‘art music’ was performed. basically, they were the concert halls of colonial Mexico2.

The villancico I would like to look at for the purpose of this blog post is by a chapelmaster named Antonio Slazaar and was written between 1650 and 1715. The name of this song is “Va de vejamen” which translates to “goes from humiliation”. Antonio Salazar was originally born in Spain and became the chapelmaster of the Puebla Cathedral and later at the Mexico City Cathedral. Antonio Salazar is also one of the most famous composers of the Baroque period in Mexico.

“Va de vejamen” is a part of Salazar’s set of 6 songs called “A sies de la Natividad de Nuestra Señora” or “6 to the nativity of our lady”. Salazar’s piece is about the Christmas season, but not all villancicos were and I want to be clear about that because it is often assumed all villancico’s are carols. I inserted a modern recording of Salazar’s piece below. Something interesting to note is how similar it sounds to a renaissance madrigal. This similarity is common with villancico’s. There is also percussion instrumentation and a strummed string instrument.

The piece itself luckily was preserved well and we have digital access through the National Autonomous University of Mexico database. It includes the parts for the different instruments and voices all written separately. I would encourage you to listen again and try and follow along in the score, especially the tenor3.

 

1“Repertoire.” San Francisco Bach Choir: Antonio de Salazar. Accessed December 12, 2021. https://www.musicanet.org/sfbc/repertoire/salazara.html.
2Pedelty, Mark. Musical Ritual in Mexico City: From the Aztec to NAFTA. Austin, UNITED STATES: University of Texas Press, 2004. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/stolaf-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3443236.


http://www.musicat.unam.mx/nuevo/estrada_resultado.php#3

New Spanish Villancicos and Cultural Appropriation

The villancico was the most popular musical genre in the Spanish colonies of New Spain and Peru, dominating the cathedral radio waves from the 16th century through the end of the 18th. A somewhat ambiguous term, villancicos are best understood as folk tunes and texts formalized into a Renaissance or Baroque style and performed by cathedral musicians on feast days and holidays, especially the feasts of Immaculate Conception, Corpus Christi, and Christmas. There was a wide variety of texts and instrumentations used to compose these villancicos; especially in the colonies, they would also take on the dialect or “style” of an ethnic group, particularly that of Aztecs and enslaved Africans in the form of tocotines and negrillos, respectively.1

It isn’t difficult to see the parallels throughout the history of the Americas; as they say, history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it often rhymes. The ubiquity of villancicos negros is just an early iteration of the same general trend of Europeans appropriating dialect associated with enslaved Africans and their descendants for views, just like 19th century minstrelsy and 21st century white TikTokers. In New Spain and Peru, villancicos negros were extremely popular and can be found in almost every major cathedral archive.2 Beyond being labeled as such, negrillos can best be identified by the use of onomatopoetic syllables and dialectic speech in the text, and syncopation in the music; besides these elements, they tended to be composed much the same as other villancicos.3

“Tarará, qui yo soy Antón,” by Música Temprana

The above audio is a recording by Música Temprana, a Netherlands-based Early Music group specializing in Latin American Baroque, of a villancico negro by 17th century composer and chapel master Antonio de Salazar. The refrain (estribillo) “Tarará, qui yo soy Antón” is repeated between short verses (coplas); the elements of a typical negrillo, onomatopoeia and strong syncopation, are quite apparent in this piece, especially in the refrains. The large majority of chapel masters, who were composing the most music, had either immigrated from Europe or were descended from Europeans; in modern lingo their use of dialectic styles in these villancicos negros, whether “accurate” or not, would be considered cultural appropriation. 

1 Pope, Isabel, and Paul R. Laird. “Villancico.” Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 14 Dec. 2021. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000029375.

2 Stevenson, Robert. “Renaissance and Baroque Musical Sources in the Americas” Washington: General Secretariat, Organization of American States, 1970.

3 Stevenson, Robert. “Ethnological Impulses in the Baroque Villancico.”. 1994 Inter-American Music Review 14, no. 1: 67-106, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/ethnological-impulses-baroque-villancico/docview/1309815/se-2?accountid=351.

More on Florence Price

Florence Price was one of the countless Black musicians in America to compose and perform during the 19th century. She was a classical pianist, composer, organist, music teacher, and the first Black woman to have her composition played by an orchestra. Doing a Google search for her though turns up many articles about how America has forgotten about her. During the time of her life, however, audiences seemed quite delighted with her performances. A search on newspapers.com reveals many reviews of her doing all kinds of performance.

