Author Archives: butler

Romanticizing the West

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800px-Colorado_-_Branding_Calves_c._1900William Henry Jackson was tasked with exploring and surveying the American West at a time when America was expanding and the Manifest Destiny was still at the forefront of American ideology. Over his life of 99 years, Jackson became famous for his work with photochrom, such as the photo to the left from around 1900.[1] The branding of a calf is posed as a fairly leisurely activity, as a few of the characters stand around looking at their corral of cattle and the wide open space available to them in the West. Working for the government, Jackson often took exploration trips to photograph scenery along railroad routes and with his photography of beautiful natural landmarks, he even convinced Congress to create Yellowstone National Park. With photos like these, that show a decent life on the frontier and human’s domination over nature, Jackson’s narrow lens paints a Romantic image of the west, sure to keep out the fact that many Native Americans were displaced as a result.

Just as Jackson’s work had a lot to do with the image of the West to the rest of America, composers such as Virgil Thomson and Aaron Copland composed the sounds of the Western frontier, though 30 years later and for nostalgia instead of Manifest Destiny. In Virgil Thomson’s The Plow that Broke the Plains, a film made by the Works Progress Administration in 1936, the cattle are represented by this music.[2]

Doesn’t sound similar to this music from Aaron Copland’s Rodeo from 1942?[3]

The common folk song between the two is called “Old Paint,” a paint being a spotted horse, and the song said to be a common song sung by the cowboys of the west during their night shifts of protecting the cattle. Here cowboy folk music, again excluding Native Americans, is drawn on to paint what sounds like a lackadaisical and relaxed picture of the West. This is a nostalgic, romanticized reflection of cowboy culture much like Jackson’s romantic view of the West. The extent to which this relaxed cowboy life was a reality or the authenticity with which their folk music was presented in these classical genres is debatable.

For more about early 20th century composers shaping the American West, see this NPR article.

[1] William Jackson, “Colorado-Branding Calves,” photochrom on paper, Flatten Art Museum.

[2] Virgil Thomson, writer, Virgil Thomson: The Plow That Broke the Plains, The River, Conducted by Richard Kapp, Performed by Richard Kapp, Essay, Streaming Audio, Accessed April 28, 2015. http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/378497. 

[3] Aaron Copland writer, Appalachian Spring/Rodeo/Fanfare for the Common Man, Conducted by Louis Lane, Recorded January 1, 1982, Telarc, 1982, Streaming Audio, Accessed April 28, 2015. http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/2129722. 

Jazz at St. Olaf

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Lentjazz It seems St. Olaf has been hesitant to embrace Jazz as a sound musical genre, especially in regard to liturgical music. In this 1968 article of the Manitou Messenger, Ms. Berglund summarized a student jazz liturgy setting performed in chapel and asks questions that point to Jazz as a potentially profane and intrusive art form for worship. “Is jazz profaned by its association with night-clubs or can it also be a song of praise?”[1]

jazzarticle

Contrast this with an article from 1977, when The Preservation Hall Jazz Band visited St. Olaf in what the Manitou Messenger calls the “most enthusiastically received concert at St. Olaf.”[2] The Preservation Hall Jazz Band is made up of a pool of musicians that rotate over the years, but was started by Allan and Sandra Jaffe in 1961 New Orleans, who were interested in preserving the traditional jazz style free from commercial imperatives.[3] Becoming famous by touring and recording, Preservation Hall is internationally known and remains one of the popular tourist sites of New Orleans, so of course it was a big deal that they came to our humble little bubble at St. Olaf.

jazzstolaf

The writer goes on to say that “everybody has heard Dixieland jazz before, but this concert gave us all a chance to see and hear a jazz band doing it the way it was originally done. This style influenced every form of American music since 1900, from Joplin’s rags to Chicago’s rock.” Perhaps due to a lack of curriculum on jazz at St. Olaf at the time, or general lack of scholarship, the writer has a misconception that jazz influenced ragtime, when in reality the syncopated rhythms of ragtime along with the blues style are cited as the origins of jazz. In addition, to assume that the concert of 1977 was a presentation of how jazz was originally done is a pretty bold claim, considering any time a performance claims some kind of authenticity, there are certain details/styles included and excluded. These two examples suggest St. Olaf is not a little bubble, filled with scholarly prowess and immune to the world’s ideals. The stereotypes about the origins of jazz and its perceived development as a “profane” style pervade music history as well as St. Olaf history. We can’t say St. Olaf, as an academic and music institution, was above these problematic notions about Jazz then, so my question is, has much changed?

