About Cole

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at St. Olaf College

Recapturing the Dignity of the American Indian

The caricature of the savage Native American is all too common in the history of American Art. This is especially true in  art of the American West, rife with its depictions of pioneers and cowboys fighting off Indians and the elements in the name of survival and Manifest Destiny.

Some turn of the century artists like Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926) and Frederic Remington (1861-1909) managed to rehabilitate this image, depicting ways in which Native Americans (and men in particular) could be pleasant to look at artistically. In the masculine world of the West, this primarily meant depicting them as active participants in the drama of uncharted territory. However, this also reinforced the notion that American Indians led a violent, uncivilized life.

Painting of a buffalo hunt by Frederic Remington

Painting of a buffalo hunt by Frederic Remington

"For Supremacy" by Charles Russell

“For Supremacy” by Charles Russell

This serves as a marked contrast to the Native American Portrait Study by Olaf Carl Seltzer (1877-1957) in the Flaten Art Museum Collection. The first word that came to mind when I saw it was ‘dignity’; the second was ‘still’.

OCS

Seltzer lived in Great Falls, Montana from the time he was 19 until his death. From that, I inferred (with the consultation of a map of Native American tribal territories) that this study is of individuals belonging to the Blackfoot tribe. A simple google image search confirmed this suspicion, as I found numerous portraits of Blackfoot members whose hairstyles and earrings strongly resemble those in the study.

BF1BF2

Of course I don’t mean to suggest through this analysis that the Blackfoot people or any other group of Native Americans needs a white man to recapture their dignity. But it is refreshing to see that there is at least one instance in American art of someone capturing the dignity of Native Americans authentically not through violence, but through still portraits. Even if it is just a study.

In studying the history of American music, we have seen multiple times how non-white cultures have been repeatedly misrepresented. The violence latent in portraits by Russell and Remington can be found in stereotypical musical depictions of Native Americans that rely on similarly simplistic and vulgar generalizations: I’m thinking especially of pulsing drums, war-whoops, and melodies that only use pentatonic scales.

Even recent depictions rely on the simplistic drum patterns and repetitive melodies that have been stuck to Native American’s since the beginning, even when the atmosphere isn’t as frenetic, violent, or (in the case of Peter Pan) partially sexualized.

Who then is the Seltzer of American music? In other words, is there anyone that we can point to as capturing the essence of Native Americans without cheap theatrics? Perhaps the closest is Edward MacDowell’s Indian Suite (1892), which utilizes (alleged) Native American melodies. Luke provides an excellent study of this depiction here.

The unfortunate truth remains that we are relying on inauthentic depictions of Native Americans by whites to explore Indian-ness. But isn’t to say that there aren’t any Native American composers trying to do the same; a simple YouTube search shows otherwise. Unfortunately, these composers don’t hold a firm place in the current music history curriculum. While articles like this are a start, we as musicologists must strive to support authentic depictions of Native American music while remaining critical of the Russell’s and Remington’s of American music.

Miles Davis’ Jazz-Rock: Dichotomies of Sound and Experience

The cover of Miles Davis’ 1970 album Bitches Brew has in many ways become more iconic than the album itself.[1] Illustrated by Mati Klarwein, the mystical, Afro-centric imagery fused with psychedelic textures intensely deals with contradictory themes and ideas that were undoubtedly relevant in American political and racial culture at the time. Simultaneously, Klarwein’s contradictory images seem to capture the conflict inherent in Davis’ work throughout his career: how does a jazz giant like Davis continue to innovate without moving too far away from jazz?

The gatefold cover of Bitches Brew, illustrated by Klarwein

The gatefold cover of Bitches Brew, illustrated by Klarwein

His answer was to explore contradictory influences even further. Bitches Brew spearheaded the jazz-rock-fusion movement, replacing numerous components of his ensemble with electronic instruments, and rejecting traditional jazz structures in favor of the looser, long-form rock style. Davis also utilized a massive, rotating group of musicians, on numerous tracks using three keyboardists, two drummers, and two bassists.