This clipping from Chester, Pennsylvania in 1917 reads: “Mrs. Florence Price was greeted with a complimentary audience at the auditorium where she made her debut a few years ago…Her rich, clear contralto voice was never heard to better advantage. She carried her audience throughout the program, and the hearty applause she received showed the appreciation.”1 Interestingly, the rest of the review goes on to talk about what she was wearing that night. I did not look, but doubt performance reviews for H.T. Burleigh capitalized on his wardrobe choices. Perhaps this is one of the reasons America has forgotten about her. After all, she won the Wanamaker prize just as H.T. Burleigh, Nathaniel Dett, and William Dawson all did. Her symphony in E minor for which she won the Wanamaker award for in 1923 is particularly interesting to analyze. According to a review by notorious commentator Alain Locke, her symphony provided a way for any person to enjoy music in an “un-racialized” way because it did not include overt references to recognizable African American music. Instead, the way it incorporates folk songs is by use of the pentatonic scale, juba rhythms, polyrhythms, and call and response.2

[1] 31 Jan 1917. Delaware County Daily Times. https://www.newspapers.com/image/5425595/?terms=%22Florence%20price%22%20piano&match=1

[2] Floyd, Samuel A. Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance: A Collection of Essays. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993.

What we can learn from the Harlem Renaissance

So often throughout history, research evidence has been used to enforce master narratives of White supremacy and anti-Black racism while also conditioning us to believe that this social order is, in fact, legitimate. To not have to acknowledge the use of research evidence in the maintenance of White supremacy and anti-Black racism is itself an act of White supremacy and anti-Black racism.

David E. Kirkland, No Small Matters: Reimagining the use of Research Evidence from a Racial Justice Perspective

This is how higher educational music departments are maintained in my opinion. In other words, sometimes it’s hard to recognize when courses are exclusionary because we have been conditioned to believe it is natural. Specifically, I justified the exclusion of people of color performers and musicians in most of my music education for a long time with the idea that white power led to underrepresentation. It seems antiracist enough, until I realized that underrepresentation is an illegitimate social order which we have the power to change. If you saw my last blog post, I talked more in depth about how music departments are shaped by white power after reading Philip Ewell’s, Music Theory’s White Racial Frame. Here though, I would like to provide some examples to support a future of inclusion in music courses. 

Studying music of white composers is so easy because it does not require much historical knowledge to understand, but why should it be a problem to give historical context to the pieces we study in theory? Ewell encourages students to challenge their professors on why they elect to share pieces with complicated histories without providing context. Dare I suggest, we might even change some of the material we study by including more pieces from historical events such as the Harlem Renaissance. Samuel Floyd Jr. writes about the creativity of Black musicians during the Harlem Renaissance in his book, Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance. He writes, “The music of Black theater shows, the dance music of the cabarets, the blues and ragtime of the speakeasies and the rent parties, the spirituals and the art songs of the recital and concert hall all provided an ambiance for Renaissance activities and contemplation.” 2 He also writes about the theft committed by white composers. The song, “Lady Be Good” is a piece by Black composers which was then ripped off by Gershwin later. I could not find the original composers in my search. Instead, here is Gershwin’s version:

Oh, Lady Be Good

With all this music making happening, at the very least there are great pieces of music that can fit into existing course structure for analysis. Ewell states that musicologists tend to be better at grappling with representation issues than music theorists, but imagine if the responsibility for representation was shared across the whole music department. Ewell writes to students, “You have power, more than you know,”3 and I do believe that we have power to chip away at our white male history. 

[1] Quoted in Ewell, Phillip. “Music Theory’s Quantitative and Qualitative Whiteness.” Music Theory’s White Racial Frame. June 26, 2020. Accessed December 14, 2021. https://musictheoryswhiteracialframe.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/music-theorys-quantitative-and-qualitative-whiteness/.

[2] Floyd. (1990). Black music in the Harlem Renaissance : a collection of essays . Greenwood Press.

[3] Ewell, Phillip By Philip. “Music Theory’s Quantitative and Qualitative Whiteness.” Music Theory’s White Racial Frame. June 26, 2020. Accessed December 14, 2021. https://musictheoryswhiteracialframe.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/music-theorys-quantitative-and-qualitative-whiteness/.