[1] Marcie Berglund, “Lent services feature Heckman’s jazz liturgy,” Manitou Messenger, March 1, 1968.

[2] Mike Stiegler, “Original Jazz Preserved for Olaf Audience,” Manitou Messenger, March 4, 1977.

[3]  Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd ed, s.v. “Preservation Hall Jazz Band.”

What sells sheet music?

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Have you ever noticed that many ragtime tunes sound the same? Listen to the following two clips for their similar harmonic motion/progressions, the similarity in rhythmic syncopation/complexity, and form. Each have a general intro and short repeated sections, which unless you have become very familiar with the tune are very hard to remember.

The Felicity Rag:

felicityrag

The Ragtime Goblin Man:

ragtimegoblin

How is it possible that publishing companies could sell something so similar sounding and make it popular? It is clear that the Felicity Rag’s cover draws on minstrel like, simian caricatures, while the Ragtime Goblin Man has an enticing cover with a devil-like character controlling two musicians who according to the lyrics will get caught by the goblin and be made to join his ragtime band. Even thought the tunes’ striking similarity make them seem unmarketable, they have been made unique and sensationalized by their evocative front cover art and titles/lyrics. Publishers, composers, and artists who could appeal to the popularity of minstrelsy, the exotic, or the romantic, had successful marketing strategies for popular music. On one hand, it is problematic to have popular tunes, that “represent” different meanings, sound the same because there is a whole lot more complexity to music across cultural/racial/imaginative boundaries. On the other hand, it would be inappropriate to put a minor mode or augmented second in the ragtime tune that is named for Jewish culture or another Other as was done in Schultzmeier Rag, a Yiddish novelty.172.106.000.webimage

Now, thinking about today’s popular music, with similar harmonic progressions, rhythmic variations, and subjects, the marketing strategies really haven’t changed that much. When you think about the image sold with the music, whether it is the caricatured lifestyle of a celebrity, or the sensational lyrics, today’s popular music continues these successful marketing strategies at the expense of perpetuating problematic stereotypes.

Count Basie vs. The Manhattan Transfer: “A Study in Brown”

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Count Basie, a famed jazz pianist and jazz orchestra leader, wrote a tune called “A Study in Brown.” It sounds like the average big band tune, with ample time for piano solos. We can only make inferences about Basie’s reason for that title and tune, such as the fact that jazz’s roots are in improvisation styles popular in African American bands of New Orleans, African rhythms, and the blues. When Duke Ellington wrote “Black, Brown, and Beige” in 1943, the connections and program were more obvious because places in the music clearly imitated the sound of hammers, African American spirituals, and included some lyrics. Listen to how “A Study in Brown” is more elusive to a statement like Ellington’s.[1] 

While the song was not Basie’s most popular and the intent behind Basie’s song is unknown, a few people have covered it. Below is a recording of Larry Clinton and his Orchestra in a recording from 1945. Notice, how the sound is smoother, less swung (except for the solo), and slower. Besides being a primarily white group, does the performance add another layer of meaning to the song? [2]

Furthermore, The Manhattan Transfer has made it popular by adding these lyrics.

[Intro:]
Picture this: Rhythm n’ happiness
Souls in bliss ‘n havin’ fun
(Oh no)
If you can’t there’s nothin’ to it
(Oh no)
I’m thinkin’ I have t’ paint you one

[Verse:]
I’m gonna paint a sepia panorama
So full of life the painting will come alive
Bathed in blues ‘n full of drama
An’ all the swing they needed so they’d survive
I’ll add some tans an’ yellow ocher
Such soul! So full of rhythm
An’ then some orange t’ tone up the black a bit
My goal is to be with ’em
Purple haze t’ lull the smoker
What swing! What syncopation
An cherry red t’ loosen the back a bit
That thing captured a nation

An’ then a mere patina of subtle green
Get down with me – you’ll dig my study in brown
To lighten up the purple n’ tone it down
Get down with me – tell about it all over town
A dancing glow to highlight the subtle scene
Get down with me – Dig how I’m paintin’ the town
An’ there you’ll have a study in brown
My study in brown

Well, git brown!
Oh yeah, brown is the pigment
Well, git down!
Oh yeah, that’s what cha’ really meant
Clown!
Oh yeah, that’s some study

