Porgy and Bess is the only Opera in the Canon that portrays a story of Black American people… and it was written by white people.

George Gershwin, 1937

George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess has long been hailed as an iconic work in American opera, blending classical music with jazz, blues, and folk influences to tell the story of life in a fictional African American community in Charleston, South Carolina.¹ While its music is undoubtedly powerful, Porgy and Bess also requires critical interrogation, particularly due to the opera’s portrayal of race, culture, and identity. This raises uncomfortable questions about representation, authenticity, and the perpetuation of racial stereotypes.

At the heart of Porgy and Bess is a narrative of struggle, love, and survival,² centered on the character of Porgy, a disabled beggar, and his troubled relationship with Bess, a woman caught in the grip of addiction and abuse. The opera’s setting—Catfish Row, a poor African American neighborhood—creates a world where the characters’ lives are defined by poverty, violence, and hardship. While this portrayal is grounded in the socio-economic realities of many Black communities in the early 20th century, it also risks reinforcing a reductive and stereotypical image of African American life.³

The opera’s focus on African American characters, often depicted in crisis or dependency, can be seen as problematic. Critics have noted that Porgy and Bess is deeply influenced by a white gaze, one that both romanticizes and victimizes African Americans. While Gershwin was committed to incorporating Black music traditions into his work, his portrayal of Black life lacks the nuance and agency that would allow African American characters to transcend their circumstances.³ Each character fits the minstrel stereotypes: either asexual or overly sexual. Either unintelligent or villainous. These reinforce patriarchal white-supremacist ideology that perpetuates a false narrative further.

Modern productions of Porgy and Bess, have sparked important conversations about how the work can be reimagined.² These revivals attempt to acknowledge the complexities of race and representation, offering opportunities for greater authenticity and racial equity in performances.

Yet, even in its reinvention, Porgy and Bess remains a product of its time—one that must be engaged with critically to understand the tensions between artistic excellence and the reproduction of harmful racial stereotypes.

Ultimately, Porgy and Bess poses a challenge to contemporary audiences. While it is undeniable that the opera has shaped the American musical landscape, its legacy also serves as a reminder that the only work centered around the African American experience was written by white people and serves at perpetuate minstrel stereotypes. To truly recognize the richness of Black identity and culture, it is necessary to interrogate the ways in which works like Porgy and Bess both distort and reflect the lived experiences of Black communities.

Bonhoeffer with Students in 1932.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran Pastor and theologian who was executed in 1945 was executed by Nazis in 1945 for his involvement with a plot to kill Hitler. In 1930, Bonhoeffer came to America to pursue a fellowship at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Bonhoeffer was introduced to the Abyssinian Baptist Church by a fellow seminarian. Bonhoeffer served in the ministry there while he was in the U.S. and formed a love and affinity for the Black Church.

Theologians love to draw the connection between Bonhoeffer’s encounter with the Black Church and his resistance work back in Germany. For a detailed treatment of this subject see Reggie L. Williams’s excellent book Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus.

Bonhoeffer was apparently quite moved by Black Spirituals during his time in America, and even recorded them (Williams 80-1). He said that spirituals were “some of the greatest artistic achievements in America” and described them as having a “strange mixture of reserved melancholy and eruptive joy” (Williams 80). He would later, according to one his biographers, play these Spirituals for his students in his underground seminary back in Germany. His friend and biographer Eberhard Bethage wrote “We hummed ‘Swing low, sweet chariot’ twenty years before the radio and concert halls made it familiar here.” (Bethage, quoted in John W. Doberstien’s introduction to Bonhoeffer’s Life Together 9).

The affinity between Bonhoeffer and the Spiritual tradition isn’t surprising. Both share theological roots in resistance to oppression. The original religious context of Spirituals was in clandestine meetings where enslaved people would sing and worship together. Bonhoeffer’s resistance seminary was also underground. It’s hard not to see the resonance with the early church as well. The type of Christianity these three movements express is an imminent and liberation focused Christianity, which requires “Costly Grace,” an idea developed by Bonhoeffer.

“Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light’” (Witness to Jesus Christ “The Cost of Discipleship” 158).

Such grace exists perhaps especially in the midst of oppression. Grace, christian or otherwise, does not release us from our ethical duties to each other, but instead strengthens them.


Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. trans. Doberstein, John. Harper & Brothers. 1954.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ. ed. John De Gruchy. Collins Liturgical Publications. London. 1988.

Williams, Reggie L. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and An Ethic of Resistance. Baylor University Press. 2014.

12-bar blues is a foundation that artists from all genres around the world have used to build their musical visions.

Blues goes beyond just a genre of music. The 12-bar blues progression has become one of the most significant building blocks of American popular music. Its influence can be traced through decades of musical evolution, from the birth of rock and roll to the rise of modern pop and hip-hop.

The 12-bar blues was a chord progression that could be used for improvisation and manipulation to create thousands of works of music. The structure allows for ample room for improvisation and emotional expression, especially when it comes to vocal delivery and instrumental solos.¹ It’s easy to see why it became so foundational to blues musicians—it provided both a predictable framework and the freedom to inject personal style and feeling into the music.

Blues started in America. It’s origins are traced back to the late 19th century in the Southern United Stater. It was created by African American musicians and influenced by precursors like ring shouts, work songs, and spirituals.¹ Blues was the most popular music for Black Americans for a long period of time, before white people made the style commercially profitable and published (stole) the work of black artists. Blues is also famous for being grass-roots and there are many folktales about where it really started. The start, to me at least, is less important than it’s legacy among American (and non-American) music today.

So what artists have used the 12-bar blues to make their music?

Led Zeppelin uses the 12-bar blues in their song “Rock n Roll”.

Johnny Cash is a country singer who often uses the blues influence in his music.

In the movie The Little Mermaid the song “Kiss the Girl” uses the 12-bar blues.

This extremely popular song might not be thought of as part of the Blues genre by listeners, but it is certainly a blues song that uses the 12-bar blues progression.

John Mayer uses the 12-bar blues his song “Gravity”.

The 12-bar blues is not just a formula—it’s a framework for expressing a large range of deep emotions that  encapsulate the universal human experience. As long as musicians continue to innovate, adapt, and express themselves through song, the 12-bar blues will remain a key part of American popular music.

Florence B. Price, a black female American composer, was a successful composer in her lifetime, winning the Wanamaker Foundation Award in 1932 for her Symphony No. 1 in E minor and her Piano Sonata in E minor. The following year, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her symphony. In 1939, her arrangement on “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” was performed at the Lincoln Memorial Concert in Washington, D.C. Amongst all of these achievements and thus recognition of her talent, her success was still limited by the discrimination and lack of legitimacy that she received based on her race and gender.

In 1941, Florence Price wrote a letter to Russian american composer Serge Koussevitzky, in efforts to request a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, of which Koussevitzky was the music director. In her letter, she expresses her credentials as an American composer, stating: 

“After graduating from the New England Conservatory I returned to my native South to teach. I have an accumulation of scores and manuscripts which during the past few years here in Chicago I have been bringing to light with the result– several performances. Having Colored blood in my veins, and having been born in the South, I believe I can say that I understand real Negro music as well if not better than the kind I studied in the East… Having read that you are particularly interested in American music I am hoping you will give something of mine a trial.” 

This was the first of several correspondences to Koussevitzky, of which he never responded. In 1941, the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed strictly white male compositions, such as Tchaikovsky, Pierné, Sibelius, and interestingly, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. This presents an interesting conversation, considering the topic of an American genre, and what those ideals entailed during Koussevitzky’s time as a conductor and music director. In Price’s correspondence, she explicitly states that her positionality as a black woman allows her to distinguish “real Negro music,” and offers him an opportunity to present “a fusion of [antebellum music and rag-time and jazz that proceeded], colored by present cultural influences.” Yet, the same year, Rhapsody in Blue was composed by white male composer George Gershwin was programmed at the BSO, demonstrating jazz and blues influences in a classical context but representing the prioritization of white male artistry. This seems to be reflective of the deliberate actions that were being taken during this time to sculpt an image of American classical music. While black music styles like jazz and blues were infiltrating the classical music scene, it was only being attributed an “American music” that excluded talents like Florence Price based on gender and race. 

Florence Price’s Quartet for Strings premiered at the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the 2016-2017 season, and her works have been performed there nearly every year since. One can hope that we are carving a new sculpture of who is encompassed in the American genre. 

Martin, Roland. 2023. “Florence Price | Composer, Pianist, Symphony, & Biography | Britannica.” Www.britannica.com. October 25, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Price.

“Performance History Search.” 2014. Bso.org. 2014. https://archives.bso.org/Detail.aspx?UniqueKey=79913.

“Image 3 of Letter from Florence B. Price to Serge Koussevitzky; 1941 September 18.” 2015. The Library of Congress. 2015. https://www.loc.gov/resource/musska.musska-100182/?sp=3&st=image&r=-1.305.

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Rubén “Funkahuatl” Guevara took on many personas as he developed his musical career, which reflects the many different ideas about Chicano identity that circulated throughout pop culture during the 60s and 70s, as well as the transformation of Chicano representation in music with the beginning of the Chicano Movement. Rubén in particular brings up an interesting conversation about commercialism, and how in his case used it to spread an image of Chicano presence in American music beginning with “doo-wop”, a variation of blues and rock and roll, especially as he began performing on television shows. Shindig! was a variety show that aired from 1964 to 1966, in which he performed with artists such as Bo Diddley, Tina Turner, and other African American blues artists. In order to be on the show, Rubén had to incorporate a stage name, Jay P. Mobey, which you can see in the video below: 

The changing of his name from Rubén Guevara to Jay P. Mobey suppressed his identity as an Mexican-American on the stage, and when the show ended in 1966 he sought to re-invent himself as Chicano, and began singing with Frank Zappa in Ruben and the Jets. With this group as well, he blended with the sounds of the time, now immersing himself in the R&B and rock of the 70s. In 1974, Ruben and the Jets released an album called “Con Safos.” Con Safos means “with safety,” and was a tag that was written on the graffiti throughout Los Angeles to indicate to others not to cover their work. This album cover positions Guevara in the center of the picture, with depictions of artists outside of a liquor store in L.A. “Viva la Raza” is written on the wall, a phrase used during the Chicano movement to signify their reclamation of Chicano heritage, culture, language and race. Guevara’s music once again blends with similar sounds of the period, this time rock and roll, but uses his avenue as a popular artist to promote Chicano presence in the music scene. 

Finally, it is interesting to see such a radical change in sound and image as he went through his life and musical career. After Ruben and the Jets dispersed, Rubén recorded a song called “C/S” with a group called Con Safos, which explicitly discusses the Vietman War, and prejudice against Chicanos and their reclamation of their heritage. This song was published in 1983 in an LP called “The Eastside Renaissance.”

I encourage you to listen to all three of these stages of Ruben’s career and journey with his Chicano identity.  Rubén’s adaptability to popular genre could be perceived as un-original or commercial, but I think it ultimately represents the journey that many Mexican-Americans experienced throughout the Chicano movement in terms of establishing and celebrating their identity and culture in the United States. 

It is important to note that it wasn’t until the beginning of the Chicano movement that “chicano” was an appropriate word to describe Americans of Mexican descent. Chicano comes from the Nahuatl word xicano, which represents the reclamation of indigenous heritage of the Mexica peoples, who lived in the southwest region of present day United States. 

Caravan, composed by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington, is the most covered jazz standard in history, with more than 500 covers. But what does this song represent? 

The Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917 granted US citizenship to Puerto Ricans, which led to a surge of Puerto Ricans immigrating to the US, especially to New York through Ellis Island. Many Puerto Rican musicians were recruited, due to their talent and ability to read music, to play in jazz clubs and theater pit bands in Washington D.C. and New York, primarily catering to black audiences. “Circa 1920, except for the leader, the entire pit orchestra of the legendary Howard Theater in Washington was composed of Puerto Rican musicians, and it included Tizol” (Serrano 90). In an interview with Patricia Willard in 1978, Juan describes his experience moving to the United States in 1920, working factory jobs in New York in order to save enough money to buy an instrument and make a living. He eventually encountered Duke Ellington when he went to Howard Theatre in Washington D.C. several years later.  The experiences of Puerto Rican immigrants during this time is often characterized by poverty, hardship, and racial discrimination, and it is important that this is not overlooked, especially when considering the vital role that Puerto Rican jazz musicians contributed to the cultural production of an American genre. Juan Tizol was a composer and played trombone in Duke Ellington’s Big Band from 1929 to 1953. Tizol was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1900, and came to the United States in 1920 with some musicians he was playing with in a Puerto rican municipal band at the time. Many Puerto Rican musicians would travel between New York and Puerto Rico, since there weren’t very many opportunities to perform jazz on the island at the time, and it was emerging more prominently in places like New Orleans and New York. Others were recruited to play in the Harlem Hellfighters during WWI. It is important for us to recognize the role that Puerto Rican musicians played in developing jazz, as they were intentionally intertwined in the jazz music scene during a time of intense cultural production. 

Considering this, It was interesting to read that Tizo’s compositions fell under the genre of “exotica”, which is characterized by ideas of “distant, mythical and mystical lands” (Serrano 89). It was also mentioned that Tizo had originally included “Porto Rico”* in the title of several of his compositions, including “Porto Rican Girl” dedicated to his sister Remedio. Before publishing, the title was changed to “Moon Over Cuba” since she had moved to Cuba… While there is no definitive reason for this change, it is interesting to consider the narrative of distance and otherness that is preserved in the edited titles of his songs. ‘Porto Rico’ was included in several other of Tizo’s original titles, but were changed before they were published. What is demonstrated by the intentions to separate Puerto Rican identity from Tizol’s compositions? Does it give us insight on the marketing strategies during the time? Is it reflective of the attitudes towards Puerto Rican citizens living in the United States? When considering an American genre such as jazz, it is important to recognize all of the musicians that contributed to the narrative of the art, and the circumstances that they endured. What does this reflect about the narrative that has been created about American music, and who is included in it? 

*In the Treaty of Paris in 1898 they changed the name of Puerto Rico to ‘Porto Rico’, in efforts to make it easier to pronounce for Americans. It wasn’t until 1932 that they changed it back to the original spelling and the spelling they always had used on the island. 

Serrano, Basilio. “Juan Tizol: His Talents, His Collaborators, His Legacy.” Centro Journal 18, no. 2 (2006): 82–99.

Juan Tizol oral history interview. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-3r99-0749

Immigration has always been a point of contention in the United States, because it proposes the discussion of who is American and who is included in the American identity. White settlers in the 1920s were legally considered American, since they had lawful access to citizenship, but there were so many others who contributed to the production of American culture: producing economic commodities, music being one of them. Throughout the 1920s and the Great Depression, Mexican immigrants were recruited to work in the Southwest of the United States participating in the railroad, mining, and agricultural industries. Music is able to depict the commonality of experiences, but also differentiate these conditions for Mexican immigrants and white people during the 1920s and 30s. Tracing back to the medieval myth of Cockayne or Cucaña, which speaks of a utopia where hardship does not exist. Songs such as “The Big Rock Candy Mountains” and “La Ciudad de Juaja” that describe the idealizations of life during the Great Depression, allow us to understand what living conditions and their respective hardships were like for White workers and Mexican immigrants. For example, in “The Big Rock Candy Mountains” Harry McClintock describes “cigarette trees” in comparison to “La Ciudad de Juaja,” Pantaleón Ramos and Manuel Treviño describe “árboles de tortillas, ramos con jarros de atole” (trees of tortillas, [and] branches with cups of atole*) (*a warm drink of Mexican origin.) The common use of the word tree, to describe natural resources and abundance, and the idealizations of what there would be abundance of help us to understand the different priorities of what is necessary, or brings pleasure to each of these groups of people. In this case, tobacco versus culturally traditional food. In both of the songs as well, they mention punishment for work. In “La Ciudad de Juaja” the lyrics say “allí le dan de palos al que quiera trabajar (there they beat those who want to work)” and in “The Big Rock Candy Mountains” the lyrics mention “they hung the jerk that invented work.” I think the most important conclusion to draw from each of these songs is that there was (to an extent) a common experience of mine and railroad workers during the Great Depression. While it is important to recognize that Mexican migrants experienced different and additional challenges due to people “honragados dishonest* ” taking advantage of immigrant labor and language barriers, the similarities in each of these songs creates a sense of identity based on the hardships that were experienced in these working conditions during this time period of American history. Another thing that I thought about while writing the title for this post, was the relevant role that work culture plays in American identity today. Again, it is important to note that these conditions look different for different groups of people, and I don’t intend to neglect the complexity of America’s job industry or make a statement that encompasses all Americans, but there is some validity in that the United States has become a place for work, and has come to define many American experiences.

*honragado is no longer a word used in the Spanish dictionary but was used in the lyrics of this song in the 1930s to describe a deceiving person. A current translation of “dishonest” would be deshonrado. 

Translation of “La Ciudad de Juaja” Part II

Corridos y Tragedias De La Frontera- CD 1: La Crisis1994., edited by Chris StrachwitzArhoolie Records. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity|recorded_track|390149.

Many American composers wished to create a distinctive American sound in their writing, one that would be different and distinct from European classical music. However, sometimes the way they went about finding this was not respectful or fair. American composers such as Dvorzak wanted to create something new and different than what Americans had heard before, however the way he went about doing this creates questions of the line that needs to be drawn between taking inspiration and stealing ideas. Many Native Americans had very beautiful music. However, many settlers came over and decided to steal the melodies of Native American folk tunes to commercialize them.

Dvorzak had a residency in the United States. Within this residency, “He believed the future of American music must be founded on the resources of the Native American, African American, and Creole American melodies and rhythms.” (1). Some may argue that this is a form of borrowing and appreciation of Native American music. Many pop artists today do collaborations with other artists, and receive help from many composers and producers to create their albums. However, the difference between those pop artists today and American composers in the past was that the collaborators on pop albums receive credit as well as a portion of the royalties from the music. On the other hand, the American composers in the past were stealing ideas from the Native American as well as African American population and not giving any sort of royalties or credit back to them. This is therefore instead of collaboration stealing ideas because the creation of this new music is rooted in colonization as well as exploitation of resources.

Many people were inspired by Dvorzak’s ideas and there was a movement created around this time called the “Indianist” movement, which involved stealing folk tunes from Native Americans and commercializing it to receive profit.

Amy Beach was another composer who was inspired by Dvorzak’s ideas and used Native American melodies and folk tunes for many of her compositions. However, after several compositions she realized that it would work better to use music that she was used to and grew up with instead of ideas from a culture she didn’t know. This is an interesting conclusion that she came to because it goes to show the lack of understanding Americans have towards Native American culture. Even when stealing ideas for the music, there is no way that others will be able to fully replicate the intricate details of the music, because it comes from the Native American culture. The only way to fully replicate these ideas would be to grow up as a Native American experiencing it. Therefore, despite the stealing and exploitation of ideas, no one will be able to take away the Native American culture and music away from them.

The issue of stealing ideas and exploitation of artists is still present today, as well as the lasting effects of colonization on marginalized groups. However, hopefully as a society we can move forward and create a better future for artists and marginalized groups to be able to live their life without being exploited or used.

Mercer, Stephanie. “An American Sound: Celebrating Native American Music through the ‘Indianist’ Movement and the American Piano Composer.” The American Music Teacher, vol. 71, no. 2, 2021, pp. 16-.

Ragtime is an African-American art form originating in the late 1800s. Maple Leaf Rag was composed by one of the major ragtime pioneers, Scott Joplin. Joplin was so large and influential in the creation process of the ragtime genre he was titled “The King of Ragtime” ¹. Joplin’s popularity only increased after he died ². As personal audio became more retally available, Joplin’s compositions became more popular in society.

Poster for Maple Leaf Rag

Maple Leaf Rag,” one of the earliest popular pieces within the ragtime genre, and served as a foundation for subsequent ragtime compositions. Its influence is still evident, even to this day. When you listen to the composition, particularly if you are familiar with ragtime music, you can detect the distinctive rhythmic patterns and melodic structures that have come to define the genre, resulting in it as a modern-day musical topic.

An interesting perspective on the enduring influence of “Maple Leaf Rag” came when I performed the musical ‘Ragtime.’ The music, composed by Stephen Flaherty, featured this iconic composition as a primary theme. It was fascinating to hear this historic piece performed live, and it underscored the timeless appeal of ragtime music.

The structure of “Maple Leaf Rag,” with its ABab style, is another key element that has had a significant impact on the genre. This structure contributes to the piece’s engaging rhythm and catchy melody, making it a memorable and enduring piece of music.

The recording of “Maple Leaf Rag” embedded in this post is particularly special. Performed by the United States Marine Band, it is the oldest known recording of the piece. Interestingly, Scott Joplin, the composer of “Maple Leaf Rag,” only recorded his works as piano rolls for player pianos, rather than using wax recordings. This was the common recording technique at the time, and these rolls provide a unique and valuable insight into the performance style of this pioneering ragtime composer.

“Collected Works of United States Marine Band : United States Marine Band : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, February 20, 2004. https://archive.org/details/UnitedStatesMarineBand.

On December 26, 1893, the music critic and musicologist Henry Krehbiel corresponded with the famed Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904). Two weeks prior, he’d conducted “a lengthy interview with the composer” for a New York Tribune article on Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 9 in E minor, ‘From the New World,’ Op. 95, B. 178,” before its premiere.[1] Krehbiel wished to speak to Dvorak on behalf of several Black “folk songs from Kentucky” he was analyzing and was requesting Dvorak help “suggest a harmonization” of the melodies.[2] Krehbiel—having lauded Dvorak’s music and sought his guidance on folk song collection—points to their mutual willingness to embrace African American’s contributions to folk music and develop an American school of classical music. Yet, while the cosmopolitan Dvorak straddled the line between universalism and individualism in his composition, Krehbiel’s romanticized view of slavery informing his approach to African American folk music reveals how problematic musical context can become overlooked in popular works.

Beckerman, “Letters from Dvořák’s American Period,” p. 202.

Returning to the above-mentioned correspondence, it’s notable that on December 12, 1893, with four days to the “New World Symphony’s” premiere, Krehbiel had solicited Dvorak for a separate request. As Krehbiel was going to lecture on “Folk-Song in America” at a reception, he wanted Dvorak to “attend and hear the songs which I have for illustration.”[3] The reality that both men saw America’s musical “future…founded upon…negro melodies” positions them opposite universalist stalwarts in the debate of “What is American Music?”.[4] However, it also situates Dvorak adjacent to Krehbiel, who romanticized the notion of slave labor and experience as “inviting celebration in song—grave and gay.”[5] Krehbiel brutishly brushed over the idea of African American’s epigenetic trauma through stating, “sometimes the faculty [cultural ingenuousness] is galvanized into life by vast calamities or crises of social and national existence; and then we see its fruits in the compositions of popular musicians.”[6] Dvorak’s association with Krehbiel’s problematized musicological methods calls into question a key controversy surrounding American music—when traditional African American melodies injected deeply into our cultural consciousness are predicated in racist assumptions, should they still be performed? Without due consideration of the cultural context in which pieces are created or popularized, canonical works like Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 9” may remain mired in the overwhelmingly murky history of American Music.