Race, Identity and Representation, but in Music Departments

I have often thought my music education is racist. There is a clear cut canon from which undergraduate students gain their foundational knowledge, and to deviate concerns what we conceive as entirely other genres. Most students at my liberal arts school utter disdain for the white male dominance of music theory and musicological course materials. And while it is true that the ability to recognize such power structures is necessary, the simple knowledge of them often soothes white discomfort into complacency. Overturning this form of dominance has its valid challenges, as we have seen in our musicology class, Race Identity and Representation in American Music. Adequate representation, however, is attainable. 

Philip Ewell, African American cellist, scholar, writer and music theorist articulates just how limited our music theory and musicology courses is his blog, Confronting Racism and Sexism in Music Theory. First, I think it bears repeating that 98.3% of the examples in the seven most common music theory textbooks are written by white composers, and only two pieces out of 2930 total were written by Asian composers. What music theory textbooks do include, however, are songs written for blackface minstrel shows such as “Oh Susanna!” by Steven Foster as examples for music theory concepts. (Indeed, you can find it on a webpage about binary form on Hello Music Theory). Ewell writes, “The inclusion of a white supremacist composer like Foster in our music theory textbooks represents the extraordinary insensitivity of music theory’s white frame—and of the textbook publishers I hasten to add—with respect to racial matters. It also points to our utter inability to recognize how whiteness has shaped the field.” 1 

Original sheet music for “Oh Susanna!” from the Christy minstrel troupe. See Edwin Christy

Trigger warning: The last page of “Oh Susanna!” with racist alternate verse text. 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whiteness has also shaped the design of music departments by compartmentalizing course topics and genres. For example, at St. Olaf we have multiple levels of music theory and musicology, but any other courses seem to fit into separate topics courses like history of jazz or world music. When considering that the core of our required courses is limited to mainly white theorists and composers, and supplemental courses consist of music mainly by person of color (POC) artists, I think it sends a clear message to students that music by white people is more worth studying, even if none of the individuals in the music department hold that belief themselves. It’s not just a subliminal message either, because our knowledge of music after graduation likewise privileges white people. Graduates enter school classrooms, higher education institutions or the workforce with their highly educated yet biased definition of music. 

As I’m sure you’ve gathered, the existence of jazz courses and world music courses and their content is not the problem. In fact, I think these musics should be integrated into our entry level music theory and musicology courses. Ewell has a wonderful section on the future of music education in his blog which I intend to highlight in my next blog post. Stay tuned…

[1] Ewell, Phillip By Philip. “Music Theory’s Quantitative and Qualitative Whiteness.” Music Theory’s White Racial Frame. June 26, 2020. Accessed December 14, 2021. https://musictheoryswhiteracialframe.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/music-theorys-quantitative-and-qualitative-whiteness/.

[2 ]Oh! Susanna. C. Holt, Jr., New York, monographic, 1848. Notated Music. https://www.loc.gov/item/sm1848.441780/.

 

National Folk Festival of 1937

In searching the Chicago defender, I was curious to find any information about Frances Densmore’s colleagues. In my previous blog post, I researched James Mooney, an ethnographer of the 19th century, but I wanted to search for other scholars who worked directly with Densmore. Additionally, I was interested in what kinds of projects Densmore was involved in other than Indigenous song collection.

I found a newspaper clipping from 1937 that gives insight into Densmore’s career while giving the names of her colleagues at the time. The clipping announced the staging of the first National Folk Festival to be held in the north for May 22nd through May 28th, 1937. The National Folk Festival is a folk festival that has been run by The National Council for the Traditional Arts since 1934, with the first performance held in St. Louis, Missouri. It celebrates multi-cultural performances, and many prominent musicians, such as W.C. Handy have performed at the festival. The newspaper clipping outlines its purpose as the following:

The objective of the festival has been summed up as: “to bring together in a colorful, joy-giving National Folk festival the native and traditional Folk arts which, for centuries, have refreshed the hearts of the American people in the various sections of our land.”

Listen to a recording of the Metropolitan Community Church Choir perform “Fare Ye Well” at the festival in 1937: https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200196400/?

Below is a photo of an Irish group from Chicago rehearsing for the 1944 Folk Festival.