We’re puttin’ down “A Study In Brown”
Coda: (That’s why we’re callin’ it, “A Study In Brown!”)
Git brown!
Oh yeah, brown is the pigment
N’ git down!
Oh yeah, that’s what cha’ really meant
Clown!
Oh yeah, that’s some study

Dig what I mean! It’s in the scene
Guitar solo
What cha’ talkin’ ’bout?
(Rhythm-A-Ning)
That’s my scene rhythm n’dancin’
(Rhythm-A-Ning)
You can add real romancin’
(Yep!)
I’ll come clean,
That’s the way I like it
Why’ start real thin, then put some color in
(Rhythm-A-Ning)
Fuschia hues blended with subtones
(Rhythm-A-Ning)
Spread them blues, blarin’ trombones
(Yep!)
Paint that scene
Just the way I like it
A dab or two, that’s how to do it.

Why’ talkin’ loud, hope people hear why’
Hey dad! Mama’s gonn git ‘cha soon as you git home!
That’s the ticket
But where’d why’fin’ th’ wicket?

Certainly, this adds a layer of meaning, and perhaps not a good layer….On one hand, performing covers gives the music more recognition and audiences. However, the lines add a meaning that wasn’t present in the original song, with words that insinuate a certain situation that brown is “bathed in blues and full of drama…all the swing they needed so they would survive.” The lyrics are a white perception of a black musical lifestyle, and the instrumentation, primarily vocal imitation of instruments, has a much different sound and connotation than the original. Additionally, as Dai Griffiths says in his chapter on cover songs and identity, when comparing white and black performances of a song we can’t “underestimate the asymmetry of power between black and white.”[3] We have to ask questions of power and exploitation when considering the Clinton and Manhattan Transfer covers of a Count Basie song. So, can covers be valuable? Perhaps we can’t go as far to say that they shouldn’t be allowed, but then how can we add layers of meaning with covers without exploiting/wrongly appropriating? How can we communicate the complexity of covers to the average person who will listen to the Manhattan Transfer cover and not even know Count Basie?

[1] Count Basie, performer, One Note Samba, Recorded May 11, 2009, Synergie OMP, 2009, Streaming Audio, Accessed April 6, 2015, http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/1019835. 

[2] This Is Larry Clinton, Recorded June 1, 2010, Hallmark, 2010, Streaming Audio, Accessed April 6, 2015, http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/li_upc_5050457974817. 

[3] Dai Griffiths, “Cover versions and the sound of identity in motion,” In Popular Music Studies, edited by David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus, 51-64, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

 

Music is My Mistress

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“It’s not unlawful to sing or play any kind of music in the United States of America, no matter how good or bad it sounds. Jazz is based on the sound of our native heritage. It is an American idiom with African roots-a trunk of soul with limbs reaching in every direction, to the frigid North, the exotic East, the miserable, swampy South, and the swinging Wild West.”[1]

IMG_1022

Left- Duke Ellington’s autobiography; Right- Mercer Ellington’s memoir of his father

This passage from Duke Ellington’s autobiography, Music is my Mistress, hints at his plain writing style and his lifetime success in jazz. Ellington wrote his biography for the celebration of his 70th birthday in 1973, but its intent is not entirely clear. While he has a few revelations on music, God, and his Sacred conventions, to share, most of the book is spent listing the unique experiences he had and the many people that he worked with or that influenced him, all of whom are described as “good guys.” As Eileen Southern said in her book review in The Black Perspective in Music, “a great deal of essential data is missing…nowhere in the book is a hint of the pain Ellington must have experienced.”[2]

In contrast, his son Mercer Ellington wrote a memoir of his father that painted a much different picture of his life. Perhaps tainted by his experience of not seeing much of his father, Mercer summarizes some of the moments when Ellington was sidelined because of his race, such as when Ellington wrote Black, Beige, and Tan as a parallel and critique to African American history and received a patronizing response from critics or the many moments that Ellington had to prove his bands’ worth in comparison and competition with white jazz bands.