[1] ed. Michael Beckerman, “Letters from Dvořák’s American Period: A Selection of Unpublished Correspondence Received by Dvořák in the United States.” In Dvorak and His World, 192–210. Princeton University Press, 1993. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7s5r0.11.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Douglas W. Shadle, Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, 246.

[5] Henry Edward Krehbiel. Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music, 4th edition, New York: G. Schirmer, 1914, 23.

[6] Ibid, 22-23.

My first encounter with the composer Mary Lou Williams was upon stumbling across her choral composition “Black Christ of the Andes (St. Martin De Porres).” The dynamic range and gratifying dissonance in the harmonic texture of the piece gave me an almost ethereal and cathartic feeling, and I immediately fell in love. 

Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1910, Williams almost immediately entered the jazz scene; at age 15, she was already playing alongside Duke Ellington and catching the musical attention of Louis Armstrong¹. She promptly started playing the piano for different regional bands in Pittsburgh and embarking on tours with a chaperone, but she soon was navigating the music scene on her own as a young woman. Critics soon began complimenting her talents, giving her honorific nicknames such as “First Lady of the Piano” and the “lively Queen of the Ivories.”²

Mary Lou Williams with Tadd Dameron and Dizzy Gillespie in 1947

As a budding musician and composer, her specific positionality as a Black woman played a crucial part in her reception by critics and her audiences. Black composers, artists, writers, and performers of the time were already being pushed to be perceived in the leadership class of the “talented tenth,” wherein there was unjust pressure to “[elevate] the music of their race”.³ In regards to women, work within the entertainment industry was not seen as suitable for them, where “no self-respecting woman would pursue such interests, especially outside the realm of classical music.”⁴ Williams’ ability to infiltrate the male-dominated, instrumental jazz scene of the time was certainly unique in this respect. She dutifully worked to portray herself as a “serious” jazz musician by not interacting with the audience or smiling during performances—likely to set herself apart from the female musicians of her time and avoid demeaning stigmas from being placed on her as well.  The self-assuredness and resoluteness Williams demonstrated throughout her early and later career could be an additional factor, as she was often not afraid to protest injustices that she or her band members faced.

Newspaper article from the Arkansas State Press (Little Rock, Arkansas), August 1st, 1949

Williams’ existence as a woman within the jazz community put a further pressure to be perfect, enacting a sort of double-bind. Her demonstrated assertiveness may have helped with her acceptance early on, but unfortunately did not allow her to escape from misogynist rhetoric. In the late 1940s, there was a sudden change in her critical reception, where she was described as having an egregious attitude that hindered her success as a musician and composer.^5,6

This seems to stem from the idea that women must always be pleasant, agreeable, and easy to digest—especially when one is a public figure, and even more so as a Black woman. It did not help that Williams had been recently dealt with hardships—she went through a divorce in 1940, and in 1942, she remarried to a man who was later believed to be physically abusive.

Mary Lou Williams at the piano in 1946

Decades later, the public was once again praising her and further illustrating her significance in jazz and American music. Newspapers were dubbing her with even mightier nicknames of “the First Lady of Jazz” and “The Queen of Jazz.”⁷ Williams passed soon after in 1981, and critics continued to immortalize her prowess and influence on the genre. She was certainly well-recognized for her talents, even alongside the shift towards negative judgements on her character, but does that absolve and erase the obstacles she faced during that time? Throughout the entirety of her lifetime, Williams still managed to overcome countless disadvantages as a Black woman, as a woman in jazz, and as a Black woman in jazz.

Francis “Frank” Johnson was a distinctive figure in U.S. music history, not only because of his many achievements and musical innovations, but also in his unique sociocultural position in the antebellum world. His accomplishments were fascinating, including being the first U.S. musician to tour Europe and to lead an interracial musical performance, alongside a multitude of compositional innovations—some of which are believed to have inspired other composers of and since his time.¹ 

However, Johnson’s concurrent involvement in white, upper-class spaces and various Black churches—as well as records exhibiting pro-Black ideals—suggest a rather dichotomous placement and standing in society and politics. While Johnson mostly avoided minstrel songs/shows—with the exception of “Miss Lucy Long” and “Sam of Tennessee and Dandy Jim of Caroline”—he primarily composed and performed patriotic band music and within European classical genres.^2,3 Albeit, secondary source note that Johnson only performed “Miss Lucy Long” in England to appease the British upper-class, and “refused to cater to racism” by never performing the piece for Philadelphia.⁴ Even though Philadelphia was a rather progressive city with an Abolitionist society compared to the rest of the country at the time, incidents of hate, mockery, and racism were still present.⁵ It almost seemed as if he was living a double life, hidden between the pages of long-forgotten history periodicals—and I became deeply invested in trying to uncover whatever meager clues I could manage to find. 

Johnson, Francis. “Recognition March of the Independence of Hayti : For the Piano Forte & Flute.” Philadelphia: G. Willig, 1826. Colenda Digital Repository.

Kramer, Hayden James. “Six Works by Francis Johnson (1792–1844): A Snapshot of Early American Social Life.” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2022. 143-148.

I was particularly drawn to his pieces “Recognition March of the Independence of Hayti” and “The Grave of a Slave” (pictured above), and what they could reveal about Johnson’s complicated relationship with white audiences and society. The lyrics of Johnson’s “The Grave of a Slave” were set to an abolitionist poem by Sarah Louisa Forten, openly admonished slavery and slave-owners in the text, and was formally published in Philadelphia. His “Recognition March of the Independence of Hayti” was arranged for piano and flute, but still carried similar abolitionist indications and was dedicated to one of the leader’s of the Haitian Revolution, President Jean-Pierre Boyer. Upon visiting his house, one of Johnson’s violin students also recorded that Johnson had President Boyer’s portrait hung over his mantle.⁶ Considering the many sociopolitical factors that could have negatively impacted the survival and coverage of such documents, these bits of Johnson’s worldview stand out to me as compelling possible evidence for his progressive beliefs.

Charon, Louis Francois. “Broadside : Jean Pierre Boyer, President de La Republique d’Haiti.” Between the Covers.

As our group has been researching Densmore’s work, we’ve certainly found a lot of her actual field work, but there’s significantly less available of her recounting her actual experiences. When we came across a copy of Frances Densmore and American Indian Music, which is essentially a collection of writings she didn’t place in her books, I was excited, because I knew we were going to find some juicy stuff in there. And sure enough, we did!

One aspect of Densmore’s work that we had been aiming to expand upon was her lack of respect for the boundaries of certain Indigenous groups she studied. We had found it mentioned in scholarly writings, but there were never any specific examples of it until I found this account within this book on her experiences with the Northern Utes. Essentially, she had been told in the past that the Northern Utes were “touchy by nature” (1), but she was determined to go and record songs. She set up shop in a cottage nearby a trader’s store, where she would advertise to the Utes that she would pay people to sing their traditional songs into her phonograph. The Utes instead just laughed at her, which she even put in italics in the book out of indignation! She tried to explain what she was doing with the songs to them, but none of them wanted to willingly record anything. Instead of listening to them, she decided to pull the “I have a Sioux name” card and went to a well-respected member of the tribe named Red Cap, who begrudgingly brought her singers to record with. In exchange, she had to record him speaking a message for her to bring to DC that they hated their reservation superintendent and wanted him replaced, which Densmore did follow through on (1).

She recorded several songs with these singers, but she still did not have enough, so she overstayed her agreed-upon study time with the Northern Utes by over three weeks and even went on a horseback trip that passed over that time. To them, that was the last straw, and she was quite literally booted from her cottage – they did not even let her pack her own things, saying that someone from the agency would express ship her stuff back to DC (1).

While she did manage to get recordings from the Northern Utes, even she noticed how unwilling they were to make them, yet she still went through with it and continued to push their limits of what they were comfortable with her doing. The Utes were suspicious and rightfully so. White people had done nothing but take and take from Indigenous groups like them, be it land, resources, religion and sacred spaces, culture, or hospitality, in order to manipulate them into getting what they want. The way Densmore approached this group likely looked like any other White manipulator, and, by the tone of her writings, she could probably tell that was what they were feeling and did not care. Stories like these that she so calmly recounted without remorse further problematizes her work and exposes her biases, that it was completely okay to entirely overstep cultural boundaries if it meant she could personally get what she wanted.

Sources:

(1) Densmore, Frances, and Charles Hofmann. “Incidents in the Study of Ute Music.” Essay. In Frances Densmore and American Indian Music, 39–42. New York, NY: Museum of the American Indian, 1968.

We always hear this phrase “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The phrase refers to how certain people will think something is beautiful or not and that opinion can differ from person to person. I find this idea is particularly interesting when looking at paintings of people and other forms of portraiture.

As I’ve been researching Lillian Evanti and her life, I have come across some beautiful photographs of her like this:

She has many photographs of her in costume for the roles she has performed and there are a few presumably candid ones like this:

As someone who has a small amount of background in photography, one thing we are constantly asked about is staging of photographs and what we think the photographer had in mind when they took said picture. Every portrait of this amazingly talented woman is beautiful, but I personally don’t feel like her artistry truly comes across as much as it could. As I was scrolling through the internet to try and find more sources about this woman, I came across this painting:

This is a painting of Lillian Evanti in the main female lead, Rosina, in Barber of Seville. This was the role she had before she took on Violetta in La Triviata. When I first came across this painting, I couldn’t believe it was her. This work of art looks like it could be of a renaissance woman or someone from decades before Evanti was alive. When I learned who was the subject, I was instantly intrigued who painted it and the answer surprised me.

This is one of the most well known portraits from the Lois Mailou Jones, a Black female painter (1905-1998) who was very active during the Harlem Renaissance. This is what some of her other work looks like:

Lois led a very interesting career. She was active in both America and France and held her first solo exhibition when she was 18. She was a very accomplished painter, focusing mostly on portraying other people of color, specifically Black people in the Harlem renaissance.

I can’t find any confirmation of when the painting of Evanti was done (there is no date for the painting that I could find), but it was likely when both the women were in Europe in the 1930s. I find her depiction of Evanti to be ethereal – she doesn’t look like a real person and yet she was. Here is where we get into beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

At the time this work was done, America in particular was not very friendly (putting it mildly) to anyone that was not white. I think if a white painter had tried to paint the same scene, the painting wouldn’t look as much like a work of art as it does here. Here is what Lois had to say about the painting:

“A very unusual thing happened while I was doing the finishing touches. The Barber of Seville, the opera, came on over the radio. Of course, when the music came on, Lillian began to sing. There was the sparkle in her eyes and the gestures and everything. It was just what I needed to finish the portrait. I caught the spirit of her, which was just marvelous.”

I feel like the simple existence of Evanti in this painting would be overshadowed by her Blackness if anyone besides a Black painter made this work of art. Because of Lois, Evanti was allowed to exist both as a person and a character in this painting and nothing feels forced. Her nature as a singer, the sparkle in her eye as Lois said, is easy to see in the painting.

So often in art we feel like we have to pick something to focus on about an artist – their race, their gender, what they do, how they do it, when they do it, etc. Highlighting what makes certain artists stand out from their colleagues is important, but can we let their artistry be outside that categorization as a way to highlight what an amazing creator that artist is? Lillian Evanti’s poise and power are also easy to see in the painting, and depending on the lens of who is looking at her, they might’ve chosen her Blackness to focus on over the beauty, grace, and talent she brought to the world of opera.

Works Cited:

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/lillian-evanti

Lois Mailou Jones

In 1913, Densmore published Teton Sioux Music, a dauntingly large volume containing an analysis of Teton Sioux music and a look into their culture and customs. Unlike many of her other bulletins, articles, and books, this publication includes two personal narratives of tribe members. The stories of Red Fox and Eagle Shield tell of daily life within their communities and formative experiences for these individuals as they grew up. By publishing these stories, Densmore preserves the voices of the individuals she interacted with and gives her audiences a glance into these people’s lives. But these narratives pose more questions about Densmore and her methods than they answer. Why did Densmore include so few of these narratives in her writings? Why did she choose to publish these particular stories? Perhaps it is because both stories are related to songs that Densmore recorded and analyzed. Or, should we hold on to hope that these songs and their stories were included because of a particularly strong bond between Densmore and these two Native men? While we know Densmore must have had some sort of connection to those whom she interacted with as she studied Indigenous music, her publications do not give us a strong sense of these relationships and bonds. Instead, these books offer significant evidence of Densmore’s academic and intellectual strengths. This focus on the analysis and collection is likely a reflection of two of Densmore’s values in research and study. First, a racialized desire to capture as much knowledge about these ‘dying’ community’s music, culture, and customs; and second, a response to the misogyny she likely experienced as a women researcher and academic to publish and analyze as much as humanly possible. 

Densmore’s racialized perspective towards her own study is no secret and is clearly reflected in her methods for ethnomusicological study. Just a few examples of this include her notation of Indigenous music using western standards, her desire to take images of native peoples unbeknownst to them, and her choice to use incredibly racist terminology when talking about Native Americans, such as ‘primitive’. In addition, her positionality within academia as a woman also likely impacted the way she chose to engage in study and share her findings. In Travels with Frances Densmore, Michelle Wick Patterson writes about how Densmore towed the lines of the gender norms of her time. By working in music and in the humanities, Densmore continued to engage in ‘women’s work’. This foundation allowed her to give lectures, speeches, and publish academic works which all pushed the bounds of what was acceptable for women to do at this time. 

By examining Densmore’s motivations for research, we can begin to learn yet another lesson from the work of this challenging, ractist, and tenacious women. When anaylizing the work of any humanist researcher, it might be just as important to understand their own positionality with in their field along with the positionality of their subjects. For such understanding and knowledge can shed light on the researchers motivations for their own project, and for the reception of it. 

Densmore, Frances. Teton Sioux Music. New York, Da Capo Press, 1972. 

Patterson, Michelle Wick. “She Always Said, ‘I Heard an Indian Drum’”. Travels with Frances Densmore: Her Life, Work, and Legacy in Native American Studies. University of Nebraska Press, 2015, 29-64.

White, Bruce. “Familiar Faces: Densmore’s Minnesota Photographs”. Travels with Frances Densmore: Her Life, Work, and Legacy in Native American Studies. University of Nebraska Press, 2015, 316-350. 

As a part of my research for Early Jazz, I’ve been collecting data points on Sidney Bechet, a clarinetist and soprano saxophonist who pioneered early jazz playing on his instruments. Bechet bounced between hundreds of jobs and gigs during his time, one of them being a part of the pit orchestra for composer Eubie Blake’s La Revue Negre, a review show that performed in France, leading him to interact on several occasions with Blake. When searching for more information about Blake, an article turned up that fascinated me, titled “Colored Artist Doesn’t Seek Much”. In the article, the author -which is not listed and is attributed as anonymous- uses comments from Blake to justify minstrelsy. Blake’s comment that “If the white minstrel be a good actor, then he gives a characterization of the Negro we admire” is used to justify the practice of minstrelsy, and is contrasted with the idea that not accepting minstrelsy is “stirring up hornets” (1).

However, that’s not what Blake intended with his comment. The keyword is “good”, which is relative to the opinions of a specific individual. In using the word “good”, Blake likely means a minstrel performer who makes a good-faith attempt to portray blackness (or whatever that means in the context of minstrelsy). However, the author breezes over this discrepancy towards his own end. The author likely means someone who is purely entertaining; this statement then becomes less about Blake’s own opinion and more about the author using a token person of color to justify his own means.

This source, while infuriating on multiple levels, highlights how complicated and diluted our understanding of historical conversations surrounding the practice of minstrelsy is. While in this article it’s easy to discern how Blake’s words were misused, this is likely the exception and not the norm. There are likely other historical articles that discuss minstrelsy that manipulate and bend the words of people of color in ways that are nearly untraceable in the present day. With this in mind, we need to have a cautious and keen eye as we look towards the past to better understand our history and the discussions around racist practices.

“Colored Artist Doesn’t Seek Much.” Advocate (Kansas City, Kansas) XI, no. 25, February 6, 1925: [1]. Readex: African American Newspapers. https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image/v2%3A12AE42418574BA80%40EANAAA-12BF19AEA32ADE60%402424188-12BF19AEB3350DF8%400-12BF19AEE80B6F30%40Colored%2BArtist%2BDoesn%2527t%2BSeek%2BMuch.

Francis (Frank) Johnson (1792–1844)— an “originator of music for the new (American) Republic”—was an African American bandleader, composer, teacher and performer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who was central to the cultural and musical life of his locale.[1] Johnson was born within the post-Revolutionary context of a burgeoning community of African Americans in Philadelphia, known as Society Hill.[2] Frank Johnson’s skillset was broad, and besides developing virtuosity on the violin and cornet, he achieved great admiration by Philadelphian elite, whom he composed dances for and performed them with string and brass bands at social events.[3] Johnson lived at 536 Pine Street in Philadelphia for most of his life, a site which today has a commemorative marker honoring the legacy of the trailblazing musician.[4] See below.

Francis Johnson (1792-1844), (Historical Marker at 536 Pine St. Philadelphia PA – Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission 1992).

Johnson also composed music for regional militia gatherings, cultivating his capabilities in the wake of a “rush of patriotism” sweeping America after the War of 1812.[5] His brass band played marches and quicksteps (the latter is a type of march)—considered “today as the earliest form of distinctly pure American marches,” Johnson set a standard of influence for American martial music in the early 19^th century.[6] He would go on to compose over 200 pieces in a variety of genres.[7] By 1837, Johnson became a pioneering American musical figure in another groundbreaking way—his brass band prepared and embarked on a tour to Europe, performing in London, which was significantly “the first known performance by an American music ensemble in Europe.”[8]

Windsor Castle, Windsor, England – Johnson Performance 01-01-1838 (photograph 1854).

Frank Johnson toured in the United States, which expanded his reputation beyond Philadelphia. Notably, though, such regional tours to the Midwest and other Northeast cities were not always received well. Occupying an era predating blackface minstrelsy, Johnson nevertheless lived at a time when societal racism presented momentous challenges to even free Black communities in the North.[9] After one performance in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in 1843 (near Pittsburgh), newspapers reported of a “Riot near Pittsburgh- Frank Johnson’s Band robbed.” [10] Frank Johnson passed away in 1844. Though hindered by racism as an African American and largely overlooked today in American music history, Frank Johnson was an important musical figure of the Antebellum Era who can be understood as an originator of distinct American musical forms and American performance abroad.

Albany Evening Journal, Albany, New York, May 23, 1843, p. 2.

[1] Richard Griscom, “Francis Johnson: Philadelphia Bandmaster and Composer.” University of Pennsylvania Almanac, February 14, 2012; Charles Kelley Jones, Francis Johnson (1792-1844): chronicle of a Black musician in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia (United States: Lehigh University Press, 2006), 32.

[2] Jones, Francis Johnson (1792-1844, (United States: Lehigh University Press, 2006), 29.

[3] Griscom, “Francis Johnson,” University of Pennsylvania Almanac, February 14, 2012.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Jones, Francis Johnson, 46.

[6] Ibid.

[7] See quickstep in “Quickstep,” Grove Music Online, 2001, Accessed 29 Nov. 2022. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000022695; See marches in Earnest Lamb, “The Music of Francis Johnson and His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers. The Chestnut Brass Company and Friends, Tamara Brooks, Conductor. Music Masters 7029-2-C, 1990,” Journal of the Society for American Music 8, no. 2 (2014): 266–67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196314000133.

[8] Griscom, “Francis Johnson,” 2012.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Albany Evening Journal, Albany, New York, May 23, 1843, p. 2.

Frances Densmore was an accomplished woman who took on the task, given by the United States government, to record a vast amount of songs from indigenous tribes across the nation. By peering into this task shallowly, one might argue that she made a great and positive feet for the indigenous tribes she encountered. She is inherently responsible for keeping many traditions and songs from these tribes alive through her use of publications, notation, and recording cylinders. However, the method in which she took to force her presence on some of the indigenous people was one that often caused critique from her peers and scholars today. 

The Papago people are located in the southwest region of the United states, specifically located in the valleys of the Santa Cruz River. Called by Densmore the “desert people”, the Papago lived and recorded with Densmore in the Papago Reservation in Sells, San Xavier, and Vomari in 1920. Through Densmore’s bulletin published on the Papago, we come to learn that they are an agricultural tribe, often dedicating much of their time and resources to farming maize, beans, wheat, barley, and cotton. Interestingly Densmore shares that the Papago are “by nature and industrious people and are now finding employment in various activities incidental to the coming of the white race. For instance, many are able to make a living by cutting mesquite wood in the desert and selling it in the neighboring towns.” I wonder how “natural” this quality was of Papago, or if it was the outcome to her and the government’s push for assimilation into American society. 

Bibliography

Densmore, F. (2006). Papago music. Kessinger Pub.

Buddy Bolden made a name for himself performing in Union Square. https://prcno.org/louis-sullivans-sophisticated-union-depot-welcomed-train-passengers-new-orleans-60-years/

Buddy Bolden’s childhood home. https://prcno.org/buddy-bolden-father-jazz/

One of the most informative sources I came across for my group’s project on the origins of jazz is an article published by historian James Karst on the Preservation Society of New Orleans’ website titled “Buddy Bolden, the father of jazz, left no known recorded music, but his home still stands in Central City”. Buddy Bolden, born as Charles Bolden, was a virtuosic jazz trumpet performer and one of the main contributors to the birth of the jazz genre. Bolden, likely influenced by brass bands on the streets of his Central City neighborhood in New Orleans, rose to fame for his cornet playing in Union Square (Marquis). Karst writes that “Sometime before the turn of the century, legend has it, he began to improvise passages in existing songs, perhaps because of his inability to play them as written or as others played them. The failure to play the music the way it was intended didn’t matter, of course. The people loved it. They supposedly would come from across the city to hear Bolden play.” This being said, I was surprised to have never even heard his name until we started our project. Bolden’s career ended abruptly with three arrests and his admittance into the State Insane Asylum in Jackson, Louisiana, which is probably the reason behind Bolden’s little physical records today.

Central City neighborhood where Bolden lived. https://thelensnola.org/2013/02/01/photo-essay-central-city-languishes-just-a-short-walk-from-the-glitzy-superdome/

Like the title of Karst’s article suggests, there is no recorded music by Buddy Bolden that can be listened to today. Furthermore, the article states that there is only a single known picture of the jazz star. It is not even known where Bolden is buried. Karst uses uncertain language in the article that signifies to readers that not much is known about Bolden’s childhood, either: “He undoubtedly witnessed brass bands parading through the streets from the time he was a child. He probably went to the Fisk School [not to be confused with Fisk University, where the Fisk Jubilee Singers originated], the same school Louis Armstrong later attended, and may have even graduated. At some point, he began taking music lessons on the cornet,” (Karst) [Italicizations added to draw attention to Karst’s unsure wording].

The only known picture of Buddy Bolden. He is pictured second from left in the top row. Buddy Bolden’s childhood home. https://prcno.org/buddy-bolden-father-jazz/

These gaps in knowledge about Buddy Bolden’s life were not aided by his three arrests and consequential institutionalization. Bolden’s first arrest in 1906 (and likely his others) was connected to his deteriorating mental state as a young adult: “He had been bedridden for several weeks, according to newspaper reports on the incident from the time, including one recently discovered by this writer. In a fit of psychosis, Bolden became convinced that he was being drugged or poisoned, and he attacked his caregiver, who was either his mother or his mother-in-law. He was booked on a charge of being insane, and alcohol abuse was cited as the reason for his insanity,” (Karst). Karst writes that Bolden was arrested twice more in the following year, which eventually landed Bolden in the aforementioned State Insane Asylum. Bolden quit music due to struggles with his band and spent the rest of his life in the asylum. The little known knowledge about Bolden is likely due to his short-lived music career. This being said, it is amazing to consider the impact that Bolden had on the origins of jazz in such a quick time period. I wonder how many other incredibly influential American music are little known because of factors such as illness, lack of resources, imprisonment, or other similar issues?

Sources:

Karst, James. “Buddy Bolden, the Father of Jazz, Left No Known Recorded Music, but His Home Still Stands in Central City.” Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans, 30 Apr. 2019, https://prcno.org/buddy-bolden-father-jazz/.

Marquis, Donald M. In Search of Buddy Bolden : First Man of Jazz. Revised edition., Louisiana State University Press, 2005.

The newspaper headline proudly reads “Evanti Wins Plaudits of Italians”, published in the Wyandotte Echo in Kansas City. At first glance, there is nothing particularly strange about this headline besides the fact that a Kansas City newspaper is paying mind at all to the opinions of Italians on, well, anything. But there’s so much more to it. It is true that Evanti had won the favor of many Italians, as well as plenty of others throughout Europe, but it is important to acknowledge that the reason she was really in Europe at all was for the sake that her talents were not being adequately appreciated in America. The fact that a newspaper in Kansas City would sing her praises years after she essentially gave up on a music career in America is ironic, but in a way also demonstrates the impact Lillian Evanti had and her importance to other members of the black musical community.

In her early years, Evanti performed mainly in DC, but it’s in her plea to the Crisis newspaper that we can really see how difficult that was. In her letter to W.E.B Du Bois that he ended up publishing in the newspaper, it is clear that segregation was taking its toll on her platform and audience. It was then that she decided to go to Europe (which mind you, was not known for being terribly anti-racist in the 1920s either) and proceeded to stun endless audiences with her voice. Why then, when America had all but shunned her, did the Wyandotte Echo decide to publish this piece? This newspaper, unlike the Crisis was not known for lifting up BIPOC voices, but perhaps we could attribute this all to the fact that the American obsession with fame is a very powerful thing.

Akin to the French obsession with jazz, it is likely that having an American singer become so renowned abroad was a huge deal for America. Before the 1920s, there were very limited defining factors in terms of American sound and a small number of renowned classical performers or composers. Evanti would have been extraordinary for this sake alone. Still, it is almost cruel that anyone should love her for her fame when she was so hated for her race. Nonetheless, there is something to be said for the fact that she had such a positive presence in a newspaper at all for this time period. It is possible that she opened doors for other black musicians by breaking down some of the barriers she had faced as a black woman in America by going to and finding fame in Europe. 

Sources 

• “Evanti Wins Plaudits of Italians.” Wyandotte Echo (Kansas City, Kansas) III, no. 11, June 6, 1930: PAGE [ONE]. Readex: African American Newspapers. https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image/v2%3A12ACD97C8656DCF8%40EANAAA-12C8BA26840196C8%402426134-12C8BA268E28EC78%400-12C8BA26BB913CB0%40Evanti%2BWins%2BPlaudits%2Bof%2BItalians.

Crisis (Firm). “Pages from The Crisis with editorial by Lillian Evanti, 1927.” W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/pageturn/mums312-b175-i625/#page/1/mode/1up

What does a beach town with a nationally renowned aquarium and Chicagoan jazz legends like Thelonious Monk have in common? If you are a jazz musician today and don’t live under a rock, you might know the answer – the Monterey Jazz Festival, one of the biggest and most prestigious jazz festivals in the country. Founded in 1958, it is the longest continuously-running jazz festival in the world, and, today, only the best of the best of professional jazz musicians get invited to perform (1).

The Festival was co-founded by Ralph Gleason, a jazz critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Jimmy Lyons, a jazz disc jockey. It took them over two years to organize the first festival, but they worked on overdrive to book jazz musicians from all the major jazz epicenters, like New Orleans, Harlem, and Chicago (2). In the very first festival, the two pulled the likes of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday (whose particular performance became famous, especially since she died suddenly about nine months later), and Dave Brubeck, who coined and was the first supporter of the idea of the festival (1).

Seen in newspaper articles from the Chicago Defender, there was not only considerable effort made by the festival to recruit top talent in jazz, but also efforts made to uplift the communities that the musicians hailed from and where there were fans. Check out this article advertising the musicians in the 1961 festival (3) and 1963 festival, which included Thelonious Monk (4):

The jazz festival has been popular for years, and has drawn as many as 40,000 people over the three days per year. It has also implemented programs for outreach, including funding music scholarships at the Monterey Peninsula College and Berklee College of Music, a summer jazz camp for students, and honor ensembles, including a big band, a vocal jazz ensemble, and women-only combos. Another outreach program of the festival is its Next Generation Jazz Festival, in which big bands, combos, singers, and jazz choirs from schools and universities across the country compete to even make it into the prestigious three-day event (5). This festival is especially cool for me because I was lucky enough to get to perform at it in high school with my vocal jazz ensemble! (I’m pretty sure we got close to the bottom of the competition rankings, though: California has a pretty fantastic jazz scene, both in general and at high schools.)

Sources:

(1) “Monterey Jazz Festival.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, November 16, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterey_Jazz_Festival.

(2) “The Monterey Jazz Festival Collection.” Spotlight at Stanford. Accessed November 20, 2022. https://exhibits.stanford.edu/mjf.

(3) Monterey jazz festival boasts allstar lineup(2). 1961. The Chicago Defender (National edition) (1921-1967), Aug 19, 1961. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/monterey-jazz-festival-boasts-allstar-lineup-2/docview/492970249/se-2 (accessed November 21, 2022).

(4) Line up jazz festival for monterey, calif. 1963. Chicago Daily Defender (Daily Edition) (1960-1973), Aug 26, 1963. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/line-up-jazz-festival-monterey-calif/docview/493965032/se-2 (accessed November 21, 2022).

(5) “JazzReach – Education – 65th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival.” Monterey Jazz Festival. Accessed November 21, 2022. https://montereyjazzfestival.org/education/program/jazzreach/.

What constitutes American Classical music? Perhaps we could define it by the Western sound of Copland, who delineated the open plains in a series of open fifths or Ellington who took Jazz, a distinctly American genre to the symphonic stage, or even Dvorak who wasn’t American at all but somehow managed to be one of the best at defining American classical music. 

For other nations, the distinction was easy. France holds impressionism, full of soft lilting melodies and making use of modal harmony when it had become somewhat obsolete. Germany was defined in Wagnerian extravagance, Italy laid claim to opera, and Russian music was re-interpreted again and again by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich in a series of controversial (and frequently politically controversial) harmonies. What did America have? I think it might be fair to say that American music is defined more by subject matter than it is by tonality or style. Charles Ives is perhaps one of the best examples of this.

The headline of the Chicago Defender reads “Chicago Symphony opens with Ives’ Decoration Day”. This is one of four pieces written by Ives called “Four New England Holidays” all based on his childhood on the east coast. Decoration day (or memorial day as we know it now) is full of “simultaneity” meaning that different instruments are playing entirely incongruent parts that line up in some vertical manner. He was much ahead of composers in Europe that would eventually try the same thing (Chicago Defender).

Ives was always very dedicated to depicting a scene. In Decoration Day, there are many elements that can lead the audience to know exactly what was in Ives’s head. The movement starts with rather disturbed and incongruent parts punctuated by church bells, made to signify the “fragmented memories and melodies” that his father shared with him about the Civil War (Coffill). Eventually the piece breaks out into a full military march, before returning to an even more haunting, bare bones version of the opening. Such clear depictions of an event can be seen in many of Ives’s other works such as “Central Park After Dark” where the instruments are supposed to emulate the sounds of central park including voices and car horns (Keller). Both of these settings are inherently American, but his styling is nowhere in relation to Copland, Price, or Ellington. However, all of these composers did write about the subject matter of America, and maybe that is where the true musical nationalism lies. 

Sources: 

“Chicago Symphony Opens with Ives’ ‘Decoration Day’.” Chicago Defender (Daily Edition) (1973-), Nov 19, 1974. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/chicago-symphony-opens-with-ives-decoration-day/docview/494084643/se-2.

Coffill, B. (2019). Charles Ives’s Decoration Day: A Conductor’s Guide. SAGE Open, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018820353

Keller, James M. “Notes on the Program – New York Philharmonic.” NyPhil.org, NY Philharmonic, https://nyphil.org/~/media/pdfs/program-notes/1819/Ives-Central-Park-in-the-Dark.pdf.

When looking at maps in our class, we’ve observed that many conclusions can be drawn from a map regarding the author’s intentions: how they want to use the map, and to what end. Advertisements are no different, and it’s important to acknowledge what an ad is attempting to achieve and how it tries to reach its goal. This furthers our understanding of the author and the context for when it was made. A clear example of this can be found in the 5th Annual American Negro Music Festival Program, held on July 8th, 1944 (1). The program functioned as a flyer to promote the event to potential ticket buyers as well as show audience members what they were in for.

The front cover of the program.

The inside of the program

From our modern-day perspective, the opening cover seems to be disarming and doesn’t give us much information about the concert itself. It’s held at the White Sox Ball Park, a relatively-large venue. The title is specific enough so viewers understand that the festival will feature some aspect of African-American music, but vague enough for viewers not to know which one. Could it be folk? Classical? Jazz? Spirituals? The front cover intentionally gives us no answer.

The back of the program

Then we move to the inside of the pamphlet, and much more is revealed. All of the main acts listed are African Americans who perform inside the European concert tradition and individuals respected in academic circles, or at least the program frames it as such. Names such as Madam Lillian Evanti and Langston Hughes are mentioned. The program also wants to make clear its goals as a social-justice event and goes out of its way to articulate its intentions “to create a keener and more appreciative understanding between all racial groups” (2).

Finally, the last page includes a final call to get tickets and endorses itself with the names of well-known political figures and organizations. Notably, the public figures mentioned are all white. Looking at all of the observations we’ve gathered, we can conclude that this was undoubtedly targeted at white audiences. Every aspect of the planned event and this advertisement appeals to white sensibilities. All of the African American artists listed are noted as excelling at white traditions of opera, poetry, composition, and European music. It makes no mention of Spirituals, Jazz, Blues, or Folk music – all genres that were spreading at a rapid pace among African American musicians. The endorsements come from white authority figures, rather than Black intellectuals and leaders at the time. Langston Hughes was involved with this event and was a prominent Black cultural leader. Why not have him endorse it? The fear was that doing so would scare white audiences away.

While the seeking of white approval is disappointing from our present-day perspective, it doesn’t undercut the concert’s historical intentions of racial justice. At the time, putting together an event at this scale that featured Black musicians and artists was highly unusual, and likely a huge risk for all financially invested parties. However, this does not permit filtering black art through a white lens, especially not in the present day. If we seek to dismantle implicit racism that events like these perpetuated, we must acknowledge the impact it had (good and bad) to avoid making the same mistakes.

(1) Evans-Tibbs collection, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of the Estate of Thurlow E. Tibbs, Jr.

(2) Evans-Tibbs collection, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of the Estate of Thurlow E. Tibbs, Jr.

A self made millionaire, Robert Sengstacke Abbott trained as a lawyer and turned to newspaper publishing after two years of practicing law in Indiana and Kansas. Despite Abbott’s shift in career direction, his work remained rooted in social justice and an unwavering commitment to making life better for the many African Americans leaving the south and heading north during what is known as The Great Migration. While none of the nine original goals of his newspaper, The Chicago Defender, speak to the proliferation of African American musicians, composers and conductors, the existence of his newspaper provided exposure for thousands of African American musicians who would otherwise have been forgotten. Abbott’s efforts were recognized nationally and included in the Encyclopedia of Chicago website noting, “The Chicago Defender promoted black fine arts and publicized the works of artists and the institutions that supported and nurtured their creativity.” Even though Abbott’s newspaper was not established to nurture blossoming African American musicians at the time, it inadvertently was the singular catalyst for popularizing many of the black musicians we know and love today. This includes greats like Margaret Bonds, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker. Sarah A. Waits in her theses and dissertation, “‘Listen to The Wild Discord’: Jazz in the Chicago Defender and the Louisiana Weekly, 1925-1929,” confirms the subtle promotion for African American musicians when she writes, “By highlighting the gigs and engagements of New Orleans-born musicians, and of orchestras that played New Orleans-style jazz, musicians in New Orleans were aware of the economic and popular successes of former residents” (Waits, 17). 

Abbott termed the nine original goals of his newspaper the Bible, and tied his entrepreneurship to the health, safety, civil rights and expansion of African Americans and their cultural roots. This publication contributed to The Great Migration with Abbott heroically using his skill, knowledge and desire to help African Amercians dream of a life outside the Jim Crow South. In establishing, publishing and distributing information about African American representation, careers and artistic cultural events, Abbott shared a vision of what awaited them in the north and introduced them to those African Americans who were living out their dream of composing and performing in the arts and redefining the field for all.

In 1975, newspaper journalist Earl Calloway, widely known as the Fine Arts Editor and a columnist for The Chicago Daily Defender, wrote a short column regarding The Chicgao Defender newspaper putting specific emphasis on African American culture. The title of the article does not do justice to Mr. Calloway’s writing because of the emphasis on black entertainers and musicians in the text. Mr. Calloway begins the article by referencing earlier editions of The Chicago Defender highlighting African American musicians and composers such as the infamous James P. Johnson, a revolutionary pianist who was a major part of the transition from ragtime to jazz music, his pupils, as well as other young talented black artists at the time. Mr. Calloway recognizes Mr. Abbott and his contributions as well as how his “personal involvement and support continued throughout his life by attending and emphasizing artistic activity and development” in African American individuals (Calloway). Calloway further expands on the fact that there are little to no black musicians who haven’t been touched and carry the support from The Chicago Defender. Mr. Abbott’s newspaper was not only a wide success for the African American community in its fight for civil rights, it was also a newspaper that featured and amplified black excellence, something many newspaper companies and publishers are still mastering to this day. Calloway concludes his article with the names and pictures of ten talented and noteworthy African American musicians, including the famous African American lyric tenor and composer, Roland Hayes. Mr. Calloway’s final words from his article fill the reader with hope and a sense of certainty that The Chicago Defender will always recognize and uplift black musicians in their continued fight for equal opportunity around performing, access to venues, and the right to earn a living and even profit from their creative talents.  Thankfully, Abbott was educated as a lawyer but gave up practicing law to establish a newspaper that uplifted and created a platform to achieve greater justice for all African Americans.

Works Cited

Calloway, Earl. “Chicago Defender emphasizes African-American cultural.” Chicago Defender (Daily Edition) (1973-), May 05, 1975, pp. 69. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/chicago-defender-emphasizes-african-american/docview/494124522/se-2. 

Chicago Black Renaissance, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/240.html. 

Tamblyn, contributed by: George. “Robert Sengstacke Abbott (1870-1940) •.” •, 15 Nov. 2020, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/abbott-robert-sengstacke-1870-1940/. 

Waits, Sarah  A. ‘Listen to The Wild Discord’: Jazz in the Chicago Defender and the Louisiana Weekly, 1925-1929, https://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2669&context=td. 

While perusing Chicago Defender, I came across an article from September of 2011 that announced plans to construct the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee. The article states that the museum “will focus on the way African Americans have influenced almost every genre of American music – from rock ‘n’ roll, to country, to rhythm and blues and gospel”. I was pleasantly surprised that The Associated Press recognized genres such as rock ‘n’ roll and country that are not stereotypically associated with African American music but are very influenced by contributions from African American musicians and traditions.

This draws parallels to Rhiannon Gidden’s “Community and Connection,” Keynote Speech at 2017 International Bluegrass Music Association Conference, which the class watched and read earlier in the semester. In her speech, Giddens identifies the roots of bluegrass as a mixture of a variety of traditions besides the commonly believed Scottish-Irish origins, such as African American and Native American sources hundreds of years in the making. The use of the banjo in bluegrass music especially derives from African American musicking, according to Giddens, and has helped to launch the genre to international recognition and success.

Banjo https://www.thomannmusic.com/harley_benton_bj_65pro_6_string_banjo.htm

Now that over a decade has passed since the Chicago Defender article was written, the National Museum of African American Music has transitioned from an idea into a fully-built establishment that thrives in the heart of Nashville. While the Chicago Defender article predicted the museum would open in 2013, it never actually opened until January 2021. That is an eight year difference! Although the COVID-19 pandemic almost certainly played a part in the delay of opening the museum, there must have been other factors that postponed the opening or construction of the museum before the pandemic began. I wonder if this could have something to do with the research and exhibit-making process taking longer than expected?

National Museum of African American Music https://nashvilledowntown.com/go/national-museum-of-african-american-music

Interestingly, the “Galleries” page of the official website for the National Museum of African American Music states that it is “the only museum dedicated to educating, preserving and celebrating more than 50 music genres and styles that were created, influenced, and/or inspired by African Americans, including spirituals, blues, jazz, gospel, R&B, and hip-hop.” This is an interesting dichotomy in regards to the Chicago Defender article in that the museum’s website specifically names and focuses on stereotypically African American genres of music. The two exhibits in the museum that are currently active (outside of the main Rivers of Rhythm experience that is the central focus of the museum) focus on spirituals and the blues. This leads me to believe that although the museum is probably a great educational resource for learning about stereotypically African American musical traditions, it may not shed light on the other genres of music (such as bluegrass) that African Americans also have contributed to and influenced.

Sources:

rtmadmincd. “Nashville Museum on African American Music Planned.” Chicago Defender, Real Times Media, 11 Sept. 2011, https://chicagodefender.com/nashville-museum-on-african-american-music-planned/.

“Galleries.” National Museum of African American Music, Tennessee Arts Commission, https://www.nmaam.org/galleries.

Povelones, Robert. “Rhiannon Giddens Keynote Address – IBMA Business Conference 2017.” IBMA, 26 Apr. 2021, https://ibma.org/rhiannon-giddens-keynote-address-2017/.

Florence Price

In 1933, Florence Price became the first ever African American woman to make her symphony debut with a US orchestra, specifically the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Florence Price was born in 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas, to a family that surrounded her with music, especially her mother, Florence Smith, who was a singer and pianist. Surrounded by hate and discrimination, just after Jim Crow laws passed, Price established a foundation of musical literacy through the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. First starting her career through education, Florence soon changed paths after her troubling and abusive divorce. She traveled with her daughters to the heart of the Harlem Renaissance in Chicago, where she met influential musicians like Marian Anderson and William Dawson. Her compositional journey began with spirituals and then transformed into large-scale orchestral works. These works, like Symphony in E Minor, made her an extraordinarily influential and prominent black composer. Reflecting on the debate held in class based on readings such as Samuel Floyd, Rae Brown, or Jean Snyder, I believe the contributions that Florence Price makes to the African American community and the western classical realm are significant. Through these primary sources provided, I will explore this debate even further.

Correspondence from Price to Wallace Magill

This primary source shown above is a correspondence from Florence Price to Wallace Magill, the director of Bell Telephone Hour, which “showcased the best in classical and Broadway music, reaching eight to nine million listeners each week.” This letter included Price’s gratitude towards the director in response to his acceptance of her spiritual “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” to be performed by her long-time friend Marian Anderson in the program on September 14, 1942. This letter gives excellent insight into how prominent and accepted Price had done her work in society as this popular classical radio show played her pieces alongside composers such as Beethoven, Kreisler, Brams, and many other great operatic stars. Consequently, I included a second primary source located in the music library entitled Art Songs and Spirituals by African American Women Composers. This source contains the exact sheet music of the song played on Bell Telephone Hour and lists it alongside other prominent spirituals.

My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord

It is abundantly clear that Price went through extreme trials and tribulations during her time as a composer and black woman, especially as one looks at the critiques from various musicians in the industry. However, it is evident through the abundance of performances and awards that Price achieved that she indeed influenced the entirety of not only the black musical spear but also the classical music realm. Her compositions and hold on the music industry lead us in one direction of the heavily discussed debate brought up early; classical music can lead to a whitewashing of black musical culture. Although, composers such as Florence Price prove that you can utilize classical music to both spread your name through white audiences and equally spread black culture in popular spaces such as she used Bell Telephone Hour to do. One question I might pose is, would Florence Price be as influential as she is if she hadn’t been as invested in orchestral works as she was?

Citations

Knight, E. (2020, October 28). Florence Price: The story of america’s forgotten musical genius. Music | Al Jazeera. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/10/28/florence-price-americas-lost-musical-genius

Magill, W. (1945). Bell telelphone hour – OTR : Free download, Borrow, and streaming. Internet Archive. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://archive.org/details/Bell_Telephone_Hour

Price, F. (1942). Florence Price Letter to Wallace Magill, September 3, 1942, regarding Marian Anderson’s Performance of a Work by Price. CONTENTDM. Retrieved November 14, 2022, from https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/collection/p17212coll3/id/10/

Taylor, V., King, B. J., Moore, U. S. (1995). Art songs and spirituals by African-American women composers. Hildegard Publ.

Aaron Copland, as most of us know, is one of the famed American composers of the late 18th-early 19th century. He is one of the big names in the American music canon.

In all honesty, I don’t know very much about Copland’s life or his collaborations. One of the pieces I knew a little bit about was Appalachian Spring, a ballet he composed the score for in collaboration with a friend of his, Martha Graham. Martha Graham was a famous American dancer whose choreography had a significant impact on the modern dance world. She is pictured below.

Copland and Graham began writing back and forth when she commissioned him to write a ballet with “an American theme.” They toyed with several ideas and until she suggested the name, Copland referred to this work as “Ballet for Martha”. I was looking for letters about this piece when I came across this one. There is no date for the letter, but it talks of hiring a choreographer, so one could assume its from during the beginning/middle stages of working on the ballet.

One thing I was not expecting to find in this letter at all was a summary of the Scarlet Letter.

I wasn’t sure why she included it at first, but then I read the beginning of the letter again and maybe it was a preliminary bouncing off point for a possible storyline of the ballet. I think they scrapped this idea because I tried to find a source that confirmed that this was the subject matter of the ballet but had no luck. The thought that something like the Scarlet Letter was even talked about as potential inspiration for Appalachian Spring is incredibly surprising to me. We usually don’t think to tie music, dance, and literature together because of the fact that these art forms are so different.

The Scarlet Letter came out in 1850 and this ballet premiered in 1944. Both of these pieces of work carry huge significance in the cannons of which they are a part. When thinking of quintessential American literature, the Scarlet Letter usually comes to mind. When thinking of iconic American classical music, Appalachian Spring usually comes to mind. This potential piece of information brings to mind more questions – why was this idea scrapped? How much of it remains in the way the ballet is performed today? Why does no one bring this up when talking about this piece?

It’s so interesting, too, to see how the potential usage of the Scarlet Letter as subject matter for this iconic American composition is leaning into such a white narrative and seemingly rejecting other cultural influences. Copland in his catalog has taken influences from other cultures to further his compositions, but I think the desire to stick with “American traditions” and the title of piece being what it is and it not being very reflective of what Appalachia looked like during the time period the piece was set in is very interesting.

Regardless of why this idea didn’t go any further, the ballet was worked on and there were more drafts – all the while Aaron and Martha kept in touch. Here is a letter she wrote him from right before the ballet premiered:

It is clear how much this work meant to the both of them, and other people were even able to pick up on it.

Collaboration is the bread and butter of the music and performing art world – without it, we wouldn’t have works of art like this. People might not want to go looking for how the sausage gets made (so to speak), but if you do, you might find a clue you never thought to factor in.

Works Cited:

Cassidy, Claudia. On the Aisle Martha Graham and Aaron Copland Good Companions in Superb “Appalachian Spring”. Chicago Tribune, Chicago, 1946. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200153644/>.

Kraft, Victor. Aaron Copland by candlelight, studio in the Berkshires, September. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/copland.phot0017/>.

Letter from Martha Graham to Aaron Copland, n.d. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200154125/>.

Letter from Martha Graham to Aaron Copland, May 1. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200154119/>.

Charles Ives is a difficult pill to swallow. As a student studying music composition, I have been confronted with Ives and the larger body of atonal music he contributed to on several occasions; its merits as a stylistic choice, its place in academic circles, and whether to incorporate it into my own music. Each time I look at his work and read his thoughts on the arts, his philosophy towards music, and his demeanor in discussing it, his rhetoric perpetuates my disdain towards him.

Composer Charles Ives staring stoically off into the distance…

The Selected Correspondence of Charles Ives includes an exchange of letters between Ives and Henry H. Bellamann, a music critic who in April of 1921 receives a copy of Ives’ second piano sonata (1). He conveys in a letter his enjoyment of the piece, his plans to include it in his lectures, and requests for more information on Ive’s first piano sonata to relay it to audiences.

In Ives’ response to his letter, he gives Bellamann advice on possible ways to include Concord Sonata in his lecture and conveys his curiosity about how audiences react. He says “The first movements I find are severe tests for the listener as well as the player” (2). This statement could not possibly be more descriptive of the 17-minute-long first movement of his second piano Sonata, titled “Emerson” (3). His word choice, describing his music as a “test”, irks me in every wrong way imaginable. With this, he implies that listening to the movement is a rite of passage that denotes a listener or musician’s value.

Ives also appears to have the temperament or insecurity of a child (probably both). Ives receives a letter from colleague Percy Goetschius. While Goetschius makes clear his interest in Ives’ work, he does not withhold his criticism. As Goetschius states that “to my mind, these classic methods are correct ones [Ives adds between the lines ‘for soft eared cissies and aural cowards…” (4). While this does display a lack of impulse control and reveals deep insecurities about himself, this also suggests that Ives views his music as impervious to criticism, so much so he would rather write this intrusive thought down than keep it to himself.

We have talked a lot in class about the identity of American music. There is no denying the fact that Ives’ music is American. He was a composer who lived and worked in the United States, attempting to pioneer his own brand of music, so debating this is irrelevant. The question that remains is whether Ive’s music – and his contributions to atonal music – is something we want to perpetuate in the present day. If we answer this question from the perspective of the general public the answer is laid bare. The general public likely has no interest in performing his music, as seen with trends in popular music.

However, academic circles appear to be interested in continuing to engage with Ive’s music, as seen in courses that equip students to analyze post-tonal music, and new composers building upon Ive’s harmonic language in chamber and orchestral settings. If academic institutions choose to identify Ive’s work as a vital contribution to American western-classical music and worthwhile building upon, they must acknowledge that doing so deepens (both consciously and subconsciously) notions of self-deserving elitism, and encourages others to be recalcitrant to criticism of their work.

(1) Owens, Tom C, and Tom C Owens. 2007. Selected Correspondence of Charles Ives. 1st ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/j.ctt1ppr8v.

(2) Pg 84. Owens, Tom C, and Tom C Owens. 2007. Selected Correspondence of Charles Ives. 1st ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/j.ctt1ppr8v.

(3) Ives, Charles. n.d. “IVES: Piano Sonata No. 2 ‘Concord, Mass’ (Henck)”. Hong Kong: Naxos Digital Services US Inc.

(4) pg 67. Ives, Charles. n.d. “IVES: Piano Sonata No. 2 ‘Concord, Mass’ (Henck)”. Hong Kong: Naxos Digital Services US Inc.

When thinking about the style of American music, one composer may come to mind more than any other. With such a distinctive voice and beloved presence, Aaron Copland was an influential figure in American music, helping define a new era of what American music means. Copland believed in popular American and traditional music and brought a contemporary feel, a comfortable feel.

One exciting thing about Copland, which I learned in class last year with Louis Epstein, is that Copland studied with French teacher Nadia Boulanger from 1921-1924. The challenging aspect of this relationship is that as a labeled American composer, he was taught by a French musician, a very influential genre of music in the 1920s. French music in the 1920s was largely influenced by Les Six, members such as Poulenc and Milhaud.¹

²

He was different in that he incorporated known forms of American music such as folk and jazz into his pieces while also having a slight French influence, unlike other composers of the time. Above is the first draft of Appalachian Spring which would later become one of his most well-known compositions.

Copland had countless correspondence with countless people, yet I would like to focus on the correspondence between him and Nadia Boulanger. Nadia and Aaron had many years’ worth of contact. This specific correspondence below is from April 19th, 1929, and is Copland writing to Boulanger. He writes of advertisement propositions and asks Boulanger to play for him.

³

Based on this relationship, I still think that his music can be classified as very American. Copland, however much he was influenced by the French, was also influenced by numerous cultures and countries. That is what American music is. Cultivation of different music and ideas in one. Aaron Copland brought great artistry to American music and changed the way American music was defined.

1 Hitchcock, H. Wiley. “Aaron Copland and American Music.” Perspectives of New Music 19, no. 1/2 (1980): 31–33. https://doi.org/10.2307/832568.

2 Copland, Aaron. Appalachian Spring First Rough Sketches. Notated Music. https://www.loc.gov/item/copland.sket0024/.

3 Copland, Aaron. Letter from Aaron Copland to Nadia Boulanger, April 19.  Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/copland.corr0121/

As one of the most recognized and respected American classical composers of the twentieth century, Aaron Copland’s music reached deeply into the heart and soul of many aspiring, young American composers. Uniquely, Copland incorporated folk songs and jazz into his compositions, showcasing these popular American musical forms and creating inspiring and innovative music. Though still firmly entrenched in the rich history that accompanies jazz and folk songs (from America as well as other countries), Copland pushed the boundaries of modern day music of the late 1920s. Boundaries were also tested through his quest to repopularize European classical music and simultaneously showcase young American talent. It was this effort that led Copland to team up with another significant twentieth century American composer, Roger Sessions. 

Though both men were born in Brooklyn, New York, their first meeting was in Paris in 1924 at the apartment of famous pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. This initial encounter sparked a long correspondence of letters between the two men where they wrote about many topics  including their mutual admiration for one another and their opposing views on what constitutes American music. I find this amusing, given this echoes the overarching goal of this course, reexamining and redefining American music. This was the area of concentration in their letters during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It was during this period of correspondence that Copland and Sessions began their work on an extremely important concert series, the Copland-Sessions Concerts. The concert was put together in an effort to share the works of younger generation American composers, filled with differential musical personalities, to showcase American excellence and experimentation. This is affirmed in the first concert program which concluded with the statement  “Our only wish is to stimulate composers to more prolific activity and to develop a stronger sense of solidarity among the creators of a growing American music” (Oja, 212). 

An examination of these letters demonstrates that this concert series was made possible through their correspondence, revealing not only what was said in the letters but by the style the two composers used when writing to one another. One such letter from Copland to Sessions  dated March 18th, 1927, indicates the very warm and friendly relationship the two men enjoyed. Here Copland freely expresses his thoughts and feelings on certain subject matters, while also acknowledging the lapse of time in responding to his counterpart, “And how delightfully silly of you to have imagined that there was any shadow of a misunderstanding between us when my not writing to you is quite simply explained by the Concerto, that is finishing it and playing it.” Copland’s words to Sessions indicate a level of care and promise on his part, addressing the idea that Sessions may have thought things were up in the air between the two. Copland reassures Sessions that he was not ignoring him, and their relationship remains strong. This is an important correspondence because it speaks to the heartfelt relationship they had formed and Copland’s explicitly stated interest in Sessions’ Symphony telling him, “As far as I know Koussie expects to do it in April — he even told me he might do an All-American program, though he didn’t say whether or not he thought of doing the symphony then.” This letter was a catalyst for Sessions launching his first critical performance and subsequently a career which highlighted his specific ideas about American music. From then on through an exchange of letters, Copland carefully outlines the idea of a concert where young American and European composers present their original works in New York. The actual series went on for 4 years, ending in 1932.

Copland and Sessions were each prominent figures in this new generation of American composers, so despite some differences, it was not considered unusual for them to orchestrate and lead this concert series, “Yet they represented different orientations, possessing viewpoints that significantly colored their attitudes toward the focus of such endeavors. Sessions, although sympathetic to the plight of the young composer, spurned all chauvinistic tendencies, was not apt to support a composer on the basis of his national origin, and espoused more international philosophy; while Copland, as was already evident in his work, was conscious of the development of a national identity and proudly championed the cause of composers in his native country” (Oja, 214). It is the qualities and beliefs of the two men outlined by Oja above that  really make me curious about their relationship, their collaborative efforts and their unique ideas about American music. Specifically, how did they truly work together on such a massive project while they were at odds about American music ideals pertaining to identity? It is hard for me to imagine something more fundamental to an artist or a composer than their identity. A deeper dive into the letters between Copland and Sessions may provide the answers I am seeking, but for right now, the two men rose above their differences and accomplished their goal to introduce avant-garde pieces in the best way imaginable, The Copland-Sessions Concerts of Contemporary Music in New York.

Citations:

“Aaron Copland, 1900-1990.” The Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200182578. 

Copland, Aaron. Letter from Aaron Copland to Roger Sessions. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/copland.corr0088/>.

Oja, Carol. “The Copland-Sessions Concerts and Their Reception in the Contemporary Press.” The Musical Quarterly, LXV, no. 2, 1979, pp. 212–229., https://doi.org/10.1093/mq/lxv.2.212. 

Olmstead, Andrea. “The Copland–Sessions Letters.” Tempo, no. 175, 1990, pp. 2–5., https://doi.org/10.1017/s0040298200012547. 

Antonín Dvorak https://www.classicfm.com/composers/dvorak/

Antonín Dvorak is one of the most famous musical composers of all time. His New World Symphony pushed the boundaries of what was considered classical music both during and after his lifetime (1841-1904). Dvorak’s borrowing and incorporation of traditional Native American and African American tunes into his Ninth Symphony sparked quite the controversy across the United States around the time that he moved to Spillville, Iowa in 1893. A large and public debate sparked across the country of the validity of incorporating African American spirituals and traditional Native American songs and influences into Western classical music.

Henry Krehbiel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Edward_Krehbiel

With this controversy came an equal distribution of critics and fans of Dvorak’s music. Notably, famous music critic and reviewer Henry Krehbiel sent Dvorak a number of written correspondences which are very important because “they prove that Krehbiel’s article on the [ninth] symphony, which appeared on 15 December 1893 in the New York Tribune, was based on a lengthy interview with the composer,” (Beckerman).

The letters read as follows:

Interestingly, although we have not read the Krehbiel interview on Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony from the New York Tribune for class, we have read another one of his writings for class on October 6, 2022: an excerpt from his book “Afro-American Folksongs; A Study in Racial and National Music”. In this chapter, Krehbiel used racist and problematic language such as “savage” and “primitive” to refer to African Americans and their music on pages 11 and 13 (Krehbiel).

This is quite interesting in contrast to Krehbiel’s letters to Dvorak which praise Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony and call it “beautiful”, which is based on the very music that Krehbiel marked as “primitive” and “savage” twenty-one years later in 1914. I wonder if Krehbiel was hiding his true feelings about Black American music to Dvorak because Krehbiel was a fan of his Ninth Symphony and wanted to appeal to him as a friend and colleague? Or did Krehbiel like Dvorak’s quotations of Black American music despite the fact that he thought Black American music was “primitive” and “savage”?

The above correspondence from Krehbiel insinuates that Krehbiel has a passion for collecting scores and parts of African American songs, and furthermore studying them. The fact that Krehbiel relays to Dvorak that this music is even worthy of such deep study and collection raises some further questions in relation to the language Krehbiel uses in his book and his true intentions to network with Dvorak.

Krehbiel seems to have an interesting relationship to the music of Black Americans. He collects and studies it, but through a lens of white supremacy and racial othering. It also seems as though Krehbiel may have flexed his opinions on African American music to appeal more to Dvorak since Dvorak was so popular. Krehbiel likely found a useful connection in Dvorak, especially for the opportunity for Dvorak appear at his seminars (such as the one at the Women’s University Club) to make him seem established and well-connected. All of this being said, Krehbiel was an early advocate and promoter of Black American music, which cannot be said for everyone at the time.

Sources:

Dvorák and His World, edited by Michael Beckerman, Princeton University Press, 1993. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/stolaf-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3030296.

Krehbiel, Henry Edward. “Chapter 1: Folksongs in General.” Afro-American Folk Songs: A Study in Racial and National Music, Kessinger Publishing, Whitefish, MT, 2010, pp. v-28.

Blackface and minstrelsy feel as outdated as just about anything from the early 20th century but while the overwhelming idea of blackface is a strictly negative one, some black and brown artists are reclaiming the painting of their bodies for empowerment. Baseera Khan is a Muslim American contemporary visual artist working out of Brooklyn, NY who has been creating exhibits around the country for the last 8 years. 

Baseera Khan’s Braidrage reclaims her identity in the representation and expression of her own physical body using oil, hair, architecture, and art. The dark paint on her body is especially important as a commentary on her race. Our conversation about minstrelsy in class assumes the negative use of black face paint related to minstrelsy, and we look at its use from a strictly historical viewpoint. However, the use of blackface has found a recent resurgence as a form on self-expression and power, taking back from racist traditions of the past and creating empowering and powerful artistic expression.

There is a long history of blackface in art leading up to exhibits like Khan’s, with varying degrees of controversy. While some of them turn a critical eye to the past, other artists misunderstand how their artwork can reinforce stereotypes and can further the disconnection between groups of people. Vanessa Beecroft is another artist who uses blackface in her artwork, who couples race with gender in her expressions.

[ iframe src=”https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/baseera_khan” width=”640″ height=”480″ ]

[ iframe src=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface_in_contemporary_art” width=”640″ height=”480″ ]

During her lifetime, the work of Florence Price, a Black woman composer, was often not performed on account of both her gender and race. She struggled to find conductors and musicians who would perform her work and recognize its merits. For instance, beginning in 1935 Price wrote a handful of letters to Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, urging him to examine some of her scores with the hopes of having them performed. Clearly aware of her positionality within the classical music sphere as a woman of color, Price implores Koussevitzky to judge her musical works on “merit alone” (Brown, xxxv). While Koussevitzky never replied to Price’s letters, others in the industry did identify Price’s musical excellence. In 1932, Price’s Symphony in E minor won first prize in the Wanamaker Music Contest. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Frederick Stock, performed the Symphony in E minor 1933. Price’s work thus became the first symphony composed by a Black woman to be performed by a major American orchestra. By examining the attitudes and motivations that were behind Frederick Stock and Serge Kousevitzky’s differing responses toward Price and her music, audiences and artists of today can recognize the how the reimagination of the canon is an ever-evolving process that has been occurring for many years. 

It is clear from Koussevitzky’s lack of action and Stock’s decision to program and perform Price’s piece that these two leaders in the classical music world had differing ideas and opinions regarding what music should shape the musical world of the time. We know that Stock had a great interest in performing ‘American’ music, and he likely saw Price’s work as an example of such repertoire. His interest in Price’s work can even be seen in Price’s own diary entries, as he asks her what she is working on and even helps her to premiere a piano concerto with him and his orchestra. Koussevitzky’s lack of action towards Price makes it challenging to understand his motivations or musical values, but we do know that he was interested in the creation and performance of new works through his founding of the Koussevitzky Foundation.

Using Florence Price’s unfortunate experience as a case study, we can recognize how difficult it is for composers, especially historically underrepresented composers, to break into the classical music sphere. It is even more challenging for their work to become a part of the canon, or to see themselves in the canon which major performing arts organizations uphold today. But Price’s story offers musicians and composers a great deal of hope. As disheartening as this history is, it shows that there is a desire to open up the classical music world to new works and ideas from those who have historically been pushed to the border of this genre. The work of reimagining the canon continues, and this process of rediscovery leads towards a musical environment which prioritizes representation and equity. 

Bibliography:

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Serge Koussevitzky”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Jul. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Serge-Koussevitzky. Accessed 14 November 2022.

Brown, Rae Linda. “Black Satin Clothes at the Fair.” The Heart of a Woman: The Life and Music of Florence Price, edited by Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr, University of Illinois Press, 2020, pp. 108-117.

Brown, Rae Linda. “The Women’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago and Florence B. Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement.” American Music, vol. 11, no. 2, 1993, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052554?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. Accessed 14 November 2022. 

Epstein, Dena J. “Frederick Stock and American Music.” American Music, vol. 10, no. 1, 1992, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052142?sid=primo#metadata_info_tab_contents. Accessed 14 November 2022. 

Price, Florence et al. “Lifting the Veil: The Symphonies of Florence B. Price.” Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3. Middleton, WI, A-R Editions, Inc. 2008. 

Ros, Alex. “The Rediscovery of Florence Price.” The New Yorker, 29 January 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/the-rediscovery-of-florence-price. Accessed 14 November 2022. 

Frank Gerratana, Charles Edward Ives, 1947, http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b10888/

Charles Ives, the early twentieth century,American composer pictured pensively above, is situated at an interesting boundary between historical debates of what constitutes “American music” that we’ve discussed in class. While Virgil Tomson’s ideas considered American music “derived from the British Isles” to be authentic—using North America’s Anglophone predominance as explanation for a continued lineage of English culture and music over all else—other critics and musicologists have proposed that American music’s essence derives from diverse folk traditions.[1] Charles Ives was descended from pilgrims and grew up with Anglo-American melodies in New England—however, his shift to avant-garde styles, combined with influence from folk traditions considered part of an “American school” of composition, demonstrates the futility of trying to narrowly define “American music.”[2] Ives’ development problematizes the work of early twentieth century music critics like Tomson and Olin Downes, who—possessing prominent influence over public perception of American classical music—used Ives to promote contradictory, limited arguments over American musical authenticity.

The debate over American Music’s standards and authenticity, especially when considering the influences of white male composers, was a means of determining what whiteness was in an early twentieth-century cultural context. Tomson saw an evolving American idiom—though in some ways diverging from European music—nevertheless marked by similarities indicating “the products of a common tradition.”[3] Tomson believed Charles Ives’ music fit the characteristics closely linking European/Anglophone lineage to American music. However, in a 1937 New York Times article by music critic Olin Downes, a contemporary of Ives, the critic glances at “native scores” and lauds the many folk music traditions informing the development of modern American composers.[4] Downes believed that not all American symphonic repertoire had been “mere imitators of European models of composition.”[5] Instead of pointing out examples of American music deriving new forms from only a foundation of European music (as Tomson did), Downes emphasized the wealth of folk music that American composers could draw from, “either grown from the soil or transplanted there from outside sources.”[6] Still, he links and celebrates the connection of this distinctly American folk music to songs like “Dixie” which immortalized the ideals of slavery and the Old South. This fact demonstrates a racialized context which—well into the twentieth century—still held mainstream influence in legitimizing problematic forms of white American culture. Nonetheless, as Tomson, who drew from racist, controversial scholarly ideas like those of George Pullen Jackson, saw American history as too short to legitimize its composers, Downes declared that the young, white male composers of the era, including Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, and Charles Ives, were too little performed.[7]

In conclusion, debates over what Ives represented showed incongruent definitions of musical authenticity, since one composer—Charles Ives—fit into both “camps.” It’s perhaps more important to consider how analyzing debates over American music through Ives and the perspectives of critics like Tomson and Downes problematizes their arguments. While they musically diverge, the convergence around attempts to define the raw materials worth lauding in American music as a reflection of whiteness (and thus white American culture) provides a glimpse into the mainstream, overtly racialized ways in which music critics influenced society and worked to further an exclusive conception of American music.

[1] Virgil Thomson, American Music Since 1910, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, 16.

[2] Harold C. Schonberg,. “Natural American, Natural Rebel, Natural Avant-Gardist: Charles Ives had no use for Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn,Tchaikovsky and Wagner- Charles Ives Ives at the Keyboard,” New York Times (1923-), Apr 21, 1974. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/natural-american-rebel-avant-gardist/docview/119909304/se-2; Olin Downes, “A Glance at Native Scores,” New York Times (1923-), Jul 25, 1937. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/glance-at-native-scores/docview/102135938/se-2.

[3] Thomson, American Music Since 1910, 20.

[4] Downes, A Glance at Native Scores,” https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/glance-at-native-scores/docview/102135938/se-2.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

The word “Tanglewood” still leaves the tingle of excitement in my chest it did when I was 15. It brings to mind dreams I once had of spending a summer with the Boston Symphony in a place to which admittance would truly mean I had made it. Little did I know that Tanglewood had been this pinnacle for quite some time, and Aaron Copland had played a great part in its notoriety. In this picture, Aaron Copland- the quintessentially American classical composer- sits with Darius Milhaud, a french composer of great notoriety who immigrated to America during WWII, in the place of a summer music festival that still has great musical notoriety today (Appold, photo). I would argue that this image is in many ways an accurate representation of American classical music because the figures in the image had so much influence from different musics in the Americas, and their relationship exemplified a similar musical relationship between their two respective countries.

Copland was asked to work at “Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood” for its first year in 1940 and “[continued] until 1965” (timeline). During that time, he composed many notable works such as the Tender Land Suites, Appalachian Spring, and Symphony No. 3 and won several awards to include the Pulitzer Prize, and an Academy Award (timeline). Copland’s dedication to Tanglewood is perhaps only comparable to Tanglewood’s dedication to his honor. From copious amounts of tribute programming, to the sculpture commissioned and installed in 2010, to the fact that his ashes were spread on the lawn of the Tappan House, one thing is made abundantly clear: America’s adamant patriotism made no exceptions for classical music (Shea).  

Perhaps the only people more infatuated with American classical music, or American music in general, than Americans, were the French. In this image, Darius Milhaud sits during one of his summers teaching at Tanglewood. Copland idealized the man, and wrote only the highest of praise saying “if France, like England, had a composer laureate, the post would rightfully be his” (Copland). Milhaud, much like Copland, was infatuated with music of South America (primarily Brazil) and their shared appropriation of such melodies could be described as inherently American. To suggest that American music has only positive defining factors would simply be false. Milhaud also used jazz and other forms of popular music very frequently in his compositions, and though he became renowned as a French composer, one could argue that his music is American because of all of the influences that he used and because much of it was in fact written here (Library of Congress). If Dvorak’s New World Symphony can be considered a work of American music, there is no reason that Milhaud’s couldn’t be on the same principle. Of course, it would be wrong to say that the music of these two composers could be accurately defined as American without acknowledging the shared trait of appropriating black and latinx ideas into something that became popularized by white composers. Unfortunately, this pattern could also be described as a shameful defining factor in American music. 

Sources

Appold, Juliette. “Darius Milhaud and the Americas.” Darius Milhaud and the Americas | NLS Music Notes. Library of Congress, August 6, 2020. https://blogs.loc.gov/nls-music-notes/2020/08/darius-milhaud-and-the-americas/.

Boriskin, Michael. “Aaron Copland: Timeline of a Musical Life.” Aaron Copland / Timeline // Copland House …where America’s musical past and future meet. Copland House. Accessed November 7, 2022. http://www.coplandhouse.org/aaron-copland/timeline/.

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Darius Milhaud.” Encyclopedia Britannica, August 31, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Darius-Milhaud.

Copland, Aaron. “Music Out of Everywhere.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 22, 1953. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/14/specials/copland-milhaud.html.

Kraft, Victor. Aaron Copland with Darius Milhaud, Tanglewood. , . Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/copland.phot0004/.

Rothwell, Jessie. “The Dreams of Jacob (Darius Milhaud).” LA Phil. LA Phil. Accessed November 7, 2022. https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/729/the-dreams-of-jacob.

Shea, Andrea. “Aaron Copland Sculpture Makes Its Home at Tanglewood.” WBUR News. WBUR, June 30, 2011. https://www.wbur.org/news/2011/06/30/copland-sculpture.

The resume of the prolific ethnographer and musicologist Frances Densmore is significant. As someone who has carried around many of her bulletins across campus on a daily basis, I can tell you that the weight of her work is heavy in more ways than one. As one of the founding researchers who developed and fostered the field of musicology in the early twentieth century, there is certainly a lot we have to thank Densmore for. However, we are not strangers to her wrongdoings either. From her white savior perspective towards many Indigenous peoples to her view that Native musics were not as evolved as the music of the white race, Densmore is anything but blameless. While we frequently discuss the recordings that Densmore produced, we might not be so aware of Densmore’s collection of Native American musical instruments and artifacts. This collection raises serious questions related to cultural and musical ownership and the benefits of ethnographic study. These collected artifacts serve as yet another Densmorian lesson to modern musicologists about the potential harm that ethnographic study can have on those from whom we wish to learn. 

After working with the American Bureau of Ethnography at the Smithsonian, Densmore was then added to the staff at the National Mueseum at Washington D.C. where she oversaw the a collection of musical instruments. She also composed a catalog of these instruments that includes everything from drums, stringed instruments, flutes, and horns. But Densmore did more than just maintain museums and collections, she did some of the collecting herself in the field. In 1917, she sold a collection of Lakota artifacts to the Museum of the American Indian in New York. In 1930, she collected functional materials used by the Ojibwes in Grand Portage, Minnesota for the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS). She ended up sending eight crates filled with artifacts to St. Paul, and sold these crates to MHS for two hundred and sixty dollars. Further, Densmore learned to play some of the instruments which she collected, and would played them at her lectures. By 1980, when MHS created an exhibit for Densmore’s collected artifacts, Native Americans had already began protesting the loss of their cultural items to white museums and institutions. Additionally, some indigenous people had begun to question the practice of collecting for research.

Thanks in part to her collection of indigenous mundane objects and musical instruments, 

Densmore remains the primary tutor for modern musicologists as they consider the ethics of ethnographic study. Similar to many musical expressions of her time, Densmore’s work is best understood as an expression of whiteness in academic research and transmission and not as an ernest attempt to understand the cultural values and practices of another. By identifying the shortcomings in the research of those who came before, modern musicologists can develop new research methods which seek to benefit both those who are being studied as well as those who will learn form the work produced. In order to truly and deeply learn from one another, the subjects of musicological study and their cultural values and priorities ought to be placed at the forefront. Otherwise, future generations will continue to discuss how ethnographic study says more about the researcher than the subject of interest. 

Bibliography:

Densmore, Frances. Handbook of the Collection of Musical Instruments in the United States National Museum. Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1927. 

De Vale, Sue Carole. “Densmore and the Smithsonian’s Instrument Collection.” Ethnomusicology. Vol. 25, No. 3, 1981, 500-502. 

Harris and Ewing. Miss Frances Densmore, expert in Indian music, who has been added to the staff of the Nat’l Museum at Wash., she was formerly connected with the Amer. Bureau of Ethnology, the Smithsonian. She is now in charge of the unique collection of musical instruments gathered from all lands and located in the Museum. Here shows with 2 of the oldest musical instruments of the Indians, an old violin and a horn made from elephant tusk. 1924, Library of Congress, Washington D. C. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016893319/

Jensen, Joan M. Patterson, Michelle Wick. “Collection with a Mission: Frances Densmore’s Chippewa Artifacts.” Travels with Frances Densmore: Her Life, Work, and Legacy in Native American Studies. University of Nebraska, 2015, 518-599.  

Using the search term “Burleigh” in the Library of Congress’s National Jukebox archive, what was initially meant to yield results pertaining to H.T. Burleigh presented a search result far more interesting to me: a recording of a piece titled “Indian Snake Dance” by Cecil Burleigh. The recording captured Toscha Seide on Violin and Francesco Longo on Piano (1). The record is shown in the picture below (2).

Almost immediately after finding this recording, the question of authenticity and cultural representation came to mind. As a student in this class with prior musicology experience, this piece screams cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. The piano accompaniment for the main theme is a misguided attempt to imitate the sound of the drum in Native American pow-wow music. The violin attempts to mimic voices, dancing around the beat, similar to how a western trained ear might perceive Native American singing. However, rhythmic subdivisions in the violin are too clean. This in combination with the low 5ths in the left hand creates a caricature that mocks its original source. Beyond its initial theme, it abandons its facade of representing Native American culture and adheres to its western classical musical heritage for the rest of the piece.

What’s ultimately disappointing about this recording and database entry is the lack of context surrounding it. Not everyone listening to this will have attended higher education institutions, let alone studied musicology. Those who don’t have the same background knowledge have to rely on the information provided on the page. The hyperlinks included in the entry are simply labels that pull up more loosely related content, and if you click on the composer’s name, you’ll find that “Indian Snake Dance” is his only recording in the database. There are no liner notes, no information about the piece. It was only through my own independent research that it became abundantly clear that Cecil Burleigh has no apparent cultural ties to Native Americans. He was immersed in western classical music, studying at Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin, the Chicago Musical College, and playing violin professionally (3).

If these materials like “Indian Snake Dance” -from relatively unknown authors- are made easily accessible to the general public, one would hope there could be more context surrounding these recordings. Those unlike myself, unwilling to do independent research, will lack the understanding required to explore the questions of authenticity beneath the surface level of this piece.

(1) Burleigh, Cecil, Toscha Seidel, and Francesco Longo. Indian Snake Dance. 1923. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-670039/.

(2) Burleigh, Cecil, Toscha Seidel, and Francesco Longo. Indian Snake Dance. 1923. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-670039/.

(3) Lowens, Margery Morgan. “Burleigh, Cecil.” Grove Music Online. 23 Feb. 2011; Accessed 8 Nov. 2022. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002092891.

There are some who love the idea of jazz borrowing from classical and there are some who hate it. I’m not sure which camp I personally fall into, but I love to see what arrangers and other instrumentalists do with older ideas that seem taboo to touch.

On this record titled Desecration Rag (A Classic Nightmare), Felix Ardnt takes us through several rags that use themes from western classical canon composers like Dvorak, Chopin, and Liszt. The record is a 10-inch vinyl pressing so it doesn’t have that many tracks, but the ones that are there are intriguing. The above listening selection is one of the tracks from the record and unfortunately the source doesn’t say which one it is. My best guess as a listener is that this track is the Dvorak track.

Recently, topics of discussion in class have revolved around how certain kinds of music grow and change to stay with the times and the benefits and drawbacks that has. With our recent discussions of what makes up the American Music Canon, I think this is a great artifact with which to tango.

This record raises some questions – is this music truly American or is it an Americanized interpretation? Is the music being transformed here truly European or were there some American elements in it? In the case of Dvorak specifically, that was the case.

Ragtime was one of the early stepping stones of jazz and to bring composers who didn’t write jazz into that realm of music through sampling their melodies likely raised some eyebrows in the audience that heard this record. At the time, there might have been a few that were familiar with the names of Dvorak and Liszt, but for those at the time who were purist of musical forms, they probably didn’t think very high of the sampling that was done on this record. Be that as it might have been, I think transforming music like this can make certain pieces that might seem stuffy to some more accessible and enjoyable – not everyone who likes jazz likes classical music and vice versa. This record could’ve been a cool way to bridge that gap and start conversations that might not have been had previously.

This recording from YouTube is a more recent recording that I thought would be cool to put beside the record. You can hear much more of Dvorak’s original sample in the YouTube recording, but the question remains the same: is this “American Music?” I think in the case of Dvorak in particular, it’s hard to not call his music American (at least what he wrote while in the country) because he was taking themes from local music that he heard and used it for his compositions. I think there are arguments for both sides, but with this being a ragtime jazz interpretation of a theme Dvorak wrote, I’m more inclined to call it American music than to try and call it something else.

Work Cited:

Arndt, Felix, and Felix Arndt. Desecration rag A classic nightmare. 1914. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-134701/

Blackface minstrelsy, a nineteenth-century theatrical practice where white men would blacken their faces, dress up in racist exaggerated clothing and perform comic skits, variety acts, dancing and musical performances to their white counterparts. If the racially stereotyped mimicking of enslaved Africans working on Southern plantations wasn’t enough, we might be shocked to discover these performances were recorded and preserved in history for anyone to listen to. Should these recordings exist and be heard today? I would argue they should, for the simple reason that all must listen, view and comprehend this awful tradition and understand the impact it had on whites and their development of white identity, African Americans, and all people of color in the United States. 

One part of these musical threaticies is “coon songs,” an aspect of ragtime music built on racial stereotypes of African Americans. These songs were often heard and observed as the centerpiece of Minstrel shows, and designed for the continuous humiliation and degradation of people of color. As you may have guessed, these best-selling hits could not exist without the performances of some of the world’s most talented and famous musicians at the time. A familiar name in the realm of Minstrel shows and “coon songs” stars was Silas Leachman, a Chicago-based politician and vocalist who specialized in the art of “coon songs.” These ragtime songs, wreaking of horribly racist African American dialects and stereotypes, were how Mr. Leachman made a living, and something all too common at the time. Mr. Leachman rose to popularity making his first recordings for the Chicago Talking Machine Company during the early 1890s. Later that same decade, he also started recording for Columbia Records. What I want you to listen to and further examine, however, is Mr. Leachman’s 1902 recording of “Whoa Dar Mule” by Victor Monarch Records.

Aside from the racist text, it is difficult to listen to this recording and somehow conjure up a scholarly opinion of the music, if any at all. A syncopated ragtime, rhythmic style is common in a number of these “coon songs” so it is challenging to elaborate on their originality based on the individual song. A recording from the Library of Congress’ National Jukebox may help your ears understand what I’m trying to describe:

Link to song here: https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-5667/

Regardless of the obviously stereotypical lyrics, we should be more concerned with the racist dialect that is used in concert with the exquisite African American tradition of ragtime music. The contribution of the art forms of African American musicians from genres such as: spirituals, jazz, ragtime, blues, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, pop and rap, deserve respect and acknowledgement. These contributions should be embraced and amplified, never diminished. This likely was not a part of Mr. Leachman’s mindset when he committed to becoming, and being compensated, as a major vocalist for Minstrel shows and their “coon songs.” Nonetheless, as Eric Lott declared in Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, “Every time you hear an expansive white man drop into his version of black English, you are in the presence of Blackface’s unconscious return.” This is a warning to stay vigilant when you are inclined to turn away and ignore mockery and other aspects of marginalization that may not directly impact you. 

When you degrade one you degrade us all. Sadly, elements of this behavior are ever present in society today. Irrespective of your lived experience and racial identification, this music is a reminder of how far from we were then, and how far we remain, from living up to the American ideal of equality for all men and women. Because it also offends all moral and religious teachings of compassion and love for our fellow people, we are compelled to watch, listen and dialog about the impact of these works as we raise children in a society that is based on a belief in the superiority of the white race. This exploitation of African Americans, while maybe not done in mainstream circles today, must be addressed by all of us to prevent giving unconscious approval to the white supremacy in our midst. 

Works Cited

“Blackface: The Birth of an American Stereotype.” National Museum of African American History and Culture, 22 Nov. 2017, https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/blackface-birth-american-stereotype. 

Leachman, Silas F. Whoa Dar Mule. 1901. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-5667/>. 

Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. Oxford University Press, 2013.

“What Were Coon Songs? – May 2005.” Ferris State University, https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/may.htm. 

The work I’ve found is an interesting one from 1851. This manuscript is a short song arranged by a pianist by the name of George W. H. Griffin. I think this makes a particularly interesting piece to look at due to its place in history, being a work for voice modeled after slave songs, but arranged for chorus and piano. From the cover, it looks to be a work dedicated to a tenor by the name of “S. B. Ball Esq.” from the “Ordway Aeolian Vocalists.” Not much is kept on this ensemble, but as far as can be found in drawings of the composer, G. W. H. Griffin, it appears as if he is a white man.

There are certain implications to the usage of these lyrics, then, given this context. The song goes as follows: 

“‘Tis just one year ago today, that I remember well,

I sat down by poor Nelly’s side, and a story did she tell

‘twas ‘bout a poor unhappy slave, that lived for many a year

but now he’s dead and in his grave, no master does he fear

—

She took my arm, we walked along, into an open field,

and there she paused to breathe a while, then to his grave did steal

she sat down by that little mound, and softly whisper’d there,

come to me father, ‘tis thy child, then gently dropp’d a tear

—

(chorus)

The poor old slave has gone to rest,

we know that he is free

disturb him not, but let him rest

way down in Tennessee”

First off, being released in 1851, this song was released many years before the abolition of slavery, meaning that the lyrics are not about the past, but are a commentary on the present. Additionally, from context, the story seems to take place in the north, as it, first off, references Tennessee as being “way down,” but also brings up the idea that “Nelly,” is a black woman, and the child of a slave, who is not currently enslaved herself. With this, the song, I believe, is about empathy for those who have been and were being greatly harmed by slavery, and the intent of its singing and performance is to strengthen the idea that slavery is an immoral practice. Given the context of a presumably predominantly white choir, the context of the lyrics suggest that this is a bittersweet, but ultimately pleasant song about the white person’s perspective, knowing someone who has had a close loved one taken away from her, but is now free herself to tell her story.

-mika natal

Works Cited

Griffin, George W. H. “Poor Old Slave.” Duke University Libraries, https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4fx7867f. 

Hard trials. Something every single person on this planet can relate to. When I think of hard trials the first thing that comes to mind is a difficult experience, finding yourself in a quagmire, if you will. In actuality, it is an unpleasant experience that attempts to prevent you from further reaching your desired goals. My question to you, dear reader, is how do your goals and desires differ from, or share similarities with, enslaved African Americans of the 16th, 17th and 18th century? I’m sure there is a lot to say about the differences in end goals between enslaved African-American and members of today’s current population, but a similarity I believe both parties would attest to in some way is the desire for freedom. Freedom comes in a variety of forms and entities, from the liberation African American slaves worked relentlessly to secure, to the inner landscape of one’s mind, where the desire is to free the self from the turmoil we all encounter. What this all boils down to is that freedom in all aspects is a sacred thing, and hard trials can be the building blocks of our lives, as long as we respect and adhere to their lessons with all of our love and strength. 

There is no better example of a composer who encapsulates aspects of freedom, hardship, faith and desire into his musical arrangements than H. T. Burleigh. H.T. Burleigh was one of the first African-American composers who utilized negro spirituals in his use of composing classical repertoire (both vocal and instrumental) and enjoyed public recognition and a high degree of success as a black composer. In Burleigh’s arrangement of “Hard Trials,” written in 1917 from his collection of Negroe Spirituals, the listener is likely to be deceived by the title in comparison to listening to the piece. Rather than a somber piece, it is almost cheerful in its tempo and lyrics. When you think of hard trials you may think of some of the examples I elaborated on above, trials accompanied by frustration and heartbreak, however Burleigh’s arrangement of this spiritual is one that emphasizes joy and hope over frustration and heartbreak. The piece incorporates textual ideas supporting the strength found in religioius doctrines including the deeply held beliefs voiced by a Methodist slave. The piece speaks to the strength and preservation that religion offers an individual, especially one who is enslaved, through the lyrics, “Methodis’ is my name, Methodis’ till I die, I’ve been reciev’d in the Methodis’ church.” I believe that the way these lyrics are arranged highlights the joy and promise of an afterlife that the singer aspires to, despite the brutality of white supremacy. The melody is written in E flat major, a key that brings a bright bounce and rhythm to it, painting the picture of a woman out on a leisurely stroll contemplating a brighter future and always moving forward despite the current harsh realities. It also depicts how religious faith is an aspect of one’s life that positively uplifts yourself and others, helping you overcome hardships when face to face with a difficult situation. 

Inside the front cover of Burleigh’s book of Negro Spirituals you will find notes Burleigh instructs the listener to read and reflect on before listening to his spirituals. An important aspect of this writing is the importance for the integration of both religion and music in one’s life to create a deep seeded spiritual experience. This mindset is required in his eyes, while singing spirituals and folk songs. Burleigh refers to a sense of spirit one must have and its priority over a uniquely beautiful voice. To Burleigh, this sense of spirit is idolized through the “spontaneous outburst of intense religious fervor.” This outburst is similar to the notion within the baptist and other Christian faiths to “get happy” and accept Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior. The spiritual musical score and its lyrics arranged by Burleigh are hopeful, aspirational and diametrically opposed to the harsh realities of day to day life as an enslaved person. The most compelling aspect of “Hard Trials” is that it is all accomplished within the realm of classical music by a black composer, and in this recording, featuring a world renowned black contralto soloist, Ms. Marian Anderson.

Works Cited

“H. T. Burleigh (1866-1949).” The Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200035730. 

“Sheet Music Consortium: Home.” Sheet Music Consortium | Home, https://digital.library.ucla.edu/sheetmusic/#fieldquery=Slave%2520spirituals&amp;searchType=regular&amp;start=150&amp;rows=10&amp;keyword=Slave%2520spirituals&amp;titles=false&amp;names=false&amp;places=false&amp;publishers=false&amp;subjects=false. 

Simkin, John. Spartacus Educational, Spartacus Educational, https://spartacus-educational.com/USASsongs.htm. 

Born in Marengo, IL, pianist and composer Egbert Van Alstyne (1882-1951) was an accomplished musician whose musical endeavors appeared on Broadway and in vaudeville. In 1903, he got his big break from a piece he composed entitled “Navajo”, which musically demonstrates racist stereotypes of Indigenous peoples perpetuated by white Americans. He and lyricist Harry Williams later composed “Oh, that Navajo Rag”, a ragtime piece with text which further pigeonholes and generalizes the Navajo tribe. Unfortunately, Van Alstyne’s work is one of innumerable examples of how music perpetuated and upheld racist stereotypes in the United States. Van Alstyne’s work, among many other composers and artists, raises significant questions about the portrayal of Native Americans throughout history, and how these portrayals might have impacted us all. 

Unfortunately, Van Alstyne and Williams’ bigoted repertoire is robust. Many more of their compositions are centered around prejudiced views towards Native Americans, such as “Cheyenne” and “San Antonio”. And many other composers were publishing similar works at approximately the same time. For instance, Don Bestor’s “That Indian Rag”, Edward Coleman’s “My Indian Maiden”, and Theodore Morse’s “Wise Old Indian” were all published around the same time as Van Alstyne and William’s works. What is especially alarming is the popularization of Van Alstyne and Williams music. “Navajo” was later included in Marie Cahill’s Broadway musical Nancy Brown, and “Oh, that Navajo Rag” was recorded and performed in 1911 by Billy Murray, one of the most famous vaudeville singers of his time. The creation of this work might be considered by some to be disappointing but unsurprising; but what is certainly appalling is that audiences were listening and applauding. 

When studying American music, it is important to be acutely and consistently critical of those artists and creatives who helped to lay the foundations of the American cultural framework we live in today. While we frequently critique musicologists in this course for their malpractices and wrongdoings, perhaps we ought to consider the sins of the artist as more significant. Our artistic ancestors in some way influence the art we make and thus the world we live in today. The effects of their art is long lasting, and it is difficult to write off these artistic pieces as a product of their time when their impacts are felt today. 

Billy Murray. Oh, that Navajo Rag. Victor Records. 1911.  Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-130930/.

Bestor, Don. That Indian Rag. Will Rossiter, 1910. 

Coleman, Edward. My Indian Maiden. The American Advance Music Co, 1904.

Ewen, David. Popular American Composers. New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1962. 

Levy, Lester S. “Growing Pains.” Give me Yesterday: American History in Song 1890-1920, University of Oklahoma Press, 1975, 169-195. 

Morse, Theodore F. Wise Old Indian. Theodore Morse Music Co, 1909. 

“Murray, Billy.” Grove Music Online, 3 Sept. 2014, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2267265. 

Van Alstyne, Egbert. Navajo: Indian Characteristique March and Two Step. Shapiro, Bernstein & Co, 1903. 

Van Alstyne, Egbert. Oh, that Navajo Rag. Jerome H. Remick & Co, 1911. Accessed from: https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/metsnav/inharmony/navigate.do?oid=http://fedora.dlib.indiana.edu/fedora/get/iudl:469351/METADATA&pn=1&size=screen.

“Van Alstyne, Egbert (Anson).” The Grove Dictionary of American Music. 2nd ed. 2013.

Many white composers compiled and arranged a multitude of African American spirituals for the western ear to consume, although more important to discuss is the influence of the first African American arranger to change the idea of what spirituals represent. Harry Burleigh was an African American vocalist, arranger, and composer who created a foundation for African American spirituals to be represented in classical music. Growing up in Erie, Pennsylvania, in the aftermath of the civil war, Burleigh was primarily influenced by the teachings of his grandfather, who lived in slavery as a child. Burleigh connected with original spirituals such as Deep River, Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot. His experience surrounded by music as a child led to his desire to become a musician, ultimately receiving a scholarship to the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. He had a prominent career in performing and extraordinary success in putting African American spirituals in the classical realm. Below is an arrangement I discovered on the Sheet Music Consortium that is a collection of spirituals, most specifically Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, arranged by Burleigh in western classical notation.

Just as discussed throughout Southern’s book The Music of Black Americans, white Americans often have stereotyped and simplified African American music, creating a falsified notion of the deeper meaning behind spirituals. Southern points out that white observers often “misunderstood the singing and dancing of slaves, interpreting such activities as indicative that the slaves were unfeeling and uncaring.” He further shares that they saw African Americans as “a large flock of cheerful and contented slaves… ever merry and ever working with a song” (Southern, Pg. 77). This misconception seeped its way into popular culture as African Americans gained freedom and their culture was much more prominent, specifically through minstrelsy.

Minstrelsy was a meld of African American stereotypes built on the sole purpose of entertainment for a white audience, instilling a sense of shallowness in African American folk music. Burleigh used his talents to arrange fifty songs that could stand beside other classical staples to instill a feeling of respect and empathy for spirituals. For instance, he wrote that “it is a serious misconception of their meaning and value to treat them as minstrel songs or to try to make them funny by too literal attempt to imitate that manner of the Negro in singing them… their worth is weakened unless they are done impressively, for through all these songs there breathes hope, a faith in the ultimate justice and the brotherhood of man” (Bell). Alternatively, while western notation can take away the culture and freeness that might initially be in a song learned and sung through rote, Burleigh proves that western notation can shed light on a piece’s depth and seriousness.

Bibliography

Bell, Danna. “Link to the Library of Congress: Harry T. Burleigh—The Man Who Brought African-American Spirituals to the Classical Stage.” Music Educators Journal 104, no. 4 (2018): 9–11. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26588647.

Ramsey, Guthrie P. “African American music.” Grove Music Online. 4 Oct. 2012; Accessed 20 Oct. 2022. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002226838.

Rubenstein, David. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child / Historic American Sheet Music / Duke Digital Repository.” Duke Digital Collections. Accessed October 19, 2022. https://repository.duke.edu/dc/hasm/n0735.

Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans a History. New York: Norton, 1971.

Song collections can be made for multiple reasons. For memory, for keeping record, or just to have as a collection. For BIPOC musicians and composers it can be a way to get their music to a wider audience and make sure that their music lives on.

Ronald Hayes (1887 – 1977) is a notable American lyric tenor. He studied for four years at Fisk University in Nashville and spent 12 years in London and Paris after school. It was in Europe that he met other African musicians and his meeting them led him to discover the importance of the African-American folk songs that were sung by enslaved people in America around this time. He eventually obtained some recordings of African music and decided he wanted to put a song collection together for the general public as well as other Black musicians at the time.

This collection is called My Songs: Aframerican Religious Folk Songs and it is organized into several panels to make choices of what to sing from it easier. He notes a specific panel to look at if you are planning to sing any songs for an Easter service in the forward of this collection. As the collection goes from panel to panel of songs (of which there are 30 total) he writes a few paragraphs about singing these songs in concert as well as their cultural importance.

We’ve talked in class a lot about how when looking at a collection of anything, it’s vital to take into consideration who made it, what’s in it, how old it is, and observe any other bias that might be present in the collection. For this one specifically, it is interesting to think about what wouldn’t be there if a white person had put it together. There probably would not be notes about the notation or markings and how those stem from African music traditions. The collection would also probably not be categorized the way it is in this book. There is also no negative light around this being Black music – he praises the tradition because it was what he grew up with. I don’t think a white person during this time period would’ve done the same.

Collections like these are vital to the preservation of music. No matter where they come from or what kind of music is in them, it is vital that these collections live on so that musicians for generations after can learn from them and have these traditions within arms reach.

Works Cited:

Hayes, Roland. My Songs: Aframerican Religious Folk Songs. Atlantic Monthly Press. Alexander Street, https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C355608. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Hayes

African American spirituals were infused with the experiences and emotions of enslaved people in the south as they utilized these religious folk tunes for praise, worship, and community. Many of these spirituals thrive today, performed by artists such as Nat Cole King, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, and many more. However, some argue about the origination of these tunes, such as the musicologists recently discussed in class, like Henry Krehbiel and George Pullman Jackson. Throughout this blog post, I will discuss how the privilege of white men allowed scholars like Jackson and Krehbiel to argue the true origin of spirituals and how the power to change the narrative has primarily laid with the European white settlers.

The Primary document below is a piece of a newspaper listing published by the Afro-American Gazette, and it lists in chronological order the history of black achievement. Listed halfway down is the 1867 published book entitled Slave Songs of the United States. This book is also seen below. Written and edited by northern abolitionists William Francis Allen, Lucy McKim Garrison, and Charles Pickard Ware, Slave Songs of the United States was published in 1867. It was prominent in introducing written notation of spirituals that were never shared before; this book was the first space where the famous folk tune Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen was published. The three authors that gathered all 136 spirituals listed spent time during the civil war with recently freed enslaved people and, in turn, learned of the songs they used for worship.

Furthermore, William Allen gives background through the writing of the introduction to the purpose of this book and the biases it might hold. Allen admits that “the difficulty experienced in obtaining absolute correctness is greater than might be supposed by those who have never tried the experiment, and we are far from claiming that we have made no mistakes” (Slave Songs, Pg. iv). His identity as a white scholar with a Harvard degree and title as an educator in the civil war gives him an abundance of authority to hold the narrative of African American Slave songs. Thankfully, the book’s authors provide some credit for the actual creators of the spirituals; however, the main argument is that the privilege the three authors hold allows them to change the narrative just as scholars like Krehbiel and Jackson have done.

The score of Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, recorded by Charles Pickard, is a very prominent spiritual performed by many artists in pop culture. Consequently, the piece was recorded during a moment of grief, surrounded by when the population of Charleston. This song was specifically introduced to bring together the community in that moment of frustration. Those in the presence of the performance shared the intensity of emotions that flowed through the crowd. While the authors of this book were too in attendance, there stands to mention that the musicologists never could genuinely capture the integrity of the pieces through western, traditional transcription of music they later wrote down. Allen even remarks on this by stating that the mistakes embedded are “variations.” The issue, however, arises when these variations become the known versions of the original due to white privilege creating authority and power over all narratives.

One last primary document I came across is Frederick Louis Ritters’s book, Music in America, where he cites the Slave Songs of the United States and says it is “one of the best collections of old slave songs” (Ritter). At the time, it was the best collection of African American spirituals. Allen did indeed make recognition that these pieces were all derived from African Americans, that the notation depicted is the best that they can do and will only “convey but a faint shadow of the original” (Slave Songs, Pg. iv). Although, if we allow this narrative to represent African American culture and music, we allow authors like Henry Krehbiel and George Pullman Jackson to make claims of the white influence on black tradition.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVKKRzemX_w

Bibliography

Afro-American Gazette, vol. III, no. 2, 18 Jan. 1993, p. 12. Readex: African American Newspapers, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image/v2%3A12A7AD36E8864712%40EANAAA-12C5F06DC6F7F750%402449006-12C5F06DF9520AB0%4017. Accessed 24 Nov. 2022.

Allen, W. F. W. (1867). Slave songs of the United States. Smithsonian Library. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/slavesongsofunit00alle

Wenturiano. (2007, August 24). Louis Armstrong – nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen (1962). YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from Louis Armstrong – Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen (1962)

Ritter, Frédéric Louis. Music in America by Dr. Frédéric Louis Ritter. New York C. Scribner’s Sons, 1890. Readex: Readex AllSearch, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=ARDX&docref=image/v2%3A%40EAIX-147E02D592F8DF60%40-1514D940AFDB4FF0%40449. Accessed 24 Nov. 2022. 

In class on Thursday, I mentioned potential issues with the readings from Krehbiel and Jackson. While differing in their overall intentions and attitudes towards African American music, both step into pitfalls we often see with early ethnographic and ethnomusicology research: they try to engage with other cultures from an “academic”, western-central perspective. Rather than engaging with spirituals on their own terms, they attach western concepts of musical ownership and authorship to an aural tradition that was communally shared amongst African Americans.

A photograph of Fisk University

A contrary model for how we might engage with spirituals comes from Booker T. Washington. In an address on behalf of Fisk University -a historically based black university in Nashville, Tennessee- Booker T. Washington contextualizes what Fisk Day (May 19, 1905) signifies, relating it to “The Songs of Our Fathers”, and titles it as such. Washington starts his address by invoking the image of slaves coming across the Atlantic and connecting it to what he views as the cultural significance of Spirituals. “…It is from these songs of our fathers, that their children of past generation… have received the inspiration that has imbued them with courage to have faith that right may win…” (1). Washington continues this line of thought with a literary analysis of a preacher, quoting and alluding to well-known hymns and spirituals without needing to mention them by name.  He contextualizes them, inviting people to think about the spiritual in the mindset of a slave. “What encouragement to the patiently waiting slaves had been the faith songs that had banished the sight of the auction block, the separation of mother and child, father and mother…” (2).

A photograph of Booker T. Washington

In concluding his address, Washington makes the penultimate argument that Fisk day honors “the sacrifices, loving devotion and a belief in the possibilities of a despised people…” (3). While this address does not have the academic citations or research behind it that Krehbiel or Jackson exhibit in their writing, it serves as a model for how to engage with spirituals. Rather than focusing on the who, what when of spirituals, Washington focuses on the why and how which is all the more relevant to understanding the musical and cultural practice.

(1) “The Songs of Our Fathers. An Address Delivered on Fisk Day during the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition.” Plaindealer (Topeka, Kansas) VII, no. 20, May 19, 1905: [3]. Readex: African American Newspapers. https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image/v2%3A12A7EF1A4AC47F2D%40EANAAA-12C8B913302F6748%402416985-12C8B9134BFB71A0%402-12C8B913A0F80C58%40The%2BSongs%2Bof%2BOur%2BFathers.%2BAn%2BAddress%2BDelivered%2Bon%2BFisk%2BDay%2Bduring%2Bthe%2BLouisiana%2BPurchase%2BExhibition.

(2) “The Songs of Our Fathers. An Address Delivered on Fisk Day during the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition.”

(3) “The Songs of Our Fathers. An Address Delivered on Fisk Day during the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition.”

“Sylvan Worship” is an article written by Chicago Inter-Ocean writer William Eleroy Curtis, published September 18, 1875. The article outlines a description of a trip that Curtis took to witness a ‘spiritual’ in person. Overall, the article is rich with fetishistic language and othering behaviors, describing the events Curtis witnessed as a sort of foreign and outlandish ritual. Certain possibly offensive terms will be replaced with more modern and inclusive language in direct quotes, for the purpose of this blog. 

There isn’t much information on who William Eleroy Curtis really was, but we do know for whom he wrote, the Chicago Inter-Ocean, and when he lived; Curtis was born in 1850, and passed in 1911. From the way that he writes, I assume that he was a white man, given he uses language that refers to African-American peoples as something that he is not. For example, take how he opens the article: “No race is more devotional than the African, and no class of people does the camp meeting revival prove so effectual as with them.”

With this position in mind, I’d like to look at the language he uses, and what the intent of writing this article may have been. The language used in the work is fetishistic, and while it offers high praise to the traditions that it highlights, it treats them as a sort of somewhat barbaric and foreign, indirectly invalidating the authenticity of the practices. Take, for example, this description of a spiritual: “[Black] ‘Spirituals’ will forever exist among the curiosities of music, and at the camp-meeting the ‘Spiritual’ is seen in its strangest light and found in its most unadulterated flavor.” The use of terms such as “ unadulterated flavor” permeates this article in a way that doesn’t really do it any favors. 

So what was it trying to do? I think that the article was written as either a curiosity piece, from the point of view of the white man, or as a sort of “they’re not all bad!” article, meant to highlight the good that black spiritual practices are doing. Like other earlier musicology works that we have covered, the frame of this article is one that does not paint black or minority musical practices in an equal and fair light. Either good natured or neutral, this work doesn’t seem to bring deliberate harm, but it also isn’t doing all that much good, the way that it is written. 

“‘Sylvan Worship.’.” Weekly Louisianian, 18 Sept. 1875, p. 1. Readex: African American Newspapers, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image/v2%3A12B767D21CB17968%40EANAAA-12BEC31400554038%402406150-12BC002A0EA02018%400-12D621523A4D1068%40%2522Sylvan%2BWorship.%2522.

The Educational column of the Loyal Georgian written August 24th of 1867 describes a teachers festival in which the educators sent to the south by the New England Freedmen’s Society get together to celebrate the education of the recently freedmen in various locations in the south such as Atlanta, Chattanooga, Nashville, and Memphis (“Teacher’s Festival”). At this event, it is described that at least two “Negro Spirituals” were sung by various attendees of the event. One of the spirituals was sung by a mother and daughter with the lyrics “I think I see sister Hannah, I know her by her garments, She’s a blessing in the land.” (“Teacher’s Festival”). The title has proven difficult to find, but the story of Hannah is frequently used as a demonstration of the good fortune given by God (Klein). All members of the group concluded their meeting with the Hymn “Old Hundredth” also known as “All People Who on Earth do Dwell” (“Teacher’s Festival”, “Tune: Old Hundredth”). 

Though the event itself did not have a musical nor necessarily spiritual focus, these pieces of music added great joy, celebration, and fellowship for those in attendance. This Teacher’s Festival was happening to celebrate the work of those educators in the south during Civil War Reconstruction (“Teacher’s Festival”). This event in itself is significant because it is one of the few positive effects of Reconstruction (freed people getting education) and it’s very important both musically and historically to acknowledge the fact that African Americans were celebrating other African Americans with black music. This was not a performance for an audience but rather an act of fellowship for a group of people that had known and would continue to know great hardship. 

This article brings to mind the words of W.E.B Du Bois when he said “They came out of the South, unknown to me, one by one, and yet at once I knew them as of me and of mine.” (Du Bois). It is clear both in this column and for Du Bois that this music was of great importance in passing along and celebrating black community. 

Sources

Klein (Abensohn), Lillian. “Hannah: Bible.” Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 31 December 1999. Jewish Women’s Archive. (Viewed on October 11, 2022) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hannah-bible>.

Parkman, John, and W.E Stevenson. “Appointment: The New England Freedmen’s Aid Society, a Teacher of Freed People in North Carolina.” North Carolina Digital Archives, CONTENTdm, digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p15012coll8/id/10779/. 

“Teacher’s Festival.” Daily Loyal Georgian, 24 Aug. 1867, p. 3. 

“Tune: Old Hundredth.” Old Hundredth, Hymnary.org, hymnary.org/tune/old_hundredth_bourgeois. 

W.E.B. Du Bois. “”The Sorrow Songs,” from The Souls of Black Folk”. Book excerpt, 1903. From Teaching American History. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-sorrow-songs/ (accessed October 11, 2022).

It was no secret that enslaved people in America had their own traditions and practices outside of their labor. What can be surprising about these traditions held is who has anything to say about it.

Thomas Jefferson, this country’s third president and one of our founding fathers, was a consistent opponent of slavery. He once said, “I hope in all my soul that the day will come when slavery is a word without meaning in the English language…” The paper this quote comes from is one from the Fredrick Douglas Paper and this specific publication had his eulogy printed.

In Notes on Virginia with an appendix by Thomas Jefferson (1801), he openly praised them for being “equal in memory to the whites” and in the same sentence also claimed Black people were inferior in reason to white people. In terms of their music, however, Jefferson called Black people “generally more gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been capable of imaging a small catch.” This book is a collection of thoughts from Jefferson himself and a fair number of his colleagues wouldn’t have praised Black people this highly during this time. He was a liberal thinker for his time, though, but seeing this made my eyes go wide. It’s rare to see a white person praising Black people like this from this time period.

When we were reading sources from this time in class, we didn’t see a lot of white people talking about Black and enslaved people this way. Most white people who wrote about them at the time were quick to judge them for anything they saw or didn’t see. Opinions like Jeffersons are incredibly important because it shows that there were powerful people who did appose slavery and praised the enslaved people for some of the faculties they were trying their best to express. It shows that people saw them for more than property and in the sea of awful racist language (which some of his comments do have, mind you) it’s comforting to see those pockets of good.

Works Cited:

“Eulogy.” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, vol. I, no. XIII, 24 Mar. 1848, p. [1]. Readex: African American Newspapers, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image/v2%3A11BE9340B7A005AB%40EANAAA-11D0A375F6CC4A30%402396111-11D0A376083F6788%400-11D0A376375BB120%40Eulogy. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.

https://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/Evans/?p_product=EAIX&p_theme=eai&p_nbid=Y4EJ4EGBMTY3MDg5NDM0OS40NDI1ODE6MToxMjoxOTkuOTEuMTgwLjU&p_action=doc&p_queryname=3&p_docref=v2:13D59FCC0F7F54B8@EAIX-147E02D7E1F80B80@5280-14B3FF2F6A857B98@218

Front Page of “The Weekly Louisianian” on September 18, 1875 https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&sort=YMD_date%3AA&fld-base-0=alltext&val-base-0=spirituals&val-database-0=&fld-database-0=database&fld-nav-0=YMD_date&val-nav-0=&docref=image%2Fv2%3A12B767D21CB17968%40EANAAA-12BEC31400554038%402406150-12BC002A0EA02018%400&origin=image%2Fv2%3A12B767D21CB17968%40EANAAA-12BEC31400554038%402406150-12BC002A0EA02018%400-12D621523A4D1068%40%2522Sylvan%2BWorship.%2522

On September 18, 1875, an author with the surname “Curtis” wrote an article for a newspaper called “The Weekly Louisianian”, which was based in New Orleans, Louisiana. This article, titled “Sylvan Worship”, documents the author’s experience at an African American church where worshippers sang spirituals as a religious experience. The lens through which Curtis analyzes their experience in witnessing spirituals as a religious experience is especially interesting considering “The Weekly Louisianian” describes itself on the front page as “Journal of the Republican Party of Louisiana”, going so far as to further demonstrate their political affiliation through the motto, “Republican at all times, and under all circumstances.” Curtis’ article therefore gives an excellent example of how Southern, Republican white people in the nineteenth century perceived the spiritual practices of African Americans and the associated church music.

All of this being said, it is important to recognize that the meaning of “Republican” in 1875 is very different than how it is interpreted today:

“After the United States triumphed over the Confederate States at the end of the Civil War, and under President Abraham Lincoln, Republicans passed laws that granted protections for Black Americans and advanced social justice (for example the Civil Rights Act of 1866 though this failed to end slavery). Again Democrats largely opposed these apparent expansions of federal power,” (Wolchover).

Regardless of political party, the “othering” attitudes in Curtis’ writing are apparent and abhorrent. For example, Curtis states in his article, “Negro character has always been one of the most curious studies among human phenomena, and, although its peculiarities have been the theme of books and lectures for a hundred years, there is always something new and novel cropping out in association with the race.” By saying this, Curtis conveys the attitude that Black people are specimens and “phenomena” that need to be scientifically studied to understand, as if they are not humans with distinct voices, identities, and experiences. Curtis drives this point home by quoting the Black musicians and worshippers he observed in African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which seems to have been used inappropriately with an overtone of condescension in order to undermine what the African American worshippers are actually saying and draw attention to linguistic differences. He even writes the lyrics of the hymn “Come, We That Love the Lord” in AAVE despite the fact that it was written by Isaac Watts, a white Anglican. Curtis does not seem to be attempting to purposely “other” the African American worshippers, in fact he praises the passion and intensity of the service. Curtis’ intrinsic racial bias comes through in vocabulary such as “primitive”, “barbaric”, and “pathetic” to describe the worship spirituals. Another interesting vocabulary choice is in the article title itself: “sylvan”. According to Oxford English Dictionary, “sylvan” is defined as “A person dwelling in a wood, or in a woodland region; a forester; a rustic”. Curtis’ use of this word almost implies that African Americans only live in rural country areas and are behind on cosmopolitan technologies and behaviors.

It is clear through the entire article that Curtis likely thought of himself as though he were scientifically observing a culture that was less developed than his own (which we know is problematic and inaccurate). This viewpoint parallels that of Frances Densmore’s while she documented Native American musical traditions around the United States in the early twentieth century. It is interesting to note that this article was released during Densmore’s lifetime (she lived from 1867-1957), so it can be inferred that racial othering and white supremacy in analyzing the music of other cultures was rampant in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Frances Densmore https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frances-Densmore

Sources:

Curtis. “Sylvan Worship.” African American Newspapers, Reader, 18 Sept. 1875, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&sort=YMD_date%3AA&fld-base-0=alltext&val-base-0=spirituals&val-database-0=&fld-database-0=database&fld-nav-0=YMD_date&val-nav-0=&docref=image%2Fv2%3A12B767D21CB17968%40EANAAA-12BEC31400554038%402406150-12BC002A0EA02018%400-12D621523A4D1068%40%2522Sylvan%2BWorship.%2522&firsthit=yes.

The Weekly Louisianian, 18 Sept. 1875.

Wolchover, Natalie, and Callum McKelvie. “When and Why Did Democrats and Republicans Switch Platforms?” LiveScience, Purch, 14 Apr. 2022, https://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html.

Since spirituals first gained popularity in the United States – and certainly since they became a common feature of vocal concert repertoire – many theories have been published on their origins. You think those origins are simple? Just read the 1943 George Pullen Jackson paper claiming spirituals were directly plagiarized from British folk songs,¹ and you’ll realize our apparent shared understanding about the origins of this genre was once far from accepted.

One particularly interesting and egregiously racist perspective on spirituals’ origins was written by a Jeanette Robinson Murphy, in 1904.²  Murphy has abhorrent ideas about black people’s intelligence and role in society. And she in part attributes the emotional power of spirituals, as she observes it in black communities, to the ongoing influence of voodoo, which is demeaning to black people and disrespectful to the religion. There’s no small share of exoticization in her writing, either, if one examines the passages where she describes black people’s voices and lives:

But what’s fascinating is that she does acknowledge that the songs originated in black communities, though a product of acculturation and some amount of cultural syncretism, and she doesn’t claim (as some have) that black people are incapable of artistry without white influence.

Of course her language here creates an artificial distance between what she categorizes as “black” and “white” music – interesting, considering her acknowledgement of cultural syncretism. But through her racist lens, she’s somehow managed to preserve the cultural autonomy of black music in a way some of her contemporaries couldn’t. She performs some logical backflips throughout her work to preserve both her racist ideals and her genuine reverence for black music (too many to cite); maybe that logic is the only thing that actuates this dissonance.

But what’s even more interesting to me than Murphy as an example of racist psychology is the overlap between the ideas of those such as Murphy and the ideas of their black contemporaries. Murphy emphasizes the deep emotion ingrained in spirituals, and that of the performers; this is a focus her black contemporaries also uplifted. W.E.B DuBois’ “Sorrow Songs,” for example, connects the emotional potency and universality of spirituals to the generational trauma of slavery, and his assertions about spirituals’ direct descent from African folk music are essentially aligned with Murphy’s claims.³ Mrs. Booker T. Washington also draws this connection between the emotional resonance of black music and the horrors of slavery in her 1905 address about Fisk University and the Fisk Jubilee singers, given at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition:⁴

There are undeniable similarities between how Murphy understands and experiences spirituals and how at least these black authors understand and experience spirituals. Whether this is the result of some strategic essentialism, an emerging pan-African concept leading black public figures to emphasize the commonalities of their experiences as black Americans, political maneuvering, or just a genuine shared opinion, I cannot say. But when we’re studying music that has associations of “ownership” by one racial group or another, and music that has conflicting origin stories, these are the socio-historical questions we’re going to have to get comfortable addressing.

Garcilaso de la Vega was born the “illegitimate but loved son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca princess” was born in 1539 in the Viceroyalty of Peru, only about 5 years after the Spanish took advantage of the Inca civil war, and conquered the area. His peculiar situation allowed him access to both a Spanish education, and a good deal of exposure to the Inca culture of where he was raised.

In Vega’s account, he describes the various musical stylings of the Indigenous people in 1602 Peruvian culture. He mainly focuses on panpipe players who were requested to play for the court. A panpipe is an instrument of four reeds, each, as Vega described it, resembling treble, tenor, contralto, and counter-bass voices. La flutes are also mentioned (flutes with 4-5 notes often played by shepherds), and both types of instruments are used for programmatic music. 

It is interesting to note that Vega is, in some capacity, both Spaniard and Inca, but he still describes the music of “Native Americans” as an outsider. He writes with a similar stone cold curiosity as Francis Densmore in all her many accounts of Native American music centuries later, which proves both to dehumanize the people he describes without truly showing any sort of malice towards them either. 

However, what makes this cold curiosity so interesting is that Densmore was hundreds of years removed from the beginnings of Native American displacement. However, Vega is writing from what is truly a new empire, less than a hundred years removed from the era in which Inca was its own empire, and a well-governed, well-documented one at that (Britannica). Considering the fact that the Inca Empire was just that, an empire, makes it even more curious that Vega would consider them “Native Americans” since they held a similar governing body to Spain. 

In a way, this account could also be seen through a similar lens to Eileen Southern’s newspaper clippings of advertisements for slaves in early American newspapers. It is almost as if the musical abilities of these people who are considered to be “less than” make them more valuable, both literally and figuratively in a certain sense, where either the slaveholder or the court is slightly more reverent of servants with musical abilities. Obviously, we must address this idea with the caveat that the curiosity of the colonist as it pertains to the indigenous person or slave, does not in any way make their treatment of these people less egregious. 

Works Cited:

 Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Inca”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 26 Aug. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Inca. Accessed 3 October 2022.

 Densmore, F. (1929). Pawnee music. United States Government Printing Office.

 “Garcilaso De La Vega: Description of Inca Music (1609).” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022, latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1541276. Accessed 3 Oct. 2022.

 Southern, E. (2006). Chapter 2: The Colonial Era. In The music of Black Americans: A history (Third Edition, pp. 25–27). essay, W. W. Norton & Company.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers were the first and premier ensemble of Fisk University in Nashville, TN. The university was founded in 1866 as the first American university which offered a “liberal arts education to men and women irrespective of color”; the Jubilee singers began traveling and performing five years later, in 1871, where they began performing to raise money for the university. They performed for American and British audiences until 1878, including for president-to-be James A. Garfield, from who they received a glowing review and for whom they gave an inscribed version of their book of songs.

A diary entry from President James A. Garfield

An inscribed version of “The Story of the Jubilee Singers; with their Songs” given to President Garfield as a gift by the ensemble on August 9th, 1880.

Through religious music, the Fisk singers reached audiences never thought to be possible by a group whose members were born into slavery. In 1877, they travelled to Germany on their world tour. In the land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, the Fisk Singers used Christian messages and content to entice audiences to listen. While the Fisk singers made waves in the history of music, it was only through a lens of the music and the religion of the colonizer that they were able to sell themselves. Scholar Toni P. Anderson was the first to provide critical historical scholarship the Fisk singers. As Stephen A. Marini writes in their abstract on Anderson’s work, “Anderson’s principal contribution is to place Fisk University and the Jubilee Singers in the context of what she calls “Christian Reconstruction,” the AMA’s militant program of Evangelical religion, liberal education, and acculturation to Victorian values and norms designed to produce proper leaders for the four million newly freed slaves. Immediately after the war, the Congregationalist-led AMA [American Missionary Association] undertook heroic efforts to create Christian colleges in the South to serve the Freedmen. Fisk University in Nashville (1866) was designed by its leaders Adam Spence and Erastus Cravath to be a prime embodiment of this Christian Reconstruction strategy.” Fisk University’s roots in colonial and Christian traditions enabled the Fisk Jubilee singers to have the success that they had. Were it not for these connections, the Fisk singers would not have been able to sell themselves to religious audiences, especially how they did overseas.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers

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Today’s performers have access to a wealth of information to place their musical selection in the context of modern discourse and consider the role and presence of gender and racial stereotypes in the art and lyrics. Any performance that draws from the vast repertoire of patriotic American musical lyrics written in the late 1800’s provides an abundance of racial and gender stereotypes, fueled by the ignorance that permeated society at that time. Nowadays, the American music cannon is often seen as a source of racist ideology promoting images and lyrics that maintain the status quo of white supremacy.  A little research, coupled with the desire to find and spread the truth, exposes the tendency in American patriotic music to promote traditional and stereotypical ideologies.

 While American patriotic music is a genre that readily falls under the umbrella of misinterpreted music, the music of New Spain (colonial Mexico) also faces a similar disconnect. There is a tension in reviving its music which lacks any “local content” as a whole (Davies). According to Davies, New Spanish music, “is overwhelmingly European in character and congruent with conservative European practices. The absence of local vernacular content overwhelms its presence in this aesthetically austere music” (Davies). This is an example of music around the world that is misinterpreted and misunderstood due to a lack of education and understanding on the subject. This missing content was intentionally diminished by white European influences. 

A primary source selection that I want to draw attention to comes from the genre of American patriotic musical cannon and has also been misinterpreted time and time again. Found in the Latin American Experience database, “The Yankee Message or Uncle Sam to Spain,” written in 1898 by Edward S. Ellis and Chas M. Hattersley, glorifies the Spanish-American War, Cuba’s independence from Spain, and the impact on U.S. monetary interests. During the Spanish-American War era, songwriters were similar to yellow journalists as they made popular songs to celebrate the war and honor victories and heroes (PBS). The self interest and self righteousness of the United States is present in both the lyrics and illustrations of Ellis’ and Hattersley’s song. The cover art is composed of patriotic symbols including the U.S. Flag, an eagle, and a knife. Each illustration signals an allegiance to freedom and liberty, core values espoused by the U.S. Similarly, the lyrics point out the patriotic ideals of the U.S. government:

We’ve got the boys to do it

A million men and more

We’ve got our new born Navy

And deweys by the score

These Eurocentric lyrics make it clear that their actions are right, sending a direct message to Spain from Uncle Sam and reinforcing the notion that if they simply act like Yankees, all their issues will be resolved. 

During my research I also stumbled across an alternate edition of the piece, this time titled “Free Cuba” instead of “The Yankee Message.” This alternate title suggests a poor attempt once again at the United States trying to manipulate and influence people’s perceptions of them as a dignified nation at the time. “The Yankee Message” title suggests power and strength and boils down to a negative declaration to the opposition rather than the perception of hope and a desire to do the right thing in the alternate title, “Free Cuba.”

The lyrics in all showcase honor and patriotism however, a deeper dive reveals a surface level attempt at this. The American’s lust for Cuban independence is reflected in lyrics glamorizing combat, colonization, and the liberation of Cuba from Spain. “The Yankee Message or Uncle Sam to Spain” is a musical declaration of patriotism and power, disguised as a fun loving cannon of America’s pastimes.

Sources:

“Patriotic American Sheet Music.” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022, latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1470303. Accessed 4 Oct. 2022.

Hattersley, Chas. M. Free Cuba; or, Uncle Sam to Spain. Pond & Co., Wm. A., New York, monographic, 1873. Notated Music. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/sm1873.15560/>.

Public Broadcasting Service. (n.d.). Crucible of empire : The Spanish-american war – PBS online. PBS. Retrieved October 4, 2022, from https://www.pbs.org/crucible/frames/_music.html

There can be multiple definitions of what “American Music” actually is. There are so many cultures that exist in this country and in its history that it can be difficult to pinpoint an exact genre that is strictly “American.”

Let’s rewind a little bit in history. When the colonizers from Europe first came to this land mass initially, they were bringing a multitude of cultures with them – Spanish, French, German, etc. In addition to the cultures that already existed before they got here, the newer artistic cultures melded (both by force and by accident) to create new kinds of art and music that was a beautifully twisted combination of the two.

In the Andes in the 16th century, there was a son of a Spanish conquistador and an Incan princess – Garcilaso de la Vega. He was a poet himself and he is known mostly for his writings about Incan history, culture, and society. In those writings, he wrote about the history of both of the musical traditions from which he is descended. He brought to light how many different instruments they used in both types of music (commonly flute and organ), how each kind was distinct and how there were certain songs for each occasion, and where most of the songs were performed.

His writings were particularly special because they were the first literature by an author born in the Americas to enter the Western Canon. Without his writings, there would’ve been much less written down knowledge about the Incan culture and their cultural practices.

Writings like this are important in our work in this class for the purpose of following how cultural traditions move. The musical influence of both of these cultures can be seen in places like New Spain and later on when the territories dissolve and become the country we know and exist in today. While the flute and organ usually are not played together in early music performance practice anymore, we have records of what early court music sounded like to inform the performance practice early music groups do today.

Understanding history is vital to understanding where we come from and knowing where our short comings are so that the mistakes and disappointments of the past are not repeated.

Work Cited:

“Garcilaso De La Vega: Description of Inca Music (1609).” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022, latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1541276. Accessed 3 Oct. 2022.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Garcilaso_de_la_Vega

Church in Chihuahua, Mexico https://airlines-airports.com/aeromexico-in-chihuahua-mexico/

In 1892, James D. Faton wrote an article for “The Independent” newspaper titled “Mexico: A New Church Dedicated” that celebrates the recent erection of an Evangelist church in Chihuahua, Mexico. In the article, Faton praises the role of religion in Mexican sociopolitical life for serving as “a powerful aid to [Mexico’s] progress” and for having “deepened the sentiments of patriotism in the hearts of our people”. Mexican churches used sacred music such as alabados in order to lure citizens to church and then to further instill a sense of Mexican nationalism in worshippers and performers in order to create an original identity and sound for the recently independent country (Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821).

According to the U.S. Department of State Office of International Religious Freedom, approximately eighty-nine percent of Mexico’s population identifies as Christian (“2020 Report…”). One of the largest aspects of the Christian faith is the role of liturgical hymns and worship songs, and it is no surprise that there is a rich history behind Mexican liturgical music. The most traditional style of sacred song from Mexican origin are alabados. Alabados are “ancient religious hymns based on the New Testament that lament the passion and crucifixion of Jesus Christ,” (García). Similar to Aaron Copland and Charles Ives’ attempts to create a distinctly American sound by borrowing music from other cultural influences, alabados often “…reveal traces of Middle Eastern musical influence (most likely Moorish and Sephardic), mixed with Iberian medieval plain chant and traces of Pueblo (Tanoan and Keresan) Indian. Alabados were introduced to the New World by the Franciscan monks, who used them in converting the native peoples to Christianity. Eventually mixed with New World cultural elements, today’s alabados are genuine hybrid expressions of the Americas,” (García). Mexico was very clearly following in the United States’ footsteps in combining multiple cultural influences present in the area to create a new and distinct sound. In fact, Faton noted “citing the United States as a shining example” of religious freedom, which encompasses multiple different musical traditions. Alabados and other forms of nineteenth-century sacred Mexican music not only brought Mexican citizens together in worship but sought to create a unique Mexican musical tradition based on a conglomeration of cultural influences around the country. Mexico defining its musical canon at an early stage after the country’s independence from Spain signifies a desire to be more present and powerful in the international musical scene in the early twentieth century.

Sources:

FATON, J. D. (1892, Dec 08). MEXICO.: A NEW CHURCH DEDICATED. The Independent …Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (1848-1921), 44, 21. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/magazines/mexico/docview/90478917/se-2

“2020 Report on International Religious Freedom – United States …” U.S. Department of State, 12 May 2021, https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-religious-freedom/.

García, Peter J. “Alabados.” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022, latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1329447. Accessed 3 Oct. 2022.

When examining American music, it is clear to see that no musical tradition has come about without the fusion of many cultural properties. This ceaseless blending and creation is what we ought to thank for the multiplicity of beautiful and unique music that has come out of the Americas. However, such musical synthesis frequently leads to questions about the injustices and power struggles that led to the development of new musical traditions. In addition, we often also consider how these musical styles give voice to historically oppressed people today and whether this art can be a medium through which justice might be sought. The cultural, religious, and musical tradition known as ‘Las Posadas’ is an example of such cultural blending that has its earliest roots in the first attempts to Christianize the Aztecs in the early sixteenth century. As an ever-morphing ritual with centuries worth of history, Las Posadas serves as an example of how cultural amalgamation forces us to ask questions about historical and present inter-ethnic transgression.  

The tradition of Las Posadas occurs annually in the American Southwest and is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Las Posadas (“the inns”) refers more directly to Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging prior to the incarnation. During each night of this nine-day Catholic devotion, two individuals play the roles of Mary and Jospeh and ask various members of their community for lodging. They are denied a place to rest each night, and are sent on their way. This nightly ritual is accompanied by posada songs, music specific to this ritual. One of the primary songs for this event is simply titled “Las Posadas” in which Joseph asks the innkeepers for a place to stay for the night. 

While this tradition is a beautiful example of cultural blending in the United States, it has its roots in the colonization that occurred early on in the development of the New World. The history of this music and tradition begins in the early sixteenth century when Augustine priests attempted to christianize the Aztecs. By coincidence, the Aztec people celebrated the birth of their god Huitzilopochtli at approximately the same time as Christmas. The overlapping religious events made it easier for the Augustinians to convert the population, and out of this conversion came the traditions and music that is now referred to as Las Posadas. Today, many connections have been drawn between Mary and Joseph’s search for a home and ultimate rejection to the on going issue of immigration in the United States. In 2002 at the Posada sin Fronteras event in San Diego, California, alternate lyrics to the Las Posadas song were composed to demonstrate the similarity in relationships between the Holy parents and the innkeepers along with immigrants and border officals. By recognizing and connecting the power struggles of the past to those which are still ongoing, this art which once was used as a means to overpower or dehumanize becomes a medium for protest and vehicle for change. 

There is much to be learned about the tradition of Las Posadas and the multiplicity of meanings imbedded in this ritual. While there is a significant amount of cultural dissonance within this music and its history, there is just as much hope to had for its in its performance and reinvention. 

Cantos de Las Posadas and Other Christmas Songs (recorded by Elena Paz and Carlos Garcia Travesi). Performed by Suni Paz, and C. G. Travesi., Folkways Records. Alexander Street, https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Crecorded_cd%7C72362.

“Las Posadas Student Procession.” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022, latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1922421. Accessed 3 Oct. 2022.

“Traditional Las Posadas Song.” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022, latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1839445. Accessed 3 Oct. 2022.

De La Torre, Miguel A. “A Colonized Christmas Story.” Interpretation (Richmond), vol. 71, no. 4, 2017, pp. 408–17, https://doi.org/10.1177/0020964317716131.

Nolan, Seth. “Las Posadas.” The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022, latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1329879. Accessed 3 Oct. 2022.

Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., et al. “‘There’s a Spirit That Transcends the Border’: Faith, Ritual, and Postnational Protest at the U.S.-Mexico Border.” Sociological Perspectives, vol. 47, no. 2, 2004, pp. 133–59, https://doi.org/10.1525/sop.2004.47.2.133.

December 19-20th 1979, Students participate in Las Posadas.

The photograph on the left features students, portraying the characters of Mary and Joseph, participating in Las Posadas (1). Las Posadas is a Christian pageant tradition practiced throughout Latin America and Spain as part of the Las Posadas tradition. Based on the New Testament, the pageant lasts nine days and focuses on Joseph and Mary and their search for a place to stay in Bethlehem (2). While the subject matter of the tradition is not of much intrigue and doesn’t connect to the course content, its role in the colonization of Latin America does.

The Las Posadas tradition dates back to the 16th century with the Augustinian missionaries’ conversion of the Aztecs. The pageant tradition coincided with the celebration of the birth of the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli, which occurred at roughly the same time and shared the same amount of cultural weight as Christmas did to the missionaries (3). This served as a bridge between the two cultures and made Christianity easier to teach to the Aztecs.

This puts our cultural understanding of the traditional Las Posadas song in a predicament. We understand that the song was part of a larger tradition aimed at converting the Aztecs, along with other indigenous cultures. This thus westernized them and made them easier to conquer and assimilate. However, one cannot deny the fact that the Las Posadas tradition has been a part of Latin American culture for roughly 500 years, and has different cultural connotations and intentions now compared to then. Seth Nolan notes that Las Posadas has “…become a community affair with friends, relatives, and neighbors gathering together to share in a tradition that has come down through the years” (4). While the reckoning of these two identities associated with this song doesn’t present a clear answer, the ethical and moral debate it sparks around historical context and cultural significance is important.

(1) “Las Posadas Student Procession.” In The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022. Image. Accessed December 13, 2022. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1922421.

(2) Nolan, Seth. “Las Posadas.” In The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022. Accessed October 3, 2022. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1329879.

(3) Nolan, Seth. “Las Posadas.” In The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience, ABC-CLIO, 2022. Accessed October 3, 2022. https://latinoamerican2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1329879.

(4) Nolan, Seth. “Las Posadas.” In The American Mosaic: The Latino American Experience,

First Ever Album Cover by Alex Steinweiss (1938) https://illustrationchronicles.com/alex-steinweiss-and-the-world-s-first-record-cover

If you’ve ever seen an album cover, you might have an idea of what can commonly be found on the front page of musical scores. These score covers use visual elements to package and advertise music, often with elaborate illustrations that drew in prospective performers to the part. Score cover art for Native-American-influenced popular music (which unfortunately is more often than not inaccurately appropriated by white composers and/or artists with no indigenous backgrounds) provides an interesting insight into how Native Americans were perceived in 19th- and 20th-century America. Two common themes that I noticed in examining these score covers is the narrative of the Native American as primitive soldiers and on the contrary, as love interests.

Sioux March & Waltz—Louis Wallis https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sheetmusic/id/23812

The cover art for Louis Wallis’ “Sioux Waltz & March” (1856) shows “A man on horseback in uniform is about to cut down with his saber a Native American he is chasing. Behind him, another of his comrades, at whom the Native American is aiming a bow and drawn arrow, is about to shoot the Native American with his pistol. A battle rages in the background, with Native Americans and soldiers visible,” (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). The simultaneous use of the Native American’s bow and arrow and the white man with a pistol reflects the 19th-century attitude that Native Americans were less developed in technology and other aspects of life than that in Western civilization.

“Lackawanna: An Indian Love Song Story in Florida” by Eugene Francis Mickell (1912) https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/ShtMus/id/13

“A Wigwam Courtship; Intermezzo” by Sadie Koninsky (1903) https://repository.duke.edu/dc/hasm/b0229

Another interesting theme in score cover art for Native American-inspired music is the fetishization of both relationships between two Native Americans as well as relationships between one Native American and a Westerner. “A Wigwam Courtship; Intermezzo” by Sadie Koninsky (1903) and “Lackawanna: An Indian Love Song Story from Florida” by Eugene Francis Mickell (1912) show two Native Americans lusting after each other.

“My Indian Maiden” by Edward Coleman (1904) https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inharmony/detail.do?action=detail&fullItemID=/lilly/devincent/LL-SDV-083015

Meanwhile, the cover to Edward Coleman’s “My Indian Maiden” (1904) depicts a Native American woman dressed in full regalia with a pleasant expression on her face, while a European man in colonial period clothing stands in the mirror behind her.

It is inconclusive whether depicting these Native American relationships on score covers is for representative purposes or as a form of exoticism. According to Oxford Bibliographies, “exoticism is considered a form of representation in which peoples, places, and cultural practices are depicted as foreign from the perspective of the composer and/or intended audience. In earlier usage of the term, “exoticism” and “exotic” referred to an inherent quality or status of the non-Western other”. It is clear that the illustrators for the score covers thought of Native Americans as the “other” and sought to depict them as stereotypically as possible. Every album cover that I researched with Native American subjects had them depicted in full regalia, surrounded by nature, and often using weapons.

These score covers provide an interesting historical insight into how Westerners viewed Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries. Not only were Native Americans thought of as underdeveloped and uncivilized warriors, but Native American relationships served as an exotic spectacle to Westerners. Native Americans were treated by score illustrators as commodities to help increase score profits, instead of actual people. The cover art to “My Indian Maiden” shows that Native American women may have been fetishized by white men especially, which is a dangerous rhetoric to spread. “The Justice Department reports that one in three Native women is raped over her lifetime, while other sources report that many Native women are too demoralized to report rape.  Perhaps this is because federal prosecutors decline to prosecute 67 percent of sexual abuse cases, according to the Government Accountability Office. More than 80 percent of sex crimes on reservations are committed by non-Indian men, who are immune from prosecution by tribal courts” (Erdrich, 2013). In fact, a 1915 letter by the U.S. Board of Indian Commissioners addressed to Edward E. Ayer states that attempted rape of Native Americans is “impossible” to prosecute: “Outside of certain specific offenses provided for by the Statute, it is impossible to punish anyone who may have attempted rape, an assault, seduction under the promise of marriage, and theft,” (American Indian Histories and Cultures). There were no punishments for the maltreatment and fetishization of Native Americans during the 18th and 19th centuries.

The anti-Native American attitudes that can still be seen today are evident in the 18th- and 19th-century score covers for pieces inspired by Native American music. Cover art of scores and albums can serve as an extremely credible lens into what life looked like in the past, which can help scholars today determine when and where certain racist attitudes may have begun and how they were perpetuated.

Sources:

“A Wigwam Courtship; Intermezzo / Historic American Sheet Music / Duke Digital Repository.” Duke Digital Collections, https://repository.duke.edu/dc/hasm/b0229. 

Erdrich. L. (2013). Also the author of “The Round House.” New York Times Op Ed, February 27, 2013, on page A25: Rape on the Reservation.

“Exoticism.” Obo, https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199757824/obo-9780199757824-0123.xml.

“In Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana.” IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana – Item Details, https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inharmony/detail.do?action=detail&fullItemID=%2Flilly%2Fdevincent%2FLL-SDV-083015. 

Kennedy, Philip. “Alex Steinweiss and the World’s First Record Cover.” Illustration Chronicles, 20 July 2021, https://illustrationchronicles.com/Alex-Steinweiss-and-the-World-s-First-Record-Cover. 

“Lackawanna : an Indian Love Song, Story from Florida.” CONTENTDM, Ball State University Digital Media Repository, https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/ShtMus/id/13. 

“To Mrs. Graham Atkinson. Sioux March & Waltz by Louis Wallis.” Playmakers Repertory Company Playbills, https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sheetmusic/id/23812. 

“U.S. Board of Indian Commissioners Files [Manuscript]: 1912-1922 [ Box 3, Folders 15 to 18].” AMD, American Indian Histories and Cultures, https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/SearchDetails/Ayer_MS_911_BX03_1#Snippits.

Alice Fletcher, Meepe, and Martha, ca. 1887-1889, BAE GN 4439, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. https://transcription.si.edu/articles/alice-cunningham-fletcher-and-francis-la-flesche-transcription-center

As a class, we recently learned about Frances Densmore’s ethnographic research on Native Americans, in which she recorded and documented myriad songs and information about the culture of multiple Native American tribes in Minnesota and the US.  Densmore approached her research on these groups as a scientific endeavor—viewing Native Americans through a nineteenth-century racialized lens that perceived them as tantamount to the natural landscape and representative of a primitive European past. However, she was not the first, nor the only ethnologist learning about and extracting the sonic resources of Great Plains tribes at that time. Consider Alice C. Fletcher, who “began collecting ethnological and musical data in 1883 among the Omaha and Dakota Indians.”[1]As both Densmore and Fletcher’s work perpetuated cultural imperialism, understanding how it contributed to the development of ethnomusicology at the expense of native cultures perhaps leads to a better understanding of the discipline’s tainted, yet prolific, roots.[2]

An 1893 news clipping from the scrapbook of Ely Samuel Parker describes Alice C. Fletcher as  “A Woman Who Worthily Stands for Her Sex,” referring to her work as President of the Anthropological Society.[3]  Having studied “Indians in our Western Territories,” the writer declares that “there is no one in this or any other country whose knowledge on the subject approaches hers.”[4] For her research, Fletcher “…spent years among the Indians, living in their camps unprotected, learning their language, studying their customs, music…”[5] The writer states that at the time of this publication, she was in the midst of “revising…an important work on the music of the Omaha Indians…”[6] Two decades later into her career, she published a 600+ page work on the history of the Omaha Tribe that I tracked down in the library.[7] Like Frances Densmore in numerous works like Chippewa Customs, she notates indigenous songs using western notation (reinforcing its colonial hierarchy), and uses a social scientific lens to try and explain their culture. Yet in the 1893 clipping, the writer assures us that her “work among the Indians has a benevolent as well as scientific side”[8]

Ely Samuel Parker scrapbooks: Vol 11, 1828-1894, The Newberry Library, 34.

The article goes on to describe her friendship developed with the tribe, and how she leverages this to “secure for the Peabody museum trophies and relics from the different tribes which had never ever been seen by a white man.”[9] Ultimately, this transactional relationship unfortunately outlines how researchers of her era thought it ok to exploit the trust of tribes. Native Americans fit a Western narrative believing that “these supposedly primitive musical cultures were part of a dying world that was succumbing to American civilization and that scholars needed to preserve what they could before their assumed extinction.”[10] Fletcher’s work was profound—she published the first ethnographic presentation of a Native American tribe’s music in 1893 (the aforementioned work on the Omaha) and she wrote more than 97 entries for the Bureau of American Ethnology’s Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico in 3 years—however, it was grounded by racist assumptions all too common at the turn of the century.[11] It’s important to conceptualize how Fletcher’s work as among the first to record Native American music provided detailed documentation of their history while perpetuating biased beliefs of a racialized musical hierarchy that others, like Densmore, would build upon.

[1] Sue Carol DeVale, “Fletcher, Alice Cunningham,” Grove Music Online, 2001. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009816.

[2] Krystyn R Moon, “The Quest for Music’s Origin at the St. Louis World’s Fair: Frances Densmore and the Racialization of Music,” American Music 28, no. 2 (2010): 191-210. muse.jhu.edu/article/379952.

[3] Ely Samuel Parker scrapbooks: Vol 11, 1828-1894, The Newberry Library, 34. https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/Ayer_Modern_MS_Parker_VL11/24#VisualMaterials

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Alice C Fletcher (Alice Cunningham), and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, Washington: [publisher not identified], 1911.

[8] Ely Samuel Parker scrapbooks, 34. https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/Ayer_Modern_MS_Parker_VL11/24#VisualMaterials

[9] Ibid.

[10] Moon, “”The Quest for Music’s Origin at the St. Louis World’s Fair,” 191-210. muse.jhu.edu/article/379952.

[11] Alice C. Fletcher, et al., Life among the Indians: First Fieldwork among the Sioux and Omahas  (Lincoln, Nebraska, 2013): 61, 71.  http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/stolaf-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1495860.

Along the border of New Mexico and Arizona one can find the Zuni people, a North American Indian tribe. Believed to be the descendants of the prehistoric Ancestral Pueblo, they have a long history of connection to the Pueblo tribe, including the involvement in the Pueblo Rebellion against the spanish. Their culture is deeply rooted in religion, spirituality, and the earth, specifically being known as the “Sun Worshippers”. Additionally the Zuni people, much like many other native tribes, utilize music in order to create a community space while completing activities like fire starting or welcoming the sunrise. The main primary source that I would like to share is a journal written by Castañeda de Nájera as he described his journey to Cibola, New Mexico. The book begins with his departure from Compostela on February 23, 1540 to Cibola. This happened to be the “poor pueblo village of the Zuni Indians”. There are also accounts of discovering as they travel America, but I will primarily focus on the Zuni tribe. Additionally, the later section of this book described the native american tribes including the making of their houses, customs, religion, agriculture, and dress. The book then ends with their unsuccessful expedition back to Mexico.

The infamous 16th century Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led an important expedition in 1540 to New Spain in search of gold. Much like many other explorers of the time forced his way into many tribes including the Zuni tribe of Hawikuh, where modern New Mexico remains. This was the first discovery of native tribes for Coronado and it ultimately ended in violence as he attempted to take the town, which caused the tribe to flee their homes. This failure led to further exploration and several more battles with various tribes. As Coronado inserted himself into tribes such as the Tusayan, Triguez, and Acoma, he accounted for more and more traditions that the Native American tribes took part in, leading to the manuscript shown above.

Alongside the score that I have described, attached is a book written by Carlos Troyer entitled Indian Music Lecture published in 1913. This book encapsulates Troyer’s life and experiences as he traveled various spaces in order to discover and share various tribes’ religion, government, and lifestyle. Troyer is yet another example very similar to the primary source journal shown earlier in which an outsider takes initiative to research and implement their presence on a Native Tribe; interestingly enough both Coronado and Troyer both research the Zuni Tribe.

Carlos himself is a musician born in Frankfurt in 1837 who then traveled to America at a young age and began teaching music, composing, and traveling to a variety of countries to learn and share native culture. His contact with the Zuni people occurred when he was entrusted to interpret their songs through his work in California. Instead, Troyer visited the tribe and learned of their sacred dances, ceremonies, and “traditional lore”. His goal of the trip, just like his work with other tribes like the Incas, was to give insight to mainly American and European people about indigenous culture.

While it can be said that he achieved his goal and spread awareness on the tribe’s way of life, the way in which Troyer went about entering the tribe is questionable in terms of ethics. It appears that he gained permission and was well received, but one wording in a letter at the beginning of the book by Charles Cadman claimed that he “conquered ” other tribes. Whether liked or not, it comes to reason that his privilege of power as a white man allowed him privileges to expect acceptance for researching the tribe. Lastly, there is the occasional phrasing that invokes a sense of superiority such as the title of the book which is “an address designed for reading at musical gatherings, describing the lives, customs, religions, occult practices, and the surprising musical development of the cliff dwellers of the south west”. Wording like “surprising” gives indication that little was expected of the tribe and it places indigenous culture in an othering position.

2019 Buffalo dance/Pueblo of Zuni,NM @ Sañto Ñino

Bibliography

Castañeda de Nájera, Pedro de. “Narrative of the Expedition to Cibola Undertaken in 1540
[Manuscript]: Translated into English by Brantz Mayer.” American Indian Histories and Cultures – Adam Matthew Digital. The Newberry Library, 1851. https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/Ayer_MS_1058/4.

History.com Editors. “Francisco Vázquez De Coronado.” History.com. A&E Television
Networks, November 9, 2009. https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/francisco-vazquez-de-coronado.

Mateya. “2019 Buffalo Dance/Pueblo of Zuni,NM @ Sañto Ñino.” YouTube, YouTube, 6 Jan. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=o74Z0ZZOTEI.

Robert Stevenson. “Troyer, Carlos.” New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Oxford
University Press, 2001, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.28481.

Stevenson, Robert. “Troyer, Carlos.” Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. Date of
access 22 Sep. 2022,
https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001
.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000028481

Troyer, Carlos, and Charles Wakefield Cadman. Indian Music Lecture: The zuñi Indians and
Their Music: An Address Designed for Reading at Musical Gatherings, Describing the
Lives, Customs, Religions, Occult Practices, and the Surprising Musical Development of
the Cliff Dwellers of the South West. Theo. Presser Co., 1913.

When studying Native American music, it is common to hear the earliest recordings of indigenous music taped by Francis Densmore in the early twentieth century. As students and musicologists, we turn to these recordings for many reasons. We listen in order to observe and acknowledge the history embedded in this music. We hear both the beauty of the long-standing traditions of Native American people, along with the racist beginnings of our own field of study. Numerous intense emotions are wrapped up in these recordings: awe and curiosity along with disappointment and generational pain. While there are many excellent educational and valuable reasons to listen to these recordings, what if we continued our study of Native American musicking by fixing our gaze on the more recent past, or even the present? Perhaps by observing the recordings and music being created and produced by Native Americans during the more recent past, we can begin to understand what this music sounds like today and what influences and is influenced by this music. By examining a music review from a 1996 publication of Akwesasne Notes along with some of the music that the artists mentioned in the article wrote and produced, we might begin to learn more about what the soundscape of the modern Native American has begun to sound like in recent history.

When reading through Radioactive Indians – Music Reviews by Alex Jones, the variety of musical influences used in modern Native American music becomes operant. For example, Jones describes the music of the ensemble Brian Black Thunder “as country music with some rock flourishes”. The instrumentation of Brian Black Thunder’s music also includes. “mandolin, strings, piano, [and] organ” (Jones 114). A musical feature from the same periodical entitled Howard Lyons: Traditional Roots Empowering Contemporary Music, also describes the way that genres and influences intersect in the music of Indigenous musicians. In this feature, Lyons’ album Hope and Dreams is described as a combination of “the beautiful rhythms and repetition of traditional native music” and “the acoustic instrumentation and simple melodies of mainstream folk music” (117). Both of these examples, along with many others in these articles, exemplify an effort made by Native musicians at the time to embrace some musical features which would be beyond the boundaries of what might be considered traditional Native American music. 

There does seem to be a variety of ideas about the role of genre bending in Native American music today. In an article in News from the Indian Country, Lyons states, “I would like to stay close to my roots because there is so much that can be said through my music and through our history that people can benefit from”. In addition, Lyons stated that he does not wish to capitalize on the sacred musical traditions of his tribe. While his music is clearly inspired by his identity, he appears to value having a separate spiritual life rooted in the music traditions of his tribe. 

By turning our eyes towards music made by Native American composers and performers in the recent past and present, we might begin to see this music as a living, ever-changing and developing art rather than something stuck in antiquity with Francis Densmore. If we claim to value representation in our field of study, we ought not allow Densmore to clearly stand out as a primary figure for native musics. Instead, we ought to look to present and past musicians and artists who continue to the work of creating this music. In so doing, we can work towards creating more accurate portrayals of what a certain musical community looks and sounds like. 

Bibliography:

Jones, Alex. “Radioactive Indians – Music Review.” Akwesasne Notes, 1996, 114-116. 

Lyons, Howard. “Howie Lyons Music.” Howard Lyons: Native American Musician. https://www.howielyons.com/music.html. Accessed 21 September 2022.

Murg, Wilhelm. “Musical Spirit Walker – Interview with Howard Lyons.” News from Indian Country, Jul 15, 2002. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/musical-spirit-walker-interview-with-howard-lyons/docview/367717161/se-2.

“Howard Lyons: Traditional Roots Empowering Contemporary Music.” Akwesasne Notes, 1996, 117.

As an extension to our semester group project on Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Marching Band, I’m going to explore and reflect on the topic of gender roles and implications in HBCU marching band traditions and visions going forth.

First emerging as a military tradition, the marching band experience can be closely associated with not just musical talents but also discipline, hard work, as well as conservative values such as traditional gender expectations and roles. And indeed when we think about a marching band performance on a football stadium, it’s not hard to picture groups of girls doing their dancing routines while their male counterparts doing heavy percussion and marching routines.

A YouTube video documenting the 2019 North Carolina A&T State University Marching Band routine.

As our society is gradually progressing from our learned gender dichotomy towards an intersectional lens to understand, respect and welcome non-binary and LGBTQ community into the different facets of social structures and system, more research and studies are starting to take an interest on the gendered structure of a marching band. However, even though interests have been taken into this matter, literature concerning such are focused on Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) and not so much for student experiences in HBCU.

“While professional educational literature concerning racial identity, sexual identity and sexual orientation of students have been emerging, the literature is widely from White, Euro-American perspectives and excludes the Black gay male experience.” (Carter, 27)

In a research done by Bruce Allen Carter, he revealed that all the four participants who all identified as black gay male shared the sentiment that there’s a constant state of anxiety surrounding their participation in HBCU marching band and that “there’s nothing better or nothing worse than being Black, gay and in the Marching band” (Carter, 37)

In a essay Reclaiming the Beat: The Sweet Subversive Sounds of HBCU Marching Bands written by Antron D. Mahoney, he also shed light on the experiences of non-binary communities in the marching band and pointed out an underground performance practice “J-setting” or “bucking” that is an outlet for self-expression and community building for many non-binary or LGBTQ black males. These underground practices, similar to what females partake on a regular basis in marching bands, are being criticized and ostracized as a transgressive art form. This documentary When the Beat Drops as referenced in Mahoney’s essay further elaborates on the experiences of non-cis black men as well as origins, significance and development of “J-setting” and “bucking” as a new fledging art form.

According to HBCU marching band scholar, Yulanda Essoka, she attributed the success and competitiveness of HBCU bands to their distinct style that integrates and meshes up different genres and styles of music and routines than their PWI counterparts.(Mahoney, 83) This is often celebrated as the pride of HBCU bands, an ode to musical experiences of blackness and diversity. Will we take the next step to embrace also queerness, gayness, intersectionality and celebrate their embodied pride and experiences through marching band?

As I continue to contemplate on this topic, I envision a more in-depth extension to our HBCU marching band mapping project to be focusing on mapping data of existing scholars’ findings and statistics of intersectional, LGBTQ participation and experiences at HBCUs as well as collaborating with HBCUs in further research, data collection, support and even reformation in the band culture for a more inclusive experience for the non-binary and LGBTQ community.

Sources:

Carter, Bruce Allen. “‘Nothing Better or Worse Than Being Black, Gay, and in the Band.’” Journal of Research in Music Education. 61, no. 1 (2013): 26–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429412474470.


2019 HBCU HOMECOMING & BAND SHOWCASE | NC A&T State Takes Field Highlights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIX3AuqPKLs

Mahoney, Antron D. “Reclaiming the Beat: The Sweet Subversive Sounds of HBCU Marching Bands.” Southern Cultures 27, no. 4 (2021): 78–97. https://doi.org/10.1353/scu.2021.0059.

When the Beat Drops. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxLY1Aydebo

Through the digital archives of the American Indian Histories and Cultures, I came across some Akwesasne Notes newspaper articles and as I read through them, this article struck me deeply, especially in juxtaposition to some of the texts and journals we read in class written by European settlers and expansionists.

Screenshots of the article titled A Dying People in the Akwesasne Notes, Vol 13, No. 5, Winter 1981.

To begin with, Akwesasne Notes is a newspaper publication of the Mohawk Nation, named after the location Akwesasne, situated between the New York and Canadian borders. The publication first started in 1968 and continued irregularly through 1992 until a hiatus until 1995 in which new series were published until 1997.

In this news article, a journalist from Albany was struck by the state of constant decay at Akwesasne both environmentally and culturally and went around town seeking opinions from some locals. The response he got from Marcy was painful and saddening. Marcy attributed big parts of the cultural disintegration and the fading sense of community towards the young generations’ reluctance in learning their own traditions– the white assimilation.

A video documenting the importance of the water bodies in Akwesasne, its pollution and the potential for works of restoration.

“The white man’s ways, money, it confused us… it weakened us. We forgot about the real things… How to fight for the real things… They poisoned us, they tricked us.” – Marcy

The assimilation process as she described was characterized with deceit and dishonesty, using temporal materialistic gains such as money as bait for natives to abandon their traditional ways and beliefs. The consequences of a collective assimilation was devastating and irreversible. On one hand we see the issue of clashing ideals and different ways of life between the natives and the Americans; on the other hand, there’s the question of how to make amends and restore the damage and disruption.

The colonizers, settlers and the United States government in their misguided attempts to “convert”, “educate” and “civilize” the Native Americans, failed to acknowledge and respect an alternative way of living and belief system just as valid as their own realities. Marcy in the article wishes the white men to stop using their ways to make amends and instead just leave it alone. Maybe instead of forcing our ways and realities on others, we should make the effort to learn from them, to restore and rebuild the community and cultural heritage in their ways instead of ours.

In terms of folk tunes, poems and music-making, I’ve seen many attempts in academia to analyze and make sense of Native American music using western music terminology and descriptions. Although it is a gateway of connection, it is still a reluctant refusal to really see and experience a different culture that is different from our realities. I hope in academia, scholars will start becoming more aware of their own positionality and use terminologies accurate of Native American cultures.

Sources:

mdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/Ayer_Akwesasne_Notes_1981_12Wnt/2?v=1652413313&SessionExpired=True

https://youtu.be/L1ePZtYxy7A

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=akewsasnenotes

https://www.fold3.com/collection/native-american

In today’s blog post, I want to dive in to talk about Bert Williams (1874-1922), a popular black comedian, singer and film director in the entertainment industry at the turn of the century. He was also a pioneer of bringing African-American participation and involvement in the entertainment and music industry in the early 20th century. I came across Bert Williams as I browsed through the sheet music consortium, finding a printed sheet music of Somebody Else, Not Me published with Bert Williams at the front cover in blackface.

The piece titled “Somebody Else – Not me” was composed by Hanley, James F. (James Frederick), 1892-1942 with lyrics by Ballard MacDonald (1882-1935) for voice and piano. It was famously performed and introduced by Bert Williams in the musical Broadway Brevities at the New York Winter Garden. Featuring Bert Williams himself in blackface, the cover was printed by New York : Shapiro Bernstein & Co, c1920.

The following are the lyrics and recording of the piece “Somebody Else, Not Me” performed by Bert Williams.

To begin with, “blackface” was a racist performance tradition popular in the United States a century or two ago where white Americans of European descent put on temporary black pigments in minstrel shows to portray black Americans in a theatrical or even derogatory manner with the intention to entertain white audiences. Although nowadays, we consider this to be a deeply racist tradition, it was unfortunately a socially-acceptable common practice in the 19th and early 20th century. With the start of racial awakening and awareness stemming from the civil rights movements in the 1950s, the Blackface tradition started to decline and was beginning to be considered as an outright racist practice.

Now, jumping back in time to Bert Williams’ contemporary in the late 19th to early 20th century when minstrel shows and blackface traditions were prominent, that was also a time when racial inequality and discrimination led to the exclusion and devaluation of black people in most industries and professions. Bert Williams himself was born in the Bahamas and migrated with his family to Florida in the United States when he was 11. Despite being a black American, he was determined to be in the entertainment industry and started performing, joining various minstrel troops around the states in 1886 even if it meant that he also had to smear black pigments on his face to partake in shows and entertainments that essentially taunted his own racial identity and experiences. He later met the dancer George Walker and together, they created the first all-black performance cast and was one of the most famous African American performance troupes ever.


Some of the interesting and important things to note is that in Bert Williams’ famous silent-film “Natural Born Gambler”, he appeared in a self-imposed blackface as many other of his works. It presents highly racialized stereotypes and themes such as black people being deceitful and dishonest and taking advantage of wealthy white people. However, as Williams created this as entertainment for white audiences, this film was a great success congruent with societal dynamics. Partly because his role as a black producer and performer himself enables the white audiences to feel even more at ease knowing it was created willingly by a black person himself with the intention to entertain. However, in the ending of the story, the black man is arrested while the white man has a three-day grace period to leave town, reflecting the racial injustice congruent to the time that is still relevant even to this day.

In a way, we can see Bert Williams as a successful breakthrough for black people’s involvement in the entertainment industry even though through his works, he had to reinforce or create racial stereotypes for humor and entertainment. “Blackface” as a practice is in a way a means to be included in a highly racialized society. We see a lot of BIPOC comedians even nowadays participate in self-deprecating humor as a way to entertain or relate to the BIPOC identity and experience.

Nowadays if someone is to debate whether Black Music, however they define it, is simply a copy or imitation of white music, it would be outrageously offensive and unacceptable. However, back in just the past few centuries, in the somewhat recent past, (white) scholars have differing views and have even attempted to conduct pseudo-“scientific” research to prove otherwise. For instance, George Pullen Jackson, in 1943, attempted to compare black folk songs and spirituals to many white folk songs and hymnals, trying to prove it using a flawed, and biased style of commentary.

Continuing my attempt to learn and search for the origins of “Black Music”, I looked into the archives from the African American Newspaper collections. What caught my attention was this article called “Plea for Negro Folklore” published in The Freeman in Indianapolis, Indiana, dated January 27, 1894.

Black cultural heritage and performance practices have been endangered and “whitewashed” since the early times. In an attempt to seek and preserve the roots of the black cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, this piece of news article calls for action to connect with and rediscover authentic Black experience instead of passively accepting the predominantly whitewashed, assimilated cultural stereotypes.

The writer is concerned that an immeasurable amount of black cultural heritage such as folklores, songs and poems are in imminent danger of being lost as younger generations of black Americans are eager and swift to embrace and integrate themselves into the white dominated academia, society and culture.

“The common school system with its teachings of eradicating the old and planting the seeds of the new, and the transition period is likely to be a short one.”
(quote from the news article)

I then looked further for some African-American folklores and stumbled upon this audio visual narrative of The Myth of the Flying African on youtube. This story is also told by Virginia Hamilton in her narrative of African-American Folklores series- The People Could Fly.

“Kum kuba yali
Kum buba tambe
Kum konku yali
Kum konku tambe”
(In the legend, these words and many variations of such are believed and spoken by many enslaved for their freedom from bondage, according to Virginia Hamilton as well as many other sources)

The following is an audio recording of a tune in which the origins can be attributed to this folklore, sung by an African American female. Although this is only one among the many existing as well as lost folksongs and folklores of African American heritage, it speaks to the authenticity of Black Culture and Music.

Bibliography / Source:

Freeman (Indianapolis, Indiana) 6, no. 4, January 27, 1894: [2]. Readex: African American Newspapers.https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image/v2%3A12B28495A8DAB1C8%40EANAAA-12C8A12E849E6750%402412856-12C8A12E9A8258B0%401.

George Pullen Jackson, White and Negro Spirituals (1943)

Henry Krehbiel, Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music (1914).

AFRICAN-AMERICAN FOLKLORE SERIES | Episode III: The Myth of the Flying African. https://youtu.be/F1NjulB7v1Y?t=669

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:

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWXRAOLMq1M&t=121s

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. 

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.

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.

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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. 

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

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. 

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.

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/#

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