The article lists Densmore as one of the sixty members of the national committee, along with another familiar name that Music345 has engaged with, George Pullen Jackson. Jackson was an American musicologist who studied hymnody, and as the class remembers from our past discussions, had racist opinions of the origins of spirituals. Although it is unclear based on this article alone how much contact Jackson and Densmore had, they did end up on this same committee. Did they exchange ideas and influence each other? What were their motivations to be on the committee? This newspaper article reminds researchers of the importance of investigating the motivations of scholars and considering the overlap in ideas.

National Folk Festival newspaper clipping

Works Cited

“A Brief History of the National Folk Festival.” Ncta-Usa. Accessed December 14, 2021. https://ncta-usa.org/the-national-folk-festival/a-brief-history-of-the-national-folk-festival/.

Ferrell, John, photographer. Washington, D.C. Irish group from Chicago rehearsing for the National Folk Festival. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C, 1942. May. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017764309/.

Metropolitan Community Church Choir, and Sidney Robertson Cowell. Fare Ye Well. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200196400/.

“National Folk Festival to be Staged in the North for First Time, may 22: People from all Over U. S. Will Come to Orchestra Hall with Songs of their Communities.” 1937.The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), May 22, 3. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/national-folk-festival-be-staged-north-first-time/docview/492484882/se-2?accountid=351.

Pegg, Carole, Philip V. Bohlman, Helen Myers, and Martin Stokes. “Ethnomusicology.” Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 14 Dec. 2021. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000052178.

Jackson, George Pullen. White and Negro Spirituals : Their Life Span and Kinship, Tracing 200 Years of Untrammeled Song Making and Singing Among Our Country Folk, with 116 Songs as Sung by Both Races New York: J. J. Augustin, 1944.

Jackson, Richard. “Jackson, George Pullen.” Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 14 Dec. 2021. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000014025.

 

 

 

Bert Williams: Still Black in a Racist America

Every popular source about Bert Williams sings his praises. Although he lived (1892-1922) during a time when racial inequality was blatant and accepted, he had an extremely successful career in the entertainment industry. He was the first black man to have a leading role in a film and a leading role on Broadway, the best-selling black recording artist before 1920, and was hailed as one of the greatest comedians of his time. 

Bert Williams was also a black minstrel performer. He and his partner Geroge Walker worked to reclaim minstrelsy and entertainment from the white performers that so often belittled and violated black life and culture through minstrel performances. And judging by his successful career, Williams was able to achieve some degree of reclamation. 

But in his article, titled “The Unfunny Bert Williams,” published in the Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s largest black newspapers, Enoch Waters juxtaposes this vision of success with a story about Bert Williams. Basically, Eddie Cantor, a white comedian, visits Williams in his room during a dinner party, only to find that Williams is eating dinner alone. Cantor accuses him of being exclusive, but Williams has to explain that he has been refused service in the restaurant downstairs, due to his race. This exposes the paradox in their society; Bert Williams is exceedingly famous among white people, loved by all, yet he still has his rights stolen from him due to the racism of the time. 

This incident happened during Bert Williams lifetime, but Enoch Waters considered it relevant material in 1954 when he published his article. And I believe that it is still relevant today. No matter the value of a person of color, or their “success,” they are still subject to the racist thoughts and systems present in our society.

 

Citations

Waters, Enoc P. “Adventures in RACE RELATIONS: The Unfunny Bert Williams.” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Aug 14, 1954. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/adventures-race-relations/docview/492840513/se-2?accountid=351.

“Bert Williams (1874-1922).” Library of Congress, biographies, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200038860/#

The New Christy Minstrels: Blatant Evidence of America’s Racist Past

If you know anything about minstrelsy, you know that it is a prime example of America’s horribly racist past. But what’s striking is how present it is in our media today, almost normalizing this appalling phenomenon. 

The music group “The New Christy Minstrels” is a demonstration of the legacy of minstrelsy. But to understand this, we must first understand the old Christy Minstrels. 

Cover for sheet music used at Christy’s Minstrel shows

Cover on New Christy’s Minstrels vinyl

Minstrelsy was formed around the 1830s and was a theater tradition in which white performers painted their faces black with burnt cork and greasepaint. They would produce comedy shows satirizing black life, complete with songs, backing bands, dancing, and sketches. The Christy Minstrels were a minstrel group that formed in 1844, and toured the US, making money from performing in blackface. 