Perhaps the fact that Ellington left out the more bleak and tough moments of his life shows his view on protesting racial issues. Mercer quotes his father, “’I think a statement of social protest in the theater should be made without saying it.’”[3] His piece, Black Beige and Tan, and his 1963 cover of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue have undertones of critique on white appropriation of jazz by the virtuosity, styles, and stories that he implements, but they have to be inferred. Arguably, these conflicting accounts also show Ellington contributing to the white narrative of jazz. Ellington’s success was not only because of his talent as a musician and bandleader, but he did not outwardly fight the racist structures controlling his profession. Since his autobiography was published at a time when Ellington was celebrated by white audiences as a successful American jazz musicians, it makes sense that he chose to leave his African American experience out.

 

[1] Edward Kennedy Ellington, Music is my Mistress, (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1973), 436.

[2] Eileen Southern, “Reviewed Work: Music is My Mistress,” The Black Perspective in Music, 2, no. 2 (1974): 211-212.

[3] Mercer Ellington, Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir, (Boston: Hougton Mifflin Company, 1978), 94.

Langston Hughes on African American folk

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It isn’t very often in history that we read African American views on African American music. Langston Hughes, who wrote a column for an African American newspaper called The Chicago Defender, published several articles reclaiming African American folk music after jazz, the blues, and really much of American folk music was influenced by that tradition and style. In his poetic storytelling, and sometimes angry tone, Hughes gets at an issue of American music-that it has consistently turned African American folk music tradition into popular music, entertainment, etc. and reaped the monetary benefits while casting authenticity aside.

His article titled “Slavery and Leadbelly are Gone, But the Old Songs Go Singing on,” complains that African Americans have forgotten their slave heritage. “In 1963 we will be one hundred years free. Have you forgotten that you were once a slave? Is it a memory you do not want to remember?” On one hand, singers like Leadbelly could be popular because there was a certain time distance from slavery so that musicians weren’t judged “Uncle Toms.”[1] On the other hand, there is some tension as to how the folk music out of the slave tradition should be remembered, because clearly Leadbelly’s songs that embody oppression and images of slavery remember it much differently than revivals of the blues and spirituals during the 50s and 60s.

slavery and leadbelly are gone

Chicago Defender, 1954 click image for linked article [3]

In another issue, “The Influence of Negro Music On American Entertainment,” Hughes celebrates the pervasiveness of African American folk music in American music. “The Negro has influenced all of American popular song and dance, and that influence has been on the whole, joyous and sound…America’s music is soaked in our rhythms.” It is no coincidence that Langston Hughes was writing during the civil rights movement, when African Americans often re-claimed and re-defined their identity in an effort to create unity and political momentum.[2] Many of the folk musicians singing about civil rights, however, were white musicians making money off a style that used the folk idiom to appeal to the popular masses. Langston Hughes is quick to criticize this, calling into question the definition of folk music, how it is used, how it is remembered, and who has the right and responsibility to perform it.

langston hughes

Chicago Defender, 1953 click image for linked article [4]

[1] Richard Crawford, America’s Musical Life: A History, New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2001, 746.

[2] Reebee Garofalo, “Popular Music and the Civil Rights Movement,” Rockin the Boat: mass music and mass movements, ed. Reebee Garofalo, Boston: South End Press, 1992.

[3] Langston Hughes, “Slavery and Leadbelly are Gone, but the Old Songs Go Singing On,” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Sep 04, 1954, http://search.proquest.com/docview/492889401?accountid=351.

[4] Langston Hughes, “The Influence of Negro Music on American Entertainment,” Chicago Defender (National Edition),(1921-1967), Apr 25, 1953, http://search.proquest.com/docview/492962325?accountid=351.

Double Appropriation

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“Chinaman, Chinaman
wash ‘em laundry all day
Chinaman, Chinaman
smoke ‘em pipe they say OR Wants his freedom that way
He’s got a little China gal
She love him all right,
He love little China gal, too,
So he sings to her ev’ry night
Sung Fong Lou, Sung Fong Lou
Listen to those chinese blues;
Honey gal, I’m crying to you
Won’t you open that door and let me in?
China man cries, baby, won’t you let me in
Chinaman feels his habit (OR lovin’) coming on again.
She cries to him “what’s the matter with you
I got those Ipshing, Hong Kong Ockaway Chinese Blues”

 

Recording of Irving Kaufman singing the Chinese Blues

Recording of Sousa’s Band playing the Chinese Blues

Written by Oscar Gardner, this song was not only published in a Treasury of the Blues by the “father of the blues,” W.C. Handy and recorded by George Gershwin, but also was, according to the critical notes by Abbe Niles, “the first and best by a white man, and had wide popularity in 1915.” [1] Niles’ notes also clarify that “Chinese Blues” falls under the category “blues-songs,” which do not follow the classical 12-bar blues form, but include songs that have any relation to the blues. “Chinese Blues” only fits the blues category in that it tells the story and emotion of the unrequited lover and there are a couple blue, or flatted notes, to the melody. We know that the early 20th century saw a trend of appropriating the blues to label any song that had ragtime rhythms, blue notes, and the longing emotion, even though the blues specifically came out of African American oppression.[2] In other words, Oscar Gardner, a white composer, tapped into the commercial blues genre in anyway he could to make money, and W.C. Handy benefitted by publishing it in his anthology of the blues.

