Tag Archives: Selfing and Othering

“Shanghai lullaby” as Musical Marginalization

Posted on by
Reply

Browsing through the Library of Congress National Jukebox, I came across a piece that had a curious title. “Shanghai lullaby” was composed by Isham Jones and published under Columbia records in 1923.1 The piece is listed as a foxtrot, which is a dance genre with origins in ragtime and jazz.2 When listening to the piece, you can hear the stylistic characteristics of the foxtrot from the beginning, such as a rhythmic emphasis on beats one and three and common jazz instrumentation.3 When I considered the title, I had anticipated that the piece would be full of painfully obvious appropriation and misrepresentation. To my surprise, much of the piece sounds quite tame in terms of musical markers of otherness. However, the title brings attention to the use of pentatonic melodic figures throughout the piece and sections that feature the distinctive and unexpected tone of the oboe.

When considering cultural appropriation and misrepresentation, power dynamics cannot be ignored. “Shanghai lullaby” is a prime example of misrepresentation and appropriation of an other. Practices like this have a tendency to diminish a different group to nothing more than a few musical markers all for the sake of entertainment, interest, and novelty, which is a completely dehumanizing process. Unfortunately, using musical markers to profit off of marginalized groups was common practice during the period in which this piece was composed. A most notable example of this is Isham Jones and his Orchestra’s recording of “Aunt Hagar’s Blues,” which bears a cover featuring racist caricatures of Black Americans.4

Front page of sheet music edition of “Aunt Hagar’s Blues”5

 

Unfortunately, this piece participates in and upholds a legacy of cultural supremacy and exploitation. If the title didn’t indicate the musical markers of an other, I suspect that not many listeners today would be able to pick up on the musical othering because so much of the piece is stylistically appropriate to the foxtrot and features a catchy, memorable melody. It really is too bad that the piece boasts a title that, nowadays, negates any enjoyment of the music itself and instead draws attention to a history of demeaning musical marginalization.

 

 

1  Art Kahn Orchestra, Isham Jones, and Art Kahn. Shanghai Lullaby. 1923. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-672297/.

2 Norton, Pauline. “Foxtrot.” Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 27 Sep. 2023. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000010075.

3 Conyers, Claude. “Foxtrot.” Grove Music Online. 6 Feb. 2012; Accessed 27 Sep. 2023. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002219055.

4 Bjerstedt, Sven. “Musical Marginalization Processes: Problematizing the Marginalization Concept through an Example from Early 20th Century American Popular Culture.” Lund University, April 4, 2016. https://portal.research.lu.se/en/publications/musical-marginalization-processes-problematizing-the-marginalizat.

5 Ibid.

Marketing ‘Selves’ and ‘Others’: How a Biased Recording Process Divided Bluegrass

Posted on by
Reply

In our last class, we talked about the role of the record company and consumerism in the separation of bluegrass into its racially differentiated sub-genres.  I wanted to delve deeper into the idea, exploring the different ways recording and preserving music prioritized some identities and invalidated others within the genre as well as the way that marketing shaped these newly conceived identities.

Willie McTell, with 12 string guitar, hotel room, Atlanta, Ga.                                                        “A prolific musician, McTell had recorded not only 12-bar blues (in the so-called Piedmont style), but also ballads, spirituals and contemporary gospel tunes, songs from minstrelsy and vaudeville, rags, hillbilly songs, and tunes of traditional origin” (Nunn 265)

Despite bluegrass’s transracial origins, the history of the genre has been mired in essentialism and exclusion.  As we could see from Erich Nunn’s article and the “Monologue on Accidents”, folklorists like John Lomax, who were attempting to preserve the traditions of southern ‘folk’, asked specific questions of their African American informants to influence what types of songs were recorded:  

[The informant] McTell’s proffering a spiritual instead of the “complaining song” Lomax asks for speaks volumes about the uncomfortable relationship between white collector and black informant. So, too, does his insistence on the spiritual’s universality in the face of Lomax’s rather startlingly insensitive demand for a racially specific song of social protest. [1]

This is significant in that Lomax, whose supposed motive is to record authentic moments of music-making in southern society, asks pointed questions to certain informants in order to create and control the image he was to preserve, therefore undermining the original goal of the project.

Along with the biased method of preservation, companies recording the genre for entertainment purposes aided in this differentiation.  The common practices of marketing the same groups under “hillbilly” and “race record” labels in order to cater to perceived racial differences and turning away groups who didn’t conform to ‘their’ genre are more attempts at controlling, curating and marketing the images of ‘selves’ and ‘others’:

The record companies had the power, and they wielded it at will – as Ralph Peer himself was quoted saying in 1959, “I invented the Hillbilly and the Negro stuff.” Except, of course, that he didn’t say ‘negro’.  [2]

While the motives of the folklorists and record executives were different, what they have in common is that the bias of the person behind the recording equipment always shines through.  These disingenuous recording practices changed the face of bluegrass due to the misattribution of certain styles to different groups and the erasure and ‘othering’ of music created and performed by racially diverse groups, who have just as much ownership over the style as their white counterparts.

It is important for us to learn more about this complex history, as the consequences of this division are still at play in current music, and there are still efforts made to suppress diverse artists in today’s charts.  We, as informed listeners, should do more research into these issues and understand when bias could be introduced in any step of the music-making process.

_______

 

1. Nunn, Erich. “COUNTRY MUSIC AND THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK.” Criticism 51, no. 4 (Fall, 2009): 623-649. https://search.proquest.com/docview/763194331?accountid=351.

2. Giddens,Rhiannon.“Community and Connection,” Keynote Speech at 2017 International Bluegrass Music Association Conference.

 

Works Cited

Blind Willie McTell, with 12 String Guitar, Hotel Room, Atlanta, Ga.

Giddens,Rhiannon.“Community and Connection,” Keynote Speech at 2017 International Bluegrass Music Association Conference.

Nunn, Erich. “COUNTRY MUSIC AND THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK.” Criticism 51, no. 4 (Fall, 2009): 623-649. https://search.proquest.com/docview/763194331?accountid=351.

Stimeling, Travis.“Ken Burns’ Country Music does Little to Tell the Story of the Non-White, Non-Straight World of Country,” 15 September 2019.