Author Archives: Maria West

Earl Calloway’s Music Review

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Music critics are a unique source as they show insight on how the audience perceived the performance at that point in history. Combined with general knowledge of the time period, they are incredibly useful to historians and musicologists. Earl Calloway wrote a multitude of music reviews for the “Chicago Daily Defender” beginning in 19631
. This specific review is on the Chicago Symphony’s performance of “Symphony No. 4 ‘Altitudes’”. This piece was composed in 1964 by French composer Jean Martinon.

This is the first half of Earl Calloway’s published Music Review.

This is the second half of Earl Calloway’s published Music Review.

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This music review is especially revealing of the audience reaction because Calloway begins by comparing the audience’s positive reaction with the generally negative one in the previous century. This reaction was in reference to new music as opposed to orchestras playing beloved classics. Calloway moves on to Martinson’s piece and attributes each of the three movements to the title’s theme of nature as well as an aspect of God. It is unclear how religious the piece was supposed to be in regards to what Martinon wanted. The final movement is called “the crossing of the Gods” and there are references to nature and the world at large(words like “stars” and “garden”), so there is an assumption of a spirituality present that could be made. The blatant portrayal of religion towards a general audience is a cultural norm that is not as present in modern day performances. 

At the end of his review, Calloway explains that the piece was inspired by themes and variations of Frederick Stock and that “Altitudes” was a memorial to him. This provides evidence that the audience of the time held a value of memorial and legacy and the artistic talents of composers.

This is a recording of the Jean Martinon’s “Symphony No. 4” . While it is not the Chicago Symphony, it gives an idea of some of the musical ideas Calloway was referencing in his review.
References:

1“Earl Calloway’s Biography.” The HistoryMakers, www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/earl-calloway-39. Accessed 21 Nov. 202

2 Calloway, Earl. “Music Reviews: MARTINON’S SYMPHONY HIGHLIGHTS ORCHESTRA’S JUBILEE CELEBRATION.” Chicago Daily Defender (Daily Edition) (1960-1973), Jan 12, 1966, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/music-reviews/docview/494213409/se-2. Accessed November 21, 2024.

 

“Way Down Home” and Barbershop

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The Library of Congress’ “National Jukebox” collection holds an abundance of songs from the 1920s that did not seem to surpass the test of time as there is a lack of evidence for many of these songs in the corners of the internet. The recording I looked at here is “Way Down Home” from 1925. The following is what I could understand of the lyrics. The dashes represent words I couldn’t quite make out.  1

I never felt so happy
I never so gay
I never felt so much like smiling at the —– this very day
I’m gonna roam back yonder
Among the fields of green(of green)
I’ll soon be on my way to heaven
Don’t you know where I mean?
I mean way down home

I’d rather be there(I’d rather be there)
In a rocking chair(In a rocking chair)
Where someone all alone
Will kiss and caress me
To a hearty —–
We’ll smile for money
I declare
I’d be a —- millionaire
With all the — waiting there

Waiting there(waiting there)
On my knees I’m ready to swear
Way down home
I’ll wait from way down home

I ain’t forgotten about the corn and the cotton in the fields —-
Way down yonder
That’s where I wonder wonder
That’s the end of perfect day

I want to listen to the tune I’ve been missing
With a sail of of —- bay
I want to buckle to my sweet honey suckle
When the preacher comes our way

I mean home
Way down home
I’d rather be there(I’d rather be there)
In a rocking chair(In a rocking chair)
Where someone all alone
Will kiss and caress me
To a hearty —-

We’ll smile for money
I declare
I’d be a —- millionaire
With all the — waiting there

Waiting there(waiting there)
On my knees I’m ready to swear
I’ll never walk away from my home, my home
My sweet home, my home
My sweet home, my home
Way from way down home
Way from way down home
Down home

The song was written by Walter Donaldson and performed by a quartet called the Shannon Four: Franklyn Baur, Wilfred Glenn, Lewis James, and Elliott Shaw. Later the group changed their name to “The Revelers”. 2The first thing that stood out to me was the exceptionally positive lyric choices. This contrasts the fact that the speakers are not in the place they are longing to be(home). It is possible that the exceptional positivity comes from the chord structure as well. Much of the piece is in a major key with predictably major chord progressions. Maybe it is the thought of home that maintains the speaker’s joy. This makes the last line especially stand out as a switch to minor. The song also doesn’t offer a solution to the sad ending, possibly as a point to the lack of homelessness.