As if this level of mis-labeling isn’t enough, the song also reflects racist stereotypes about the Chinese and their music. While the published music looks like an average ragtime or jazz arrangement, both period performances of it from the Library of Congress (Sousa’s band and Irving Kaufman) recordings emphasize an “oriental sound,” namely flutes slurring up to their notes and percussion including a gong and woodblocks. The lyrics “Sung, Fong, Lou,” though they don’t actually have a real translation in Chinese, also try to evoke the Orient. Additionally, in the lyrics depending on which version you look at, the Chinese are either washing laundry all day in order to get their freedom or suffering from an opium/other drug addiction. So, in sum “Chinese Blues” presents an example of a white composer using a genre traditional to African American oppression to subjugate the Chinese.

[1] Oscar Gardner, “Chinese Blues,” A Treasury of the Blues, ed. W.C. Handy, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1926), 184.

[2] Elijah Wald, Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), Ch. 1, “What is Blues?” 1-13.

 

 

Biological Difference or Power Dynamic?: Conceptions of African American Musicians

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Claims to justify the inferiority of the black race often sought evidence from science, as seen in the article below from The Musical Visitor in 1895. According to the short announcement, biological differences in black people prohibit their ability to sing European art music and sound like white people as well as their ability to play an instrument.

negro music

Article from The Musical Visitor [3]

In contrast, we know of a few African American concert singers during the 19th century who toured and had classical musical training.[1] 120 years later, here is Leontyne Price, just to help clear up that misconception as well. What scholars have suggested then, is that African American concert singers chose not to sing like a white person because they couldn’t make any money singing that way in the racist show business world, and furthermore people wanted to hear the African voice.

Perhaps the most appalling part of the article however explains that black people cannot help imitating the white man’s music and “the race instinct in the negro does not incline toward persistency of purpose” that it takes to play a musical instrument. 35 years prior to this, a young man named Thomas Bethune provides period proof against these scientific misconceptions. Blind Tom was born a blind slave, but by the age of four, showed great interest in the piano and great talent in imitating the sounds he heard, spending many hours a day learning the piano by ear. Tom’s master then paid the best musicians to come play for Tom so that he could imitate them, therefore gaining a fairly high musical education. Blind Tom’s case may be unique because of what his blind condition allowed him to achieve (namely, not doing slave labor), but there is no question that hard work and training went into Tom’s musical genius, not just talent. His international fame as a musical genius and his many compositions are evidence enough to debunk hypotheses such as the one in the above article, yet conceptions about the inferiority of black musicians persisted.

blind tom

 

To add another layer of complexity in this story, Tom’s master, General James Bethune, hired him out to tour all over the country, earning the Bethune family and his managers approximately $3,000 per month during his performance career. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, Tom was a slave to his performance managers and master, not receiving a penny of the touring profits. Articles advertising his performance raved about his ability to improvise and play multiple tunes at once, but also portrayed him as an exhibit, often referring to him as “it” or “the idiot” and described with barbaric features.[2] In other words, Tom’s talent and hard work did not prove the musical potential and value of African Americans as humans, rather is evidence to show that white people became interested in black musicians and black music when they could make money from it and when they could control it.

[1] Sonja Gable-Wilson, “Let Freedom Sing! Four African-American Concert Singers in Nineteenth Century America.,” Doctorate Thesis, University of Florida, 2005.

[2] Geneva Handy Southall, Blind Tom, the Black Pianist-Composer Continually Enslaved, Lanham, Maryland: Scarcrow Press, Inc. 1999.

[3] “NEGRO MUSIC,” The Musical Visitor, a Magazine of Musical Literature and Music (1883-1897) 24, no. 7 (07, 1895): 179. http://search.proquest.com/docview/137505026?accountid=351.