The New Christy Minstrels are a music group that performs folk music, and although they stopped producing music in the 90s, they still have over 50,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. In 1962 they won a grammy, and in 1970, they performed at the super bowl half-time show. They were extremely successful in their time, and still, hold relevance today. The founder of the New Christy Minstrels admits openly that his group is named after the original (racist) minstrel troupe, and their most popular albums feature minstrel songs. 

On the Library of Congress database, there is a recording of The New Christy Minstrels performing a song titled, “The Cotton Picker’s Song,” a piece of music that’s clearly about/sung in the voice of enslaved people. I came across this recording while searching for material about Christy’s Minstrels, the original troupe. I’m still shocked by the existence of this group and their blatant and careless references to one disgusting part of America’s past. Do they not know about the violent and unacceptable history of minstrelsy? Or do they not care? 

The New Christy Minstrels display a shocking amount of ignorance and prove that education about minstrelsy and racism is necessary.

 

Citations

​​Huse, Andy, and Simone Sanders. “The History of Minstrelsy: USF Library Special & Digital Collections Exhibits.” History of Minstrels. Accessed October 23, 2021. http://exhibits.lib.usf.edu/exhibits/show/minstrelsy/jimcrow-to-jolson/credits.

Todd, Charles L, Robert Sonkin, Lloyd Stalcup, and Lloyd Stalcup. Cotton Picker’s Song, The. Shafter FSA Camp, August 3, 1940. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/toddbib000046/.

“A Sioux Song” – The Power of Context

For this blog post, I decided to return back to and take a in-depth look at the American Indian Histories and Cultures archive. As we wrap up the semester and finalize our mapping projects, taking the time to locate more specific primary sources that relate to my group’s mapping project on Indigenous Song Collection and Repatriation is especially important. 

The American Indian Histories and Cultures archive presents an array of resources that detail interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest noted contact. The archives’ hope is to explore the consequences of European colonization on the political, social and cultural life of American Indians. 

In a 1969 edition of The Indian, a song notated by Frances Densmore was published under the heading “A Sioux Song.” The newspaper was published by the American Indian Leadership Council in Rapid City. The Library of Congress associates the American Indian Leadership Council with the National Congress of American Indian:

“The National Congress of American Indian (NCAI) founded in 1944, is the oldest nation-wide American Indian advocacy organization of the United States… The Congress also aimed to educate the general public about Indians, preserve Indian cultural values, protect treaty rights with the United States and promote Indian welfare.”

AC# 010: Records of the National Congress of American Indians, 1933-1990

Supposedly a product of an Indigenous right organization, The Indian randomly places Densmore’s transcribed lyrics of “A Sioux Song” within the paper. There is nothing that contextualizes the music beyond the fact that it is attributed to Charging Thunder and the Sioux people. 

This article could be used as an interesting example of contrasting opinions on Frances Densmore’s song collecting work. On the one hand, “A Sioux Song” has been published within a larger collection of texts that speak to Indigenous rights and advocacy. Densmore’s song represents what the publishers saw as valuable information or knowledge that a reader could acquire should they wish to consider and evaluate Indigenous culture of South Dakota. On the other hand, this article also highlights some of the problems with Densmore’s work that we explore further in our mapping project (linked above). The lyrics that Densmore transcribed exist in a space without context and largely removed from their original meaning. It is surely a colonial idea to say that an audience is entitled to all of the information that the song contains, but considering the purpose of the newspaper and the legacy of Densmore’s song collecting work more broadly means that The Indian’s presentation of Densmore’s research might be a little too vague- not to mention that the column is titled “A Sioux Song.” Ultimately, the publication of Densmore’s “A Sioux Song” is an excellent example of some of the issues that my research group and I tried to parse out in our map and offers further examples of the value of considering context when studying music more generally. 

Works Cited:

 “National Congress of American Indians Records.” National Congress of American Indians records | National Museum of the American Indian. Accessed December 14, 2021. https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/archives/sova-nmai-ac-010?destination=edan_searchtab%2Farchives%3Fpage%3D1%26edan_q%3D%252A%253A%252A%26edan_fq%255B0%255D%3Dset_name%253A%2522National%2520Congress%2520of%2520American%2520Indians%2520records%2522%26edan_fq%255B1%255D%3Dset_name%253A%2522National%2520Congress%2520of%2520American%2520Indians%2520records%2520%2F%2520Series%25205%253A%2520Records%2520of%2520Indian%2520Interest%2520Organizations%2520%2F%25205.5%253A%2520Other%2520Indian%2520Organizations%2522. 

 Densmore, Frances. “A Sioux Song.” The Indian. December 1969, 9th edition. https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/SearchDetails/Ayer_The_Indian_1969_12Dec_18#Snippits

Stephen Foster’s Intent and Impact with “Old folks at home”

In an earlier blog post, I came across Stephen Foster’s “Old folks at home” (also known as “Way down upon the Swanee River”), a ballad which was written for and widely performed by blackface minstrel troupes. Many of Foster’s compositions have had a prominent role in the lasting legacy of minstrelsy, and this piece is no exception. “Old folks at home” went from immediate popularity after its publication in 1851, to performances by Christine Nilsson and Adelina Patti, to designation as the state song of Florida in 1938. Through the Sheet Music Consortium database I was able to observe five different publications of the song ranging from 1851 to 1899.

The sheet music published by Firth, Pond & Co. in 1851 is unique because it claims that “Old folks at home” was composed by E. P. Christy, the leader of Christy’s Minstrels. Christy paid Foster to write the song and have it published under his name for performance by his minstrel troupe, as is made clear by the cover of the sheet music. The song is also labeled in this publication as an “Ethiopian melody”, which was interesting but not surprising, as white people at this time casually used “Ethiopian” to describe anything relating to dark-skinned people. 

The falsehood about Christy as the composer of this song must have been short-lived, because only three years later the song was published within “Foster’s Melodies Arranged for the Guitar”. All following publications that I have seen credit Foster as well.

Each publication which includes a vocal part used fairly similar dialect, although the dialectic inconsistencies present in some publications stood out to me. In the 1897 version published in Boston, the word “the” is used in the first line, but all other instances of “th” are replaced by “d.”

In the 1894 “Concert Edition”, the word “ev’ry” appears in contrast with the word “ebber” used earlier in the same music. These inconsistencies reveal the half-ass nature of the use of dialect for this piece, which reflects the broader attitude of disrespect towards the group which is supposedly being represented in this music. 

The Suwannee River in Florida, shown in red

“Old folks at home” is currently still the state song of Florida (due to its references to the Suwannee River), however, the most obviously problematic things about the song have been eliminated through the removal of dialect and the replacement of the word “darkies” with “brothers.” However, the line “still longing for the old plantation” continues to be clear and present in the first verse.

Based on letters from Stephen Foster to E. P. Christy, Foster wanted his “tragic” minstrel songs (such as “Old folks at home”) to inspire feelings of pity and compassion for slaves, rather than the ridicule resulting from most minstrel shows at the time. Could Foster’s intentions ever come true through this piece intended for blackface performance, which by nature mocks the experience of enslaved people in America? Only a further exploration of primary sources could tell.

 

Sources:

“Florida Lakes and Rivers Map.” GIS Geography. Geology.com, November 2, 2021. https://gisgeography.com/florida-lakes-rivers-map/. 

“In Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana.” Old folks at home. The Trustees of Indiana University, 2021. http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inharmony/detail.do?action=detail&fullItemID=%2Flilly%2Fdevincent%2FLL-SDV-035017. 

“Old Folks at Home : Ethiopian Melody.” Playmakers Repertory Company Playbills. Accessed October 30, 2021. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sheetmusic/id/37599. 

“Old Folks at Home.” Playmakers Repertory Company Playbills. Accessed October 30, 2021. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sheetmusic/id/37129. 

“Old Folks at Home.” Playmakers Repertory Company Playbills. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Accessed December 6, 2021. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sheetmusic/id/32979. 

“Old Folks at Home; Way down upon the Swanee River.” Duke Digital Collections. Accessed October 30, 2021. https://repository.duke.edu/dc/hasm/b0951. 

​​“On This Day in Florida History – May 28, 1935 – Now Controversial ‘Old Folks at Home’ Becomes State Song.” Florida History Network – Your one-stop source for celebrating and preserving Florida’s past, today. Accessed December 6, 2021. http://www.floridahistorynetwork.com/may-28-1935—now-controversial-old-folks-at-home-becomes-state-song.html. 

Root, Deane L. “Foster, Stephen C(ollins).” Grove Music Online, October 16, 2013. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002252809?rskey=7S6WHZ#omo-9781561592630-e-1002252809-div1-5. 

“The Swanee River.” State Symbols USA. State Symbols USA. Accessed December 6, 2021. https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/florida/state-song/swanee-river.