Considering the time period and the fact that the performers and composer are all white, it can easily be assumed that the intended audience was also white. However, the tradition of barbershop quartets stem from a combination of Black American musical styles and white American musical styles.

 

1 Donaldson, Walter, Walter Donaldson, Franklyn Baur, Shannon Four, Elliott Shaw, Wilfred Glenn, and Lewis James. Way Down Home. 1925. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-711535/.

2 Hoffmann, Frank, ed. Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound. Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 2004. Accessed November 15, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central.

“Strange Fruit”

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The song “Strange Fruit” was first written and performed in 1930. It was most famously sung by jazz singer Billie Holiday, but was written by Jewish American Abel Meeropol(under pseudonym Lewis Allan).

“Strange Fruit” Lyrics: 

Verse 1: Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

 

V2: Pastoral scene of the gallant south

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

 

V3: Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop

Here is a strange and bitter crop

Recording of Billie Holiday Singing “Strange Fruit”: https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Crecorded_cd%7C679895  1

“Strange Fruit” is well known because of its accurately grotesque description of the aftermath of a lynching. Meeropol’s particular comparison to fruit is engaging because fruit usually symbolizes new life, but here he uses it to describe death. The “blood at the root” feeds the tree in the same way that hate feeds a horrifying American tradition. The next two verses become a more literal description compared to the metaphor of the first verse. The song puts even more emphasis on the lyrics by consisting of just voice with a soft piano accompaniment. Many of Holiday’s other songs include saxophones, brass, piano, and sometimes a rhythm section, making the instrumentation of “Strange Fruit” stand out. The instrumentation as well as Holiday’s musical decisions to get louder and more forceful as the song goes on displays a raw emotion to drive home the jarring message. The swing feel creates a lack of specific down beat. This makes the rhythm more conversational as though she is recounting a personal experience making the story all the more horrendous and inhuman. 

Columbia Records and radio stations did not want to promote or play “Strange Fruit” because of its controversy and dark theme. The song was especially controversial because it was released at the same time as the Anti-Lynching movement that called for making lynching a federal offence. The members of the movement sent the lyrics of “Strange Fruit” to every congress member at the time and “Strange Fruit” became the unofficial song of the movement. Even Holiday was reluctant to perform it in fear of backlash and maintaining her career. The song was first performed by Holiday at “Cafe Society” which was one of the first integrated clubs in New York City. The club was also known for combining European cabaret traditions and Afro-American jazz clubs. 

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https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Crecorded_cd%7C679895

In 1940(ten years after the song’s release) Mooropol was questioned by the New York States “Rapp-Coudert Committee” who were investigating communism in schools. In 1943, Mooropol wrote “House I Live In” which served as a patriotic song discussing racial harmony although this may not have been Mooropol’s intention. “House I Live In” was in a short film starring Frank Sinatra and the producers took out a line that said: “the house I live in, my neighbors white and black”. Mooropol was furious. In both songs by Able Mooropol, the media filtered what they deemed successful and what they thought a majority white audience would want to hear. Another example of this would be in 1950 when Josh White was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee for his recording of “Strange Fruit” where he read the lyrics of the song as a part of his testimony. Unlike Holiday’s, White’s career never recovered. 2

Billie Holiday and “Strange Fruit” became so influential that Hulu produced a film called “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” in 2021. The movie describes Holiday’s life and career as well as the FBI’s involvement in Holiday performing “Strange Fruit”. It also implies that the FBI had influence on the overdose that led to Billie Holiday’s death. Despite Holiday’s, Meeropol’s, White’s and the Anti-lynching movement’s efforts, there still hasn’t been any law passed to outlaw lynching as a hate crime. 

 

1Strange Fruit. Directed by Joel Katz. California Newsreel, 2002. https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/strange-fruit.

2Ultimate Billie Holiday1997.Verve Records. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity|recorded_cd|679895.

Minstrels and Newspaper Advertisements

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Today, we understand that the media plays an important role in cultivating a culture. Blackface minstrels were one of the first forms of widespread or “mainstream” American Media entertainment. This means that it played an influential role in the mainstream media that exists today. Newspapers were another way of spreading information and culture to a large audience. The following primary sources are taken from a Newspaper publishing company called the “Now Orleans Daily Creole” in the year 1856. 

Advertisement in the October 20th, 1856 publication of the “New Orleans Daily Creole”. “Armory Hall.” New Orleans Daily Creole (New Orleans, Louisiana), October 20, 1856: 2. Readex: African American Newspapers.

The first excerpt regarding “Armory Hall” was published on October 20th.1 The referenced group called “The Christy Minstrels”  was first formed by Edwin Pearce Christy, in 1842. The group consisted entirely of white performers in blackface. While this group was one of the first to travel as a unit and make a living off of it, by 1856(the year of the advertisements below) there was much more competition. 

Earlier on in the group’s career one audience member reviewed their performance as being “more amused by their caricatures than charmed by the power or sweetness of their music”(Nathan, 158)2. This, in combination with the advertisement’s use of the word “eccentricities” proves that the audience understood and encouraged the lack of reality in Minstrel performances, practices, and caricatures. The music was not at the forefront of minstrelsy. It was there to mock one of the biggest aspects of a culture that was not their own. 

Advertisement in the November 24th, 1856 publication of the “New Orleans Daily Creole”. “The Campbells.” New Orleans Daily Creole (New Orleans, Louisiana), November 24, 1856: 2. Readex: African American Newspapers.

The second excerpt was published only about a month after the first, on November 24th.3 It gives a little more credit to the performance as a whole by referencing the vocal, instrumental, and comedic aspects of the show to draw the audience in. This second advertisement references another white minstrel group who performed in blackface called “The Campbell Minstrels”. The excerpt also takes note of their director so one can assume that this group had a following just like “Christy Minstrels”. The popularity of Minstrel shows in general began in the 1820’s and clearly continued into the 1850s. Throughout these thirty years we can see its development because this source references the style of “burlesque”. We also know that Edwin Christy is credited with creating the 3-act show4
. Knowing that these traditions or styles were new to the time period proves that Minstrels played a large role in the development of American theater and mainstream media. 

It is also interesting to note that these performances were taking place in New Orleans. Many minstrels were popularized in the North, so to have these two traveling groups in the same southern location perform within a month of each other shows that minstrels were more common in the Southern United States than previously thought. While much of minstrel performance is lost on the modern audience or historian, the way they were advertised provides insight into perspectives of the average attendee. 

3 “The Campbells.” New Orleans Daily Creole (New Orleans, Louisiana), November 24, 1856: 2. Readex: African American Newspapers. https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&sort=YMD_date%3AA&page=1&fld-base-0=alltext&val-base-0=Minstrel&val-database-0=&fld-database-0=database&fld-nav-0=YMD_date&val-nav-0=&docref=image/v2%3A11B849020C1891B3%40EANAAA-11B95E58D0501DF0%402399278-11B86D154E124B80%401-1211B2645EE918AF%40The%2BCampbells&firsthit=yes

4 Lott, Eric. “Chapter 1.” Essay. In Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993. 

“Corridos”: A Subgenre of American Folk Songs

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Recording of “Venimos de Matamoros”:

https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Tools/DisplayVideo/2265362?view=content

Mexican influence is seen all over the United States both geographically and historically. This is especially so in the southeastern region as there were many native Mexicans in that area of the U.S. when that region of the country was annexed through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Music plays a large and important aspect in Mexican influence on U.S. culture. The main focus of this post is this Primary Source recording done in 1939 by José Suarez1. 

The song is called “Venimos de Matamoros” which translates to “We Come from Matamoros” – a town off of the Rio Grande. It falls into the category of Mexican folk songs called “corridos” which translates to “racing”, possibly in reference to the fact that these songs are usually more upbeat in tempo. In addition to its traditional tempo, this “corrido” also maintains traditional instrumentation of a single guitar as well as a solo repetitive melody line. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Corrido’s” originated in 16th century Spain with traveling musicians or “trovadores” in a décima2 format consisting of ten lines3. In the Mexican tradition, “corridos” were added to by women in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution which took place from 1910-1917.  The tradition was then carried into Texas in 1915 when it is believed the story of the song takes place. In a nearby town to “Matamoros” called “Brownsville” where Texas rangers killed the family(wife, son, and brother) of a man named Aniceto Pizaña. This event caused Pizaña to seek revenge and join the group of Mexican Americans against the White Americans taking land and causing conflict in Texas at the time. In comparison to the original 16th century “corridos”, the 19th century version served as a narrative to tell stories of heroism and strength as well as maintain a Mexican Identity in the midst of expansionism. In “corridos” regarding the United States and expansionism, the songs often tell stories of those who were killed(by usually white Americans) in honor of the sacrifice they made. 

Much like other marginalized groups of America, Mexican Americans used music to find identity and peace in the forceful “othering” that was being cultivated at the time. The bigotry and discrimination that was faced became an aspect of Mexican American identity, separating this new identity from that of being “Mexican” and from being “American”. Both of these countries began through colonization, thus furthering the struggles portrayed in “corridos”.  Today “corridos” are considered a subgenre of American folk songs, even though it went through many cultures and countries starting with Spain, going to Mexico, then to the independent Republic of Texas, and finally to the United States.

1 “Venimos De Matamoros’ [3:13].” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience audio. 2024. Accessed October 1, 2024. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/2265362.

2 Kanellos, Nicolás. “Décima.” In The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2024. Accessed October 1, 2024. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1448550.

3 Wood, Andrew G. “Borderlands Music.” In The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2024. Accessed October 1, 2024. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1367240.

American Artists and Iroquois Peoples

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The credibility and ethics of historical ethnographic work, especially in regards to the Indigenous communities of North America have been questioned next to modern standards. One of the more obvious examples of this is early ethnographers putting Native American songs to Western(Eurocentric) Notation. However, it wasn’t just ethnographers who studied Native American culture. The source below comes from the notes of an artist named Rufus Grider, who was not likely studying these people for ethnographic purposes or with ethnographic standards in mind(for better or worse). The notes study the Iroquois peoples who lived(and live now) mainly in the Northeastern region of the United States. Before looking at the music, Grider’s categorizes this song with “Iroquois” which earlier he includes the five tribes that are included under that label which include: The Mohawks(Grider clarifies that their official and proper name is “Caniegas”), Onidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and The Senecas. He also describes and lists the dances he saw as well as his guesses on celebrations they were attached too, but here he titles it simply “Dance Song” 1. In connection to the music, one of the more curiously inaccurate aspects of this work is that it has a key signature(in what looks to be c minor) as the Indigenous peoples likely did not sing in accordance with western scales and keys. 

It is also possible that Rufus Grider was not the one who created this piece of sheet music as he attributes the work to an “H.M. Converse, a white woman, an adopted Indian” at the bottom of the piece. With further research it is found that this woman’s name is Harriet Maxwell Converse and the name she was given by the Seneca People(who adopted her) meant “Bearer of the Law” because she supported the Iroquois Convention 2

The purpose of Graider’s notes was likely for artistic interests or motivations but despite its clear inaccuracies, it is a good tool for people who are more familiar with western notation and who have not experienced the music or culture3(in addition to the fact that recording devices were not widely used in the late 1800’s when this source was written). If Converse had an intended audience, it would likely have been for audiences like these.

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