This dichotomy was inherent to reception of the album as well. While some lauded Davis’ creativity in synthesizing what was commonly viewed as two divergent forces in American music, jazz purists thought that Davis had crossed the line and had abandoned jazz altogether. Critic Bob Rusch even went so far as to say, “this to me was not great Black music, but I cynically saw it as part and parcel of the commercial crap that was beginning to choke and bastardize the catalogs of such dependable companies as Blue Note and Prestige….” [2]

Davis singlehandedly changed many conceptions of what made jazz and jazz musicians

Davis singlehandedly changed many conceptions of what made jazz and jazz musicians

In typical Davis fashion, his response to the jazz establishment was essentially a giant middle finger: a second electronic, jazz-rock album titled Live-Evil, released in 1971.[3] As the title suggests, it featured live recordings by Davis and his personnel at the Cellar Door music club in Washington DC, most of whom also appeared on Bitches Brew. But the “live” component made up only half of the music, the rest of which was recorded in Columbia Studios. Again, we see Davis exploring dichotomies in the later stages of his career, balancing the chaotic violence of a live performance with the hyper-controlled realm of a studio session.

The cover art (again provided by Klarwein) provides a striking realization of this strange contrast. The pregnant, yet skinny black woman on the front is a perfect foil to the pale, grotesque, bloated monster on the back. As part of the ‘reflective’ nature of the album, the upper-left corner of the back says “Selim Sevad Evil”: “Miles Davis Live” backwards. John Szwed’s biography of Davis provides some clarity as to the origins and meaning of the cover art, via a quote from Klarwein:

“I was doing the picture of the pregnant woman for the cover and the day I finished, Miles called me up and said, ‘I want a picture of life on one side and evil on the other.’ And all he mentioned was a toad. Then next to me was a copy of Time Magazine which had J. Edgar Hoover on the cover, and he just looked like a toad. I told Miles I found the toad.”[4]

MILES-DAVIS_LIVE-EVIL

Gatefold cover of Live-Evil, illustrated by Klarwein

Ironically, Live-Evil was much more well received than Bitches Brew, despite the fact that it took what critics dislike about BB to further extremes. It was lauded for its accessibility and musical purity, even though the tracks had greater levels of electronic manipulation.

But perhaps the biggest difference between the holistic art of the vinyls is the liner notes. Bitches Brew contains a lengthy, poetic assessment of the music by Ralph J. Gleason, American music critic, founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine, and cofounder of the Monterey Jazz Festival. Its an abstract piece of writing that seemingly rejects the nitpicking of other critics concerned with such subjective notions as genre:

“so be it with the music we have called jazz and which i never knew what it was because it was so many different things to so many different people each apparently contradicting the other and one day i flashed that it was music.
that’s all, and when it was great music it was great art and it didn’t have anything at all to do with labels and who says mozart is by definition better than sonny rollins and to whom.”[3]

But when one opens the centerfold of Live-evil expecting to find another passionate defense of Davis’ innovations, they instead find a series of candid pictures of Miles.

MD portraits

Not concerned with critics, nor legacies, these liner notes simply say “This is me.” Or perhaps, “Me is This.”


Notes:     Both Vinyls are available in Halvorson Music Library. Bitches Brew call number: M1366.D3 B5.  Live-evil call number: M1366.D3 L5.

Entire Bitches Brew liner notes by Gleason available at: http://aln3.albumlinernotes.com/Bitches_Brew.html

[1] Davis, Miles. Bitches Brew. Columbia, 1970. LP.

[2] Rusch, Bob. Ron Wynn, ed. All Music Guide to Jazz. AllMusic. M. Erlewine, V. Bogdanov (1st ed.). San Francisco (1994): Miller Freeman Books. p. 197.

[3] Davis, Miles. Live-Evil. Columbia, 1972. LP.

[4] Szwed, John. So What: the Life of Miles Davis. Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (January 9, 2004) p. 319.

The Great Hope of Whitewashing in 1890s ‘Ethiopian Song’

“Would you Paint All the Colored People White?”

The titular question of what the sheet music claims is “Walter Dauphin’s Great Ethiopian Song” sounds simultaneously hopeful and skeptical. One on hand it seems to be pleading to God on high to make the ‘Colored People’ white, easing their lives of trial and hierarchical suffering. On the other, it seems to be asking, “if you could, would you?”

