My advisor advised that I choose a study method less in-depth than blog posts, so I stopped writing. However, I’m going to do a quick one today on a music tradition that I find so POWERFUL to listen to. I’m not going to edit this and I’m not going to go in-depth and find sources to back up my sources, so take everything with a grain of salt. It’s crunch time. Let’s go.
In the 17th century, British churches introduced a new style of worship singing that would allow parishioners who could not read to still participate. This new style was called lining out, or hymn lining. Some say this actually originated in Scotland, but more widely, England is considered the country of origin.
Dr. Isaac Watts, “the Godfather of English Hymnody”
Lining out is exactly what it sounds like: A leader lines out a hymn, literally by chanting the line of the hymn that the congregation will sing. There are two main versions; in one the line is chanted by the leader, then the congregation joins the leader to sing the line together, all stretched out. In another version called long-meter or Dr. Watts (after Dr. Isaac Watts, “the Godfather of English Hymnody,” an English Christian minister whose hymns were adopted by slave communities), the leader does not chant the line in advance but just sings it in a very long, drawn out style, allowing parishioners to join in and add their own individual expression to the line. This makes worship singing very accessible – anyone can add any notes to the line and it doesn’t matter if you’re in time or singing the exact same note as the leader.
Lining out is an example of that very important element of music that has become so central to Black music styles in the US and elsewhere: call and response. Leader chants a line, everyone responds. We see this in music so often, sometimes with voices doing the call and response and sometimes with instruments. Important note: Call and response is present in many styles of music from African countries in different forms than we see in this lining out example. It is those African influences combined with some European influences brought over to the US that helped form the base of much of “American” music.
From Europe to the 13 Colonies
The practice of hymn lining was brought to the US by English and Scottish settlers. In the 1740s it began to spread through slave communities; slaves heard this style at their masters’ church services and began to alter it in their own way, incorporating it into their own spirituals and building their communal and individual identities through music practice as ritual. This style of singing went on to influence slave spirituals, prison songs, blues, Gospel music and, since the blues in turn influenced a huge majority of music styles popular today, we can say that lining out influenced a huge amount of the music we listen to now.
Lining out is still practiced in some (mainly) Baptist churches today, and it is powerful to be a part of and powerful to listen to. It’s also a part of popular culture. Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson, and Ornette Coleman are just a few famous examples of performers who have “lined out” their music. Here are some examples of lining out in worship:
Call and response style: “I Am A Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow” performed by members of the Indian Bottom Association, Old Regular Baptists, at Defeated Creek Church in Linefork, KY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQmfHLpCQcU
Works Cited
Dargan, William. 2006. Lining Out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Five weeks until my exam…better speed up on studying and unpacking ideas in this blog!
Today’s post dives into “the Black Atlantic” – the very source of the name of my reading list! I know I need to understand this term inside and out but have been avoiding it because it feels so large. But…with only five weeks to go, it’s time to dive in.
The Black Atlantic is a term coined by British historian/writer Paul Gilroy, made famous in his book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993). This book is crucial to cultural studies and helped push forward studies of diasporas. Some considerations:
Black Diasporic Identity:
The Black Diaspora is transnational, and before this there was no term to consider the politics of this diaspora beyond national borders.
Relying on nationalism to consider the experiences of Black people in the Caribbean, the Americas, Europe, or Africa is limiting; blackness goes beyond national borders
Gilroy uses the image of the slave ship to explain why Black identities are transnational: Black bodies are historically and socially positioned between two (or more) lands, identities, cultures, etc. and are unable to be defined by borders because of the Atlantic slave trade, which often stifled the possibility of connections to a homeland.
Quote: “Historians of ideas and movements have generally preferred to stay within the boundaries of nationality and ethnicity and have shown little enthusiasm for connecting the life of one movement with that of another” (186).
Black identities are unstable, unfinished, mutable, and always responding to a double consciousness (W.E.B. DuBois’ term) regarding race and nationalism.
Double consciousness is the internal conflict that oppressed groups experience in societies; “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (Du Bois).
There are many marginalized groups who experience double consciousness, but Gilroy’s use relates to the experiences of Black people in white-dominated societies, such as African Americans experiencing racial oppression in the United States (both historically and presently). Black people experience double consciousness constantly. Some examples:
President Obama having to choose how to respond about his birth certificate (his blackness was at odds with his American-ness according to the white, public gaze).
A Black kindergartener figuring out how to approach a family history project when there are few or no records of family lineage because of the Atlantic slave trade.
Parents worrying about what toys their Black children play with, the snacks their teens carry, and whether they’ll wind up as the next Tamir Rice or Trayvon Martin for playing with a toy gun or holding a pack of Skittles.
Sure, people of all races have things they worry about, but when skin color or another aspect of marginalized identity is the reason for worrying, for choosing to act a certain way, wear certain clothing, etc. in order to appease members of the dominant culture, it becomes an example of double consciousness. In many cases in the United States, double consciousness happens when “blackness” is at odds with what is expected for “American-ness.” Only white people are birