“Rise and Shine”

St. Olaf student, Laura Anderson, wrote in 1972 about that she met with a group of young fellows living and performing in Minneapolis. The group, previously knows as “Debb Johnson,” added several members to the group and renamed themselves “Rise and Shine.” This group had performed at St. Olaf previously. Unfortunately, Laura does not mention what music genre the group performs. However, the groups sees a future for music.

Laura reports, when she sat down with “Rise and Shine,” they arrived on the topic what is music. Laura quotes one of the band members: “The days of stoned-out boogie bands (and audiences), destruction on stage, and sloppy music are gone. People are tired of obnoxious music and egotistic performers — it’s not showmanship, it’s insanity.” Laura believes that music should consist of good musicianship. She finds loud music and quickly produced music to be disgusting. “Rise and Shine” lives to together and is constant writing and performing their own music. Their favorite groups are Shawn Phillips, the Beach Boys, and Joni Mitchell. All these uniques sounds contribute to their creative sound.

Laura’s articles shows that music, especially in the popular world, has been constantly  changing, as people get bored and look for something new to entertain them. As we have seen since the 50s, music has evolved from Rock ‘n’ Roll to disco, to boy bands. Even today music seems to be evolving as people strive to create new music.

Olaf Carl Seltzer was a painter well known for his landscape paintings. At a young age, Seltzer showed talent in painting and enrolled in Danish Art School and Polytechnic Institute. However, a couple years after enrolling, his father died, and the family moved to Great Falls, Montana. Here he worked as a cowboy, painting and sketches the whole time.

His most famous works are of the Native Americans, ranchers, or wildlife depicted in the natural countryside of Montana. However, St. Olaf College Flaten Art Museum archives own a work by Olaf Carl Seltzer entitled Native American Portrait Study. This work, instead of portraying a whole landscape, only shows two Native American heads, one in the the foreground and one in the background. The head in the foreground is painted in shades of brown and the head in the background is in shades of grey.

Olaf Carl Seltzer, Native American Portray Study, watercolor on paper, 12 in x 9 in

Many of Olaf Carl Seltzer’s works containing Native Americans do not depict them in action, hunting or perhaps fishing. Usual the Native American people are riding on horses, pausing at a creek or thoughtfully looking ahead. The same goes for his Native American Portrait Study; the two men are looking off into the distance. I believe Seltzer thought of the Native American’s and poised, reverent people. Unfortunately, there is not date to this portrait, but around Seltzer’s lifetime, many thought of the Native American’s as savage people. However, I believe that Olaf Carl Seltzer’s background, moving from Copenhagen to Montana, had a significant effect on how Carl viewed these people.

* All historical background from https://www.wildlifeart.org/collection/artists/artist-olaf-carl-seltzer-330/

As evidenced by the artwork on the album cover and liner notes of this 1961 LP recording of Richard Strauss’s Salome,¹ the artists involved in making this recording aimed to create an atmosphere of exoticness, the East, and “Otherness.” On the cover, Birgit Nillson, who plays Salome, bears her teeth and pointed, red nails in a vicious, animalistic stance, and on the liner notes, the illustration focuses around the exotic peacock motif.

The opera aims to portray “Otherness” in more ways than just the visual. In terms of the libretto, as the liner notes state, “Its exotic language caresses an exposed nerve in the type of elegant audience for which it was written.” As for the music, the notes read, “Strauss enclosed Wilde’s drama in music that is . . . extraordinarily concise yet lavish in detail. Mood is everything: from the first clarinet notes one is plunged into the Byzantine night and the tension is never relaxed.” With Salome, Strauss aimed to create a comprehensive portrait of the “East” through which to portray a story of violence and immorality.

As I listened to the final scene of Salome on Halvorson Music Library’s own copy of this LP, I noticed several elements of auditory “Otherness” in the music. At the beginning of the scene, sudden crashes of brass and percussion are reminiscent of Classical era uses of the sublime to convey terrifying foreignness. Surprising keys and chromatic turns have a similar effect. Toward the end of the scene, Strauss conveys exoticism through the clarinet, whose chromatic motif evokes the Asian/North African street tradition of snake charming. As the opera ends, percussion reverberates like a gong (there may even be a gong in the second recording below) and a blaring trumpet enters unexpectedly to play the closing melody. I included a Youtube recording of the Vienna Philharmonic with Birgit Nillson² (similar to the LP recording I listened to) as well as a Youtube recording of Nillson at the Metropolitan Opera³ for an American comparison. I noticed that the closing trumpet in the Met version sounded even more raw, jazz-like, and surprising than its European counterpart. Perhaps this is because, for white Americans, jazz automatically signifies a racial “Other” as well as lowbrow music.