PaintPaint 2

A closer look at the text of the song affirms that the desired emotion of the song is hope, as the idea of painting them is a scheme for the speaker to do the things he’s been “dreaming” about. Presumably, becoming white would allow this individual greater freedoms previously unable to them. This seems like a truthful sentiment coming from a black person in 1893, but of course thats not really the case. The title page also says “Sung with Great Success by ‘The Eldridges’ and all the Leading Minstrels”, confirming that this was definitely a piece associated with blackface performances, though this doesn’t change the fact that this music is surprisingly and spiritually tender.

On the other end of the spectrum is “When the Black Folks Turn White”, a jaunty tune by Ragtime composer Joe Haydn (Not Franz Joseph). This 1898 composition has an extremely different tone from the Dauphin, with a text stating that God’s creation of African Americans was an accident. The ‘joy’ of the piece then, emerges from humorous impossibility of Blacks ever achieving a better life status.

WhenCoverWhen1

While their is a hope for salvation with the coming of the millennium, it doesn’t make sense for this idea to be taken seriously with the light nature of the sheet music, especially compared the religiosity latent in Dauphin’s composition. Instead, the significance of both these pieces is that they deal with the idea not of blackface, but of whitewashing. What does this say about blackface performers that they would be willing to adopt blackface in order to sing about wishing they were white? Is it possible they were actually grateful for the life they were given based on their skin color? Or were they just rubbing it in?


Haydn: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/hasm_b0188/#info

Dauphin: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/hasm_b0215/

Bird and Bebop Live On

When Charlie Parker died on March 12, 1955, he left a massive void in the world of jazz. While tragic, it was inevitable: a long battle with heroin addiction had threatened his life in the past. Though he didn’t invent the genre, he was widely considered to be one of the “fathers of bebop” who had galvanized the transformation of Duke Ellington’s “specialized jungle rhythm” into the virtuosic, intellectual, and cutthroat style of post-war jazz.[1]

Charlie 'Yardbird' Parker (1920-1955)

Charlie ‘Yardbird’ Parker (1920-1955)

Less than a month after his death, the national edition of the Chicago Defender suggested that Parker’s passing also signaled the end of bebop. The article claimed that without ‘Yardbird’ Parker “time and wear may render [bebop] worthless commercially.”[1]

While this concern may seem legitimate in the face of tremendous loss, modern hindsight rejects the notion that death can halt the development of musical style, particularly when that development stems from a genius. Parker, aside from being responsible for the partial transformation of musical sound, was also responsible for the transformation of musical thought. He revolutionized the way jazz musicians though about harmonic approaches to improvisation. He also drastically increased the use of contrafact composition (composing over existing harmonic material), expanding the framework in which jazz musicians could operate and providing a model for how they could develop their musical chops.

For all of the praise that the Chicago Defender heaps on ‘Yardbird’ for his contributions to jazz, they neglect to mention why this was his nickname. The answer is provided in another national edition five years later:

[2]

The anonymous author describes a person that, trapped within the gritty and difficult world of the inner-city, finds consolation in thinking about Bird and memorializing him through graffiti. For him, Bird (Parker himself as well as the nickname) symbolizes the ability to know “the freedom inside his head that allowed him to dream- and fly up, out and away” from the challenging circumstances of his life.[2] The author invokes the name of Dadelus, the Greek man who dreamt to fly away from his prison cell via his own ingenuity. Dadelus serves as a parallel to Bird, who used his innovative music to fly away the past and change the landscape of jazz, becoming a mythological figure in his own right.

With these two articles together, it almost seems as though the latter serves as a direct answer to the former. Bird’s music will not die because people’s dreams will not die. And as long as people continue to dream, the creativity and passion of Bird will be memorialized in both stone and flesh. The connection of flight and dreams as they relate to Parker remained relevant into the 1960s, as jazz musicians reacted to the development of the civil rights movement. As Bird did before them, they used their own perspectives to mold jazz into an expression of freedom. Bird and his music lived on, and will continue to as long as musicians continue to dream.


[1] Special. 1955. “Death of ‘Yardbird’ Parker may Affect Bebop’s Fight to ‘Live’.” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Mar 26, 6. http://search.proquest.com/docview/492930917?accountid=351.

[2] F.L.B. 1960. “Bird Lives.” Daily Defender (Daily Edition) (1956-1960), Apr 04, 1. http://search.proquest.com/docview/493786203?accountid=351.

The ‘Practical Idealism’ of “Porgy and Bess”

The day after the premiere of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Colonial Theatre in New York City, a review of the performance appeared in the New York Times that would both articulate the positive aspects of the opera while also aptly summarizing its importance to American music. A portion of the opening paragraph reads:

“An audience which assembled, uncertain whether they should find a heavy operatic work or something more resembling musical comedy, discovered a form of entertainment which stands midway between the two. The immediate response was one of enthusiasm that grew rather than diminished as the evening progressed.” [1]

In other words, Porgy and Bess was an immediate hit because it successfully bridged the gap between the styles of European grand opera and American musical theater in the style of tin-pan alley. By extension, Gershwin was cementing his reputation as the quintessential American composer: a perfect combination of elite artist and regular American. While this synthesis may appear to be a contradiction, there are a number of descriptions in this and other contemporaneous reviews that support this statement.

A scene from the original Broadway projection of “Porgy and Bess”.

 

From the New York Amsterdam News:

“The first act represents George Gershwin’s most serious writing. It is Gershwin struggling for a greater expression, endeavoring to transcend into the world of great music. Contrapuntally speaking, he does. This is evident in the crap game fugue.” [2]

The author (Allen Gilbert) goes on to compare Gershwin to “Brahms, Bach, or Beethoven” for his clarity of theme in symphonic writing, effectively lifting him into a pantheon of greatness. Yet, Gilbert goes on to call the second act a “let down”, describing it as a musical side-show that more resembles a smorgasbord of primitive American music (hot jazz, broadway ballads, negro spirituals) than it does the work of a grand master. He attributes to Gershwin a false quote suggesting that opera is for the “masses” but that they cannot understand it if it’s not dumbed down for them.

But it is the third act that truly shows Gershwin’s greatness, a “gathering together of the parts” that utilizes both ends of the spectrum without compromising on beauty and emotional power. It is with this in mind that the author crowns Gershwin as the “practical idealist”.

While this is a deserving title for the young composer, we can see quite clearly how mind-numbingly kitschy this is, yet another example of American determinism seeking out the next great musical representative for the U.S. of A. This is especially frustrating when we consider the most problematic yet simultaneously inspiring aspect of the work and its initial performances: its nearly all-Black cast. While the New York Times review emphasizes this historic achievement (even including it in the subtitle), the New York Amsterdam review doesn’t even mention it. The first lauds each cast member and the “characterizing detail” given to a normally inhuman and primitive setting; the latter lauds only Gershwin and his ability to humanize to black music without mention of the African Americans involved.

I don’t mean to suggest that Gershwin is responsible for this discrepancy, but it is worth remembering that in the evolving world of American art music in the early 1900s, Porgy and Bess may have been more akin to minstrelsy than to grand opera for many white audiences. Though an article in the Chicago Defender less than a month later claims that “race music is dignified” by Porgy and Bess, this primarily African-American viewpoint doesn’t necessarily reflect a popular perspective of the work. [3] While Gershwin’s “idealistic” genius and his roster of memorable songs is undoubtedly responsible for the works success, it is fascinating to see how the “practical” matters of the performances may have been ignored.


[1] Special to The New York Times. “Gershwin’s Opera Makes Boston Hit.” New York Times (1923-Current File), Oct 01, 1935. http://search.proquest.com/docview/101340968?accountid=351.

[2] Allen, Gilbert. “George Gershwin, Practical Idealist.” The New York Amsterdam News (1922-1938), Nov 16, 1935. http://search.proquest.com/docview/226210087?accountid=351.

[3] McMillan, Alan. “‘Porgy and Bess’ Scores on Broadway.” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Oct 19, 1935. http://search.proquest.com/docview/492522466?accountid=351.

“Precious Lord Take my Hand”: from Selma to the Grammy Awards

In Ava DuVernay’s 2014 film “Selma”, poetic license is taken in depicting the role gospel singer Mahalia Jackson played in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches. During a moment of doubt, Martin Luther King Jr. (played by David Oyelowo) phones Jackson (portrayed by R&B singer Ledisi) and asks her to share “the Lord’s voice” with him. She answers by singing the immortal gospel classic, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”. This song was a standard at prayer meetings and Civil Rights marches, and was even performed by Jackson at King’s funeral. It was her showstopper, and the song that was requested the most from her by both King and her audiences worldwide.

At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards on February 8th, 2015, the song was performed as a prelude to a “Selma tribute”, which featured R&B artist John Legend and rapper Common performing their Academy Award Winning Song from the film titled “Glory”. However, the song was performed not by Ledisi but by the undisputed modern queen of R&B: the one and only Beyoncé.

http://youtu.be/kcNWxlHaAMo

This inspiring and powerful performance elicited wide acclaim, though some were quick to point out that a true tribute would have featured Ledisi (who was in attendance), rather than Queen Bey. Criticism escalated when it became apparent that Beyoncé herself had approached Legend and Common about performing the song, as it wasn’t originally planned to be part of the show. However, amid the accusations of self-promotion and concerns over unfair exclusion, the opportunity for an discussion regarding style was unfortunately missed.

On one hand it is easy to criticize Beyoncé’s performance if we are comparing to the historical standard set by Jackson. It is fair to say that Ledisi followed this standard in preparing for “Selma”, mimicking some of Jackson’s techniques and melodic alterations. (The album the below performance is taken from is available in the St.Olaf Music Library, call number M2198.J3 M3 [v.1])

http://youtu.be/N1ceCpU25vA

For live video performances by Jackson, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0a8RNdnhNohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as1rsZenwNc

Whereas Jackson displays virtuosity in the emotional range of her voice, Beyoncé relies more on virtuosic vocal runs more akin to flashy pop music than to a traditional gospel style. The spiritual component of Jackson’s version is amplified by the seemingly extemporaneous approach to the melody by Jackson and the fluid approach to the harmonic changes by her pianist and organist. Contrastingly, aspects of Beyoncé’s version seem meticulously rehearsed, from the timing her background singers movements to her rather parodic head movements at about 2:10.

But I think the biggest discrepancy between Jackson and Beyoncé’s performance is a matter of visual and emotional, rather than musical, aesthetics. In the live performances posted above, Jackson stands alone in the middle of the barren stage, barely moving but to look up to the sky. As the text suggests, she is powerless and none but God can help her in her time of trial. Beyoncé could not be more different, not only in complete control of her own body but seemingly in control of the 12 men behind her. She even cuts off the organ at the end! While this powerful depiction of an African-American woman is inspiring, it undeniably draws away from the meaning of the song, especially in conjunction with the accusation that this was more promotional stunt than impassioned performance. When Jackson performed, she would humbly tell the audience “I’m so happy for the way you are receiving me. I love applause. But you know I’m a gospel singer and I like to hear a few ‘amens’. ” [1]

That isn’t to say that any of this is bad, or that Ledisi would have performed any better or differently than Beyoncé. No one can or should deny how impressive and moving this performance is. Ledisi herself defended Beyoncé better than anyone.

“The song, ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord,’ has been going on forever. It started with the queen, Mahalia. The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin (who sang the song at Jackson’s funeral, in 1972). Then I was able to portray and sing my version of the song. And now we have Beyonce. I’m a part of history. Look at it like that, instead of looking at it as a negative. To me it’s a great, great honor to be a part of a legacy of a great song, by Thomas Dorsey.” [2]

To this point, performances by Franklin and Whitney Houston are much more radical and pop-infused than those of Jackson and Ledisi, which arguably stay truer to recorded performances by Dorsey. But perhaps this development is a good thing. The ability of musicians (and more importantly, African-American women) to freely influence this song is a great thing, and stands for what Jackson herself fought and sang for. Dr.Benjamin Mays elegy for Jackson said it best:

“One can only hope that this great and good woman will never die but that her life will inspire so many young people that she will live on throughout eternity. In this way she will become immortal.” [3]

He may as well have been speaking of the song too.


 

 

[1] Duckett, Alfred. “Mahalia Jackson Like Applause (Beg Pardon) Amens at Concerts.” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Jun 01, 1957. http://search.proquest.com/docview/492918933?accountid=351.

[2] Fensterstock, Allison. “Grammys 2015: Beyonce takes on Mahalia Jackson, and Ledisi has a perfect response.” The Times-Picayune, Feb 08, 2015. http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2015/02/grammys_2015_beyonce_takes_on.html

[3] Mays, Benjamin E. “Reminiscing about Mahalia Jackson.” Chicago Daily Defender (Big Weekend Edition) (1966-1973), Feb 26, 1972. http://search.proquest.com/docview/493504320?accountid=351.

The Timeless Light of the “Midnight Special”

When John and Alan Lomax visited the Louisiana State Penitentiary of Angola, Louisiana in July of 1933 they were in search of folksongs. Little did they know that they would instead come across a musical star, whose treatment of a popular prison song would transcend the boundary between folk and pop styles. The musician was Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, and the song was “Midnight Special”.

Angola, Louisiana prison compound. Leadbelly in the foreground.

Angola, Louisiana prison compound, July 1933. Leadbelly in the foreground.

Born in the late 1880’s to the oppressive cotton fields of Louisiana, Ledbetter feared only one thing: failure. It was from this determination that he received the nickname “Lead Belly”, as he could outwork, outfight, and out-sing anyone who dared challenge him. “I wants to be the best – the king” he would say. He even went so far as to call himself “The King of the Twelve-String Guitar”, a talent that he used to exploit the Texas prison system he entered in 1917 on a thirty year sentence for assault. He famously used his musical talent to garner the attention of Texas Governor Pat Neff, who pardoned and released Ledbetter from prison in 1925.

It was in this same spirit that he was brought to the Lomax’s attention in 1933. Incarcerated once again for assault, Ledbetter sufficiently wooed the Lomax’s that they convinced Louisiana Governor O.K. Allen to pardon Ledbetter. Thereafter, he worked as John Lomax’s chauffeur and relocated to the Northeastern United States, often traveling to Washington D.C. to record for Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress.

Volume I of the LOC Lead Belly collection.

Midnight Special as it appears in "The Leadbelly Songbook"

Midnight Special as it appears in “The Leadbelly Songbook”

Midnight Special by Lead Belly, Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200196310/

Volume I of the LOC collection is titled “Midnight Special”, and though it contains memorable treatments of many classic folk-tunes, the titular song is Ledbetter’s most famous and influential adaptation. Thought to originate among prisoners in the South, the refrain of the song references a passenger train of the same name, the light of which shone into cells as it passed by:

Let the Midnight Special shine her light on me,                                                                Let the Midnight Special shine her ever-loving light on me.

If the “ever-loving light” of the train landed on a prisoner, the inmates believed that man would soon be set free.

When Alan Lomax first recorded Ledbetter’s version of the song he attributed the authorship to Ledbetter. However, this is fundamentally untrue. In addition to the fact that it was a popular prison song, it had been recorded commercially by Sam Collins as the “Midnight Special Blues” in 1927. His version seems much more like an extemporaneous performance of a folk song, while Ledbetter’s is a precise arrangement of the melody, harmonic progression, and guitar accompaniment.

In this vein, it may be fair to say that Lead Belly didn’t write the song, but did ‘compose’ a version of it that achieved mass popularity and lasting influence in the public conception, as heard in versions by Creedence Clearwater Revival….

…. and ABBA.

While both versions seem to emerge from Ledbetter’s arrangement, the ABBA version is particularly notable due to its seemingly contradictory nature: why is a Swedish pop group performing an African American prison song? According to the official ABBA website, this song was performed as part of a medley of American folk songs on a charity record the group contributed to in 1975. The artists carefully selected songs that “were in the public domain as far as copyright was concerned” in order to avoid composer royalties. Despite this, the site recognizes Ledbetter’s “distinctive arrangement of the song that made it truly famous” as the inspiration for this version.

To conclude, “Midnight Special” exemplifies a major problem regarding folk music and its chronicling: differentiating between the folk song and popular versions. When do we lend credit to individuals and their renderings? How do we identify legitimate folk versions? While these questions may be difficult to answer, they ought to be considered as we examine popular reactions to folk music.

Questions of Originality and “The Genesis of the Negro Spiritual”

When the Fisk Jubilee Singers began to perform “slave songs” on their tours, this style exploded in popularity and was hailed as a rejuvenating form of American song. Additionally, these songs were accepted as a legitimate contribution to American music by African Americans and weren’t subject to the sort of derision that other forms of African art had been in the recent past. Unsurprisingly, many people had problems with the notion that these slave songs were the slaves own work, and numerous music critics and commentators voiced concerns that this music comprised of unoriginal rehashes of white, European descended hymnody.

Perhaps the champion of this ‘white defense’ was George Pullen Jackson (1874-1953), American folksong scholar who specialized in southern shape note singing. His belief in the need for white reclamation of spirituals coalesced most famously in his 1933 book White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands, but the most upsetting and clearly politicized version of his argument came a year earlier in the article “The Genesis of the Negro Spiritual”, published in the controversial and irreverent magazine The American Mercury.

Screen Shot 2015-02-22 at 9.19.43 PMScreen Shot 2015-02-22 at 9.23.15 PM

Left: The opening of Jackson’s article. Right: Comparisons of colonial song tunes and camp meeting variations.

Frustrated by what he perceives as an unfair appropriation of camp revivalist songs, Jackson offers textual and musical examples that are meant to show how spirituals were updated by upland revivalist preachers and singers with “simplicity and swing”. It wasn’t until the early 1800s and the involvement of Africans in these same meetings that Jackson claims the same revivalist musical tendencies and crowd emotionalism “infected the blacks.” He also belatedly accuses plantation owners and urban Southerners “who have always been eager to forget and disown the camp-meeting songs” of obscuring the truth in an attempt to disparage poor, rural whites.

Arguably the most upsetting part of the article addresses “the chief remaining argument of the die-hards for the Negro source of the Negro spirituals – the artistic merit of these songs.” Claiming that these rural whites were as musical and as “oppressed” as their Afro-American counterparts, he effectively reduces the body of Black music he is discussing to cheap parodies of purer, more original white music. Yet despite his apparent certainty in tracing the misunderstood development of the spiritual, he concedes the vast chasm of knowledge that existed between his time and the musical era he was studying, though he seems to suggest that this chasm only manifests for those seeking to promote the “superiority” of Black music.

George-Pullen-Jackson-leads-a-sing

Jackson leads a group of singers in sacred harp songs in Tennessee, 1941

Jackson made a career out of the white reclamation of spirituals. Mentioned earlier was his White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands, though the misleadingly titled White and Negro Spirituals: their Life Span and Kinship (1943) is notable for its treatment of Negro music only as “variants” on white originals. Additionally, Jackson collaborated with Alan Lomax to record performances of large southern singing groups such as the Sacred Harp Singers, presumably as a more authentic representation of the southern spirituals.

While it may be infuriating to reflect upon the writings of Jackson and other anti-Black critics, it is an important part of American musical culture that should not be ignored. By critically analyzing these sources we can gain a clearer picture of how politics and cultural aggressions infiltrated American music from an early stage.

Note: For the purposes of the assignment “The Genesis of the Negro Spiritual” was discovered via the Readers’ Guide Retrospective. However, the full PDF was unavailable and was instead found at the following link: http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmMercury-1932jun-00243.

SOURCES

Jackson, George Pullen. “The Genesis of the Negro Spiritual.” The American Mercury (June 1932): pp. 243-249.

Jackson, George Pullen. White and Negro Spirituals: their Life Span and Kinship.

Jackson, Richard. “George Pullen Jackson.” Grove Music Online. http: www.oxfordmusiconline.com (accessed February 22, 2015).