All of these “exotic” elements are so noticeable, however, because the basic auditory backdrop of Salome is Western. The orchestra consists of European instruments (like the clarinet) that play in an “Eastern” manner instead of actual instruments from ancient Judea (southern Israel) where the opera takes place. Too, the unexpected harmonies–while used in an Orientalist manner–are not uncommon for a piece of Modern music, so they would not have been scandalous to the ear when Salome first arrived.

So how does all of this relate to American music? Let us put the music of Salome in the context of its failed opening performance at the Met in 1907. As the audience watches a high art version of Salome portraying subversive female sexuality through dance, it also hears music that evokes the “East” but ultimately asks to be taken seriously as high art. The European fabric of Strauss’s music makes it difficult for audiences to dismiss it as inferior, but the “exotic” auditory decorations are frequent enough to cause discomfort. For this reason, the music of Salome contributed to the tensions over legitimate and non-legitimate art that caused the Met audience to reject the opera.

 Footnotes

1 Strauss, Richard. Strauss: Salome / Solti, Nillson, Vienna Philharmonic. Decca 000692102, 1961, LP.

2 “Richard Strauss: Salome (Solti),” Youtube video, posted by Scherzo Music, September 25, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8lug09n1VQ.

3 “Birgit Nilsson “Salome’s final Scene” Salome,” Youtube video, posted by Addiobelpassato, November 9, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU_xMlOCyqw.

Oklahoma! the musical opened on Broadway in 1943, the first written by the Rodgers and Hammerstein duo. The musical premiered during WWII when this show was needed to provide an escape for Americans from the horrors of war. It ran on people’s nostalgia for the great American West and a time of “no conflict.” The show, interestingly, leaves out Native Americans and any hints of conflicts that actually occurred in the Midwest.

Oklahoma! centers around a cowboy named Curly, his romance farm girl Laurey, and Jud the farm hand who Laurey develops feelings for later on. It’s set in the town of Calremore, OK in 1906. Laurey and Curly represent the “wholesome American” ideal that was common in mythic story around WWII. Cleanliness and a separation from “animal nature” in humans was a critical part of this image, and it was science and technology that were seen as essential to their achievement. For example, women during this time were discouraged from nursing their babies; bottles were considered more hygienic than human tissue. “Scientifically-concocted” formal was said to be more wholesome and nutritious than breast milk. Modern was equated with wholesome and good.

By tapping into this “modern” movement, Oklahoma! became a raging success. It ran on Broadway for over 5 years. According to the Manitou Messenger, even the St. Olaf Theater Dept. put on its own production of Oklahoma! in 1962.

Recently, Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre’s 2012 made waves with its production of Oklahoma! with its choice to reflect the historical presence of African Americans in the Oklahoma territory because it amplified “one of the ugliest stereotypes in our history: an imposing black man ravaging a petite white woman and the white hero.”¹ It made “clear references to lynching…the “Dream Ballet” had a sinister, sexual tone and ended with Jud dragging Laurey away to be raped.”

Jud appears to be keeping Laurey and Curly apart in the “Dream Sequence” in 5th Ave. Theatre’s 2012 production of Oklahoma!³

One critic wrote “Rothstein’s (the director) Oklahoma! is now the story of a crazy, sex obsessed black man … lusting violently after his white mistress, who ends up murdered at the hands of a white man, who gets off scot free after a mock trial.”²

So what’s worse? The original Oklahoma! blatantly leaves out all minority groups to try an create this sense of nostalgia for “simpler times.” But, the 2012 Seattle version obviously reinforces horrendous stereotypes in an attempt to include African Americans in the show. Should we try to include minority groups that were originally written out of the show or try and fit them in? It seems like neither is a great option…

1 Brodeur, Nicole. “Oklahoma Seen in a New Light.” The Seattle Times. Feb 20, 2012. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/2017557140_nicole21m.html

2 Strangeways, Michael. “Oklahoma at the 5th Avenue Is a Bit Problematic.” Seattle Gay Scene. Feb 10, 2012. http://www.seattlegayscene.com/2012/02/review-oklahoma-at-the-5th-avenue-is-a-bit-problematic.html

3 http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/61/81/61815e6423402c1fadfc2ce386832311.jpg?itok=9qmty_nQ

After Salome’s “Dance of the Seven Veils” hit the United States in 1907 in Strauss’s opera, an outbreak of “Salomania” occurred in which many songs and dances in the popular sphere took on a Salome theme. By 1908, vaudeville and burlesque shows were full of different Salomes, from “When Miss Patricia Salome Did Her Funny Little Oo La Palmoe” to “My Sunburned Salome” to “The Dusky Salome.” What all of these representations of Salome have in common is the fact that none of them are authentic to the opera’s portrayal of Salome and none of them try to be. The writers of such songs capitalized on inauthenticity, giving audiences exaggerated, drag-like performances of stock characters so far from reality that audiences could enjoy them.¹

One stock character used for Salome was the white, American girl-gone-wild, and another was the overly ambitious African American woman performer.² “The Dusky Salome” (lyrics below; listen here³) portrays the latter:

The fair Evaline was a ragtime queen
with a manner sentimental;
But she sighed for a chance at a classical dance
with a movement oriental.
When lovesick coons with ragtime tunes
sang, “Babe, you’ve got to show me,”
She’d answer, “Bill, you bet I will,
I’m going to dance Salome.
Oh, oh me, that’ll show me, For

CHORUS: [the music shifts to ragtime]
I want a coon who can spoon to the tune of Salome.
I’ll make him giggle with a brand new wiggle that’ll show me;
In a truly oriental style,
With a necklace and a dreamy smile
I’ll dance to the coon who can spoon to the tune of Salome.

One musical coon said tonight I’ll spoon
where the fair Salome lingers.
When she danced ’round the place he just covered his face
but he looked right thro’ his fingers.
He sighed “It’s grand my heart and hand
I’d give to see you do it,”
She only said: “Give me your head
I’ll dance Salome to it,”
I’ll woo it, that’ll do it. For⁴

“The Dusky Salome” parodies that idea that Salome could be used to bridge the gap from low art to high art and from blackness to whiteness. This idea is ironic because Salome’s dance in Strauss’s opera is not traditional high art–it contains the exoticized sexuality more typical of popular music and usually required of African American women. Ultimately, the song reinforces the idea that sexuality, foreignness, and blackness belong to low art, not high.

What’s more, the song’s mixing of musical genres, use of “oriental” sounding lower neighbors (m. 16), and use of stock-characters (including the pejorative c–n character popular in minstrelsy) verifies popular song as a place of cheap thrills and commodification. The cover of the sheet music for the book in which “The Dusky Salome” appears explains it all with a male actor playing Hamlet but holding the head of John the Baptist as Salome does when she kisses it. The intent of this odd melange is obviously humor based on inauthenticity, not edification, which was reserved for the classical sphere.

To conclude, songs like “The Dusky Salome” served to maintain the distinction between lowbrow music and highbrow music, perpetuating a binary system that kept sexuality and “otherness” at the bottom and edification and whiteness at the top.

Footnotes

1 Larry Hamberlin, “Visions of Salome: The Femme Fatale in American Popular Songs before 1920,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 59/3 Fall 2006, pp. 631-696.

2 Ibid.

3 Jerome, Benjamin, Edward Madden, and Maude Raymond. The Dusky Salome. Recorded August 2, 1909. Victor, 1909, Streaming Audio. Accessed April 14, 2015. http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/1586

4 Jerome, Benjamin and Edward Madden. “The Dusky Salome.” In Eddie Foy in Mr. Hamlet of Broadway. New York: Trebuhs, 1908.

On the week of her 100th birthday, Billie Holiday’s influence on American music is clear. Her style, tone, and storytelling abilities paved the way for a strong vocal jazz tradition. As the narrator in the Creative Arts Television’s 1959 documentary “Portrait of Billie” puts it: “Today, if you sing jazz and you’re a woman, you sing Billie Holiday. There’s no other way to do it. She wrote the text.” The way that women, or any performers, choose to interpret that text, is just as important as Holiday’s original recordings.

Cassandra Wilson has put considerable thought into interpretation. The jazz vocalist, who has been lauded for “embracing a wide range of American music,” has taken on the Billie Holiday songbook as her latest tribute project. She will perform the collection of rearrangements, entitled “Coming Forth by Day,” on April 8th at the Kennedy Center; the vocals will be accompanied by rocker Nick Cave’s rhythm section. When discussing the album in an NPR interview, she stressed that her goal was to avoid cliches and reinvent the songs. In her words, “I couldn’t wait…to do some wild and crazy things to it.”

When reading the NPR article, I was initially struck by Wilson’s desire to sing the music so differently. With some tribute projects (see most classic rock tribute acts, for example), the goal is often to mimic the original artist as much as possible. But with jazz, change is necessary. Wilson comments: “It’s beyond improper–it’s considered rude, in jazz, to imitate someone. So for me to do a tribute to Billie Holiday and imitate her style or her context would be almost insulting.”

I immediately thought about quoting, or using another artist’s melody in a piece. This is common practice in jazz, but in the context of another song, the quoted melody hardly ever has the same tone. Wilson will change the music, but her main focus is on changing the context. Her rendition of “Don’t Explain,” a song about a cheating lover, will have a more empowered perspective, as opposed to being told from a victim’s viewpoint. In today’s context, the song should sound fresh, free from cliches, and open to interpretation.

The latter half of “Portrait of Billie” does some quoting of its own. At the 19-minute mark, the documentary features a modern dance set to Holiday’s music. Carmen De Lavallade plays a woman who becomes an iteration of Holiday; she’s soon joined by John Butler, who represents Billie’s various struggles in life–her abusive relationships, her troubles with alcohol and drug abuse. The dance was choreographed the year of Billie’s death; at the time, she had recently passed away at the age of 44. While the dance is a fine artistic representation of her life, it does seem somewhat dated. I’d like to see what it would become in the hands of a modern-day choreographer. Would the dance be as allegorical? What songs would be used instead? Or would covers of Billie’s songs, like Wilson’s reinvented ones, replace the original recordings?

http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/394420

If listeners find all this requoting offensive, it’s important to remember that Holiday herself didn’t stick to the original material. According to the documentary, early publishers mistrusted Holiday’s tendency to play with the melodies and change the text–essentially, putting an improvisational spin on jazz that was as scandalous then as it is celebrated now. As a rising star, she claimed to be influenced by Bessie Smith’s voice and Louis Armstrong’s style of trumpet playing. She didn’t copy them exactly, but they served as her biggest inspirations. Quoting and changing the music in this context is not disrespectful–in fact, it’s the highest form of tribute a musician can pay.

Sources:

“Cassandra Wilson ‘Couldn’t Wait’ To Reinvent The Billie Holiday Songbook.” NPR. April 5, 2015. Accessed April 6, 2015. http://www.npr.org/2015/04/05/397321378/cassandra-wilson-couldnt-wait-to-reinvent-the-billie-holiday-songbook.

Portrait of Billie. Performed by Carmen De Lavvallade, John Butler. U.S.: Creative Arts Television, 1959. Film. Found on Alexander Street Press. http://search.alexanderstreet.com/jazz.

I’m certain that if I asked the class if they’d ever heard to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, not many would recognize the name. Tharpe grew up a gospel singer, both of her parents preachers, but what set Tharpe apart and probably what kept her from reaching the fame of the Arethas and the Ellas was her Rock ‘n Roll influence. Tharpe struggled to find a place as a successful musician while remaining a devout religious woman. Her inability to claim a single genre and run with it made Rosetta so remarkable, yet it is what kept her from reaching the top. Her unique guitar style along with her gospel like vocals made her a sensation, but her audience wasn’t one that could follow her as she wore too many hats. In an article in the New York Amsterdam News writes of Tharpe’s bounce back and forth between singer and church-goer.

The author, Jay J. Aye detailed her flip-flop between nightclubs and church and wrote, “Earlier this year after she [Tharpe] announced she was through with night clubs and would sing only in churches… Now, it looks as if the night club bug has stung Sister Tharpe again.” One wonders if Tharpe felt pressured by the music industry to go outside of the church, or whether her familial ties to the church held her back from truly reaching her full potentials as a Rock ‘n Roll singer with a gospel edge. Tharpe’s performing medium, while varied and inconsistent, was one she must’ve grappled with and one that music historians must take into account when studying her interesting and unique career.

Bibliography

Aye, Jay J. “Claims Sister Tharpe Torn between Church, Cabaret.” New York Amsterdam News (1943-1961), Dec 28, 1946, City edition. http://search.proquest.com/docview/225952495?accountid=351.

According to some jazz scholars, a racialized barrier between the black, “authentic” extended jazz compositions of Duke Ellington and the white, “inauthentic” symphonic jazz of Gershwin has emerged in critical and scholarly accounts of these traditions. However, when Ellington rearranged Rhapsody in blue, these barriers were considered to become more complex and permeable.

“Whites Cannot Play Real Jazz”- this is not only the title of a newspaper article (Pittsburgh Courier) in 1923, but inclined the idea that “in Whites’ performance, there is little real substance to black art in itself, that it is mainly a figment of white people’s racially twisted imagination.(Gerard, 101)”

Bañagale, Ryan Raul. “Rewriting the Narrative One Arrangement at a Time: Duke Ellington and Rhapsody in Blue.” Jazz Perspectives 6.1-2 (2012): 5-27.

Duke Ellington’s arrangements performed in 1925 and 1932 tried to remove long-held assumptions that the Rhapsody in blue was the provenience of white bands and provide insight into Ellington’s own development of concertized jazz. With a belief that “a soloist should be given absolute freedom,” Ellington might be one of the “angry African-American avant-garde jazz artists” that tried to point out white composers who have made money out of spontaneity and primitiveness of African- American art fail to see the skill and calculation of the Black composers/performers(Gerard, 98). In his 1932 arrangement of Rhapsody, he increased the large saxophone section into four, instead of using clarinets, hoping to achieve more complex harmonies and timbral. He also wanted to recall a social dance tradition instead of letting audiences sit on concert hall chairs. Except of an improvised piano solo, his arrangement can be played with a steady, danceable tempo (Raul, 105).

Here is a reconding of Ellington’s latest arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue:

http://ezproxy.stolaf.edu/login?url=https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/be|recorded_track|li_isrc_884385543143USESK0602247

However, would it be possible that Duke Ellington misunderstood intentions of some White composers? Chick Corea once said:

Gerard, Charley. Jazz in Black and White: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Jazz Community. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print.

Thus some of White composers’ interests in jazz were primarily aesthetic, since their music does not play a part in establishing a group’s social cohesion, as African-American music does for Black culture. Whites have a strong interest in expanding the technical aspects of jazz by introducing elements from modern classical music. At the same time, it would be rigorous that a successful performance of music that has jazz elements requires that all of its traditional ingredients be present in order for it to be considered authentic. Thus I personally won’t agree that in transforming jazz into “fine art”, composers/performers sought to transform/affirm their racial status in order to “distant” blackness.

Works Cited:

Bañagale, Ryan R. Arranging Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon. , 2014. Print.

Bañagale, Ryan Raul. “Rewriting the Narrative One Arrangement at a Time: Duke Ellington and Rhapsody in Blue.” Jazz Perspectives 6.1-2 (2012): 5-27.

Gerard, Charley. Jazz in Black and White: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Jazz Community. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print.

Copland’s Dance Symphony was written in 1925 during the height of the development of symphonic jazz.

The 1920’s in the United States welcomed a new type of distinctly American music that combined music created by African Americans and stylized it for white audiences. Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Paul Whiteman and others can be credited with popularizing this new orchestral genre.

Distinct from New Orleans and Chicago styles of jazz, orchestral jazz included new style features like polyphony instead of homophony, the general expansion of instrumentation from big bands to orchestral instruments, and a shift to pre-arranged compositions rather than collective improvisation. Paul Whiteman commissoned several composers, including Gerswhin’s Rhapsody in Blue, to write music with the instrumentation and style features of jazz, but with the scale and structure of a symphony orchestra.

“In the twenties, most of those who listened at all regarded jazz as merely an energetic background for dancers; the few who sought more profound values in the music tended to accept Paul Whiteman’s concert productions… as the only jazz worth taking seriously.” – Paul Whiteman on symphonic jazz¹

Aaron Copland was a young composer during these “golden years” for American popular music and jazz. Determined to make it as a full time composer, Copland lived in a studio apartment near Carnegie Hall in New York. He created a group with several of his younger contemporaries, including Virgil Thomson, called the “commando unit” to help promote each other and their works, but also influence each other in what the American style would be in the 20th century.

Young Aaron Copland in New York²

The Dance Symphony is divided into three distinct sections, but there must not be any pause between movements. The first movement begins with a short slow introduction, followed by a light allegro. The tune is passed around in the woodwinds, starting in the bassoon, moving to the oboe and finally resting in the clarinet. Meanwhile, each time the tune is accompanied by soft plucked violins and harp. With each version of the tune, combos of instruments are used, like the jazz combos popular in the day.³

The second movement is more interesting in that it layers multiple melodies on top of each other. This is a technique popularized by Charles Ives around the same time.

The third movement is more interesting still because of its characterization of violence and syncopation. It begins with a jazzy motive using chords and blue notes popular in jazz. There is an extended development of all the material similar to the standard jazz form of numerous solos over a bass line ending with “all motives blazoned forth at once.”⁴

There are many disparities between the life and legacy of blues musician Robert Johnson. While he was known for playing street corners and juke joints instead of large venues, Yet he is widely (and somewhat mistakenly, according to author Elijah Wald) credited as one of the founding fathers of the genre, even earning the title, “King of the Delta Blues.” If Johnson had so little exposure during his lifetime, why is he the king of this genre?

Part of Johnson’s legacy can be accredited to the myth surrounding his success. Nearly every biography tells of a Faustian deal by which he acquired his talent. Johnson’s mentor, Son House, describes Johnson’s music pre-disappearance as a “racket” that drove the audiences “mad.” He disappeared to Arkansas for six to eight months; this is allegedly when he made his pact with the devil at the crossroads of Highway 49 and 61 in Mississippi. House of Johnson’s first concert upon returning: “When he finished, all our mouths were standing open” and, “He sold his soul to the devil to play like that.”

The belief is so intuitive to history’s representation of Robert Johnson that it’s included in his biographies as an almost indisputable fact, as evidenced in a quote from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

“Robert Johnson stands at the crossroads of American music, much as a popular folk legend has it, he once stood at a Mississippi crossroads and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar playing powers.” 

Some of the myth can be attributed to Johnson’s early death at 27 of unknown causes. However, the legend came to prominence after Johnson was rediscovered by white fans two decades after his death. Blues historian Pete Welding, who heard the Faust story from Son House, reported in a 1966 issue of Down Beat that it was taken quite seriously by many fans. Welding states that Johnson’s improvement as a guitarist actually spanned two years, but because of faulty reporting, there’s insufficient evidence to back it up.

Johnson certainly had the guitar “powers” to back up the claims. He’s ranked fifth in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time list. Eric Clapton, who recorded a cover album commemorating Johnson’s work, called him “The greatest guitarist who ever lived.”During his time, Johnson was revered for playing in a pan-American style, with songs that resembled Chicago and St. Louis blues more than Delta music. Still, it’s important to remember that while Johnson has widely influenced American (and British) rock n’ roll after the 1950’s, he had virtually no effect on the development of the blues. Elijah Wald writes, “As far as the evolution of black music goes, Robert Johnson was an extremely minor figure…” Johnson’s Faust tale is an example about the mythically proportioned inaccuracies that are often created around the musicians and their histories. In both cases, getting to the root of the story is necessary to learning the truth behind the music.

Sources

Fricke, David. “100 Greatest Guitarists.” Rolling Stone, December 10, 2010.

“The 50 Albums That Changed Music.” The Observer, July 16, 2008.

The Search for Robert Johnson. Performed by Johnny Shines, David Honeyboy Edwards, John P. Hammond. United States: Iambic Productions, 1991. DVD.

Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of Blues. New York City, New York: HarperCollins, 2004.

Luke P. Simonson

C. Handy, considered to be the founder of blues, published The Memphis Blues in 1912. The Memphis Blues was originally written without lyrics; however, the version included in A Treasury of the Blues: Complete Words and Music of 67 Great Songs from Memphis Blues to the Present Day includes lyrics, but does not disclose who wrote the lyrics. We can only assume that these lyrics were in fact written by W. C. Handy himself. Here is a recording of the Victor Military Band playing E. V. Cupero’s arrangement of The Memphis Blues in 1914. Cupero’s arrangement accurately takes every note and rhythm from A Treasury of Blues version publication.

The Memphis Blues by W. C. Handy

The Memphis Blues page 2

The Memphis Blues, page 3

The Memphis Blues, page 4

From listening and looking at the score, one can tell that this piece unfolds in three binary sections. The first section (which I will refer to as Section A) includes the AAB structure of the 12-bar blues. Section B (page 2) features an AABA form and from A Treasury of the Blues lyrics it also contains the same two bars of singing and two bars of instrumental break feel (shown below). Section C (pages 3-4) does not have the same structure as the previous sections, yet still contains the instrumental fills.

Interested in learning more about The Memphis Blues, I continued to search for more recordings. I came across Morton Harvey’s performance of the work recorded 3 months after the Victor Military Band’s. At first listen it sounded exactly the same, just with lyrics. Slowly I started to notice that the lyrics were not the same as The Treasury of Blue’s printed lyrics. Curiously, the lyrics and performers matched a copy of The Memphis Blues that I found of imslp.org.  The cover of the score (found below) claims that this piece was “George A. Norton’s” only founded on the W. C. Handy’s “World Wide ‘Blue’ Note Melody.”

However, George A. Norton’s version takes out the most crucial opening A Section (see above), only including a tiny bit of the A section and tacking it on the end of the B section. As mentioned before, the A Section is 12-bar blues form. Without this section, I hardly believe that this piece can be entitled The Memphis Blues. Even the B section of A Treasury of the Blues version is marred by Norton’s lyrical arrangement, adding lyrics to the two bar instrumental interludes (see Norton page 2 and Handy page 3). I think it is a crude infringement on Handy’s blues form, changing the piece from The Memphis Blues to The Memphis Ragtime.

I found an interesting short article on the history of Psalmody in New England.  As with anything “new,” the transition was not smooth or broadly accepted.  Interestingly, there was no mention of race in this article, but more focused what the Scriptures say, gender, and points of view from ministers.

The Puritans had reservations with singing the Psalms of David with a “lively voice.”  They were more interested in continuing the tradition of monotone.  Other questions that the Puritans discussed were whether women should be allowed to sing with men, whether the unconverted (pagans) should be allowed to sing with church members, whether we should sing music in meter created by man, and whether it is proper to sing new music.

When Andrew Law first “introduced part song”, congregations took issue with women singing the melody, mostly in a soprano part.  Some men would insist on singing the soprano part and making the women sing the tenor part.  The author’s authority then references Scripture, saying that it is considered a sin to allow females to lead the singing. Puritan ministers compiled a “Bay Psalm Book” in 1640, which consisted of metered psalms but no music.

Music had gone by the wayside in the 18th century.  Reverend Mr. Walter, of Roxbury, Massachusetts said that congregations would know maybe four of five tunes which “had become so mutilated, tortured and twisted that Psalm singing had become a mere disorderly noise, left to the mercy of every unskillful throat to chop, alter, twist and change according to their odd fancy, sounding like five hundred different tunes roared out at the same time…” This became the new norm for many churches.  Rev. Walter later said “melody sung in time and tune was [considered] offensive.”  The church preferred the old “melodious” way, as oppose to the new way, thought of as an unknown tongue.

The church much preferred the old way of lining out.  Congregations felt as if they were restricted if they were given notes and a melody to sing.  An anonymous writer in 1723 wrote: “Truly, I have great jealously that if we once begin to sing by note, the next thing will be to pray by rule and preach by rule, and then comes Popery!”

Source:

“EARLY CHURCH MUSIC IN NEW ENGLAND.” The Musical Visitor, a Magazine of Musical Literature and Music (1883-1897) 14, no. 11 (11, 1885): 286. http://search.proquest.com/docview/137457419?accountid=351.

I took an interest in “patting juba,” a form of music-making created by African Americans in the 19th century, because of the patterns, the musicality, and the songs that accompanied it. There is little information on the specific type of dance, however, and the first primary source I encountered was a racist “example” of a juba text penned by a Boston-based writer. Juba has finally gained the appreciation of historians and musicians as viable folk music, but the dance form’s history serves as a reminder of that music as a way to stereotype African American traditions.

Juba came from dances in Africa (where it was called Giouba) and Haiti (known as Djouba). Another name for the dance is Hambone. This name, which also has origins in slavery, supposedly originated from “hand-bone,” the hard part of the hand that makes the most sound.

Juba is characterized by complicated patterns (they generally involve 3-over-4 rhythms), now-obscure steps like the ‘turkey trot’ and ‘pigeon step,’ and corresponding rhymes. Arguably, the most well-known rhyme, used by juba and hambone performers alike, is called “Juba Juba:”

Juba dis and Juba dat,
and Juba killed da yellow cat,
You sift the meal and ya gimme the husk,
you bake the bread and ya gimme the crust,
you eat the meat and ya gimme the skin,
and that’s the way,
my mama’s troubles begin.

 There are numerous variations to the lyrics, but the first two lines nearly always remain the same. Danny “Slapjazz” Barber explains the meaning as part of an apprenticeship project in Figure 1. He begins talking about the song at 2:02, continuing on to describe its history.

Figure 1

As was the case with slave songs, many spectators didn’t accurately record juba steps, often deeming the dances wild and immoral, or forgoing descriptions by stating that the movements were beyond words. It wasn’t until minstrel shows in the mid-1800s that juba became known to a larger white audience. Minstrelsy’s appropriated juba has a complicated relationship with the dance and its origins. Scholar Andrew Womack notes that minstrel shows hugely influenced American culture, and that the characters presented were dimensional, albeit offensive and highly stereotyped. One such character was Master Juba, played by free-born African American William Henry Lane. Lane’s character is easily one of the most recognizable personas in minstrel history, and the surname quickly evolved into a stock title for black characters. Traveling with an otherwise all-white cast, Lane performed his dance, described as a combination of juba and a jig, in America as well as Europe. He was seen as a novelty, but observers were nevertheless impressed by his skill. As The Manchester Examiner wrote:

“Surely he cannot be flesh and blood, but some special substance, or how could he turn and twine, and twist, and twirl, and hop, and jump, and kick and throw his feet with such velocity that one think they are playing hide-and seek with a flash of lightning!”

Figure 2: William Henry Lane

On the other hand, white writers commonly used juba as another opportunity for stereotyping African American dialect. In Figure 3, Frances E. Wadleigh uses slurs, an overexaggerated dialect, and offensive caricatures to showcase the “current literature” of black music.

Figure 3

In spite (or, in some cases, because) of the appropriations, juba has remained in mainstream culture. Variations of the beats and rhythms have made their way into modern music, most notably in Bo Diddley’s song, “Bo Diddley’s Beat.” Hambone has been preserved and taught as a black folk melody, particularly in the south, and the dance steps are widely seen as a precursor to the jitterbug. Though juba was used as a vehicle for stereotypes, the dance and music have become an important part of American culture, and another example of how influential the songs–both original and appropriated–have become.

Footnotes

Crawford, Richard. “”Make a Noise!”: Slave Songs and Other Black Music to the 1880s.” In America’s Musical Life: A History, 409-410. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

Wadleigh, Frances E. “Pattom’s Juba.” Current Literature V, no. 1 (1890): 70. Accessed February 21, 2015. http://search.proquest.com/americanperiodicals/docview/124834707/797372C1C4314861PQ/1?accountid=351.

Welch, David Cranstoun. “Shave and a Haircut: Two Bits.” Perfect Sound Forever. August 1, 2008. Accessed February 19, 2015.

Womack, Andrew. “Ridicule and Wonder: The Beginnings of Minstrelsy in New York.” In Afro-Americans in New York Life & History, 94-95. 2nd ed. Vol. 36. Buffalo: Afro-Americans in New York Life & History.

African- American spirituals should be performed more because they represent a truth that many can relate to. You do not have to be “African-American” to understand the emotions behind silence, helplessness, struggle and liberation. But, you also do not have to be religious in order to understand the biblical references that are made in many of these songs. There is a connection in the text of spirituals that relate reality (in times of slavery) to the written evidence of the Hebrew’s slavery.

King, Willis J. “The Negro Spirituals and the Hebrew Psalms.” The Methodist Review (1885-1931) 47, no. 3 (05, 1931): 318.

After reading the first paragraph from the article above, called “The Negro Spirituals and the Hebrew Songs” written by Willis J. King; the relationship of black slavery and biblical slavery is justifed. This whole article does a good job in comparing the similarities and differences between Negro Spirituals and Hebrew Songs. What King does best is capture the positivity that comes out of many of these spirituals. In the first paragraph in the photo above King says “However mournful and depressing the opening lines are, there is almost a note of triumph before the Song is done,” which is so true. It amazes me the amount of spirituals that are out there that are musically joyful, where the text represents very emotional and sometimes painful realities that black slaves went through. But, the beauty in these texts is that the slaves used their religious beliefs to find “triumph” and liberate themselves from the horrors that they had to live through in silence. This is just one small aspect of Spirituals, but it may be the most important because the authenticity of African-American Spiritual text is simply the truth in the message that they are putting out to mentally liberate themselves through a time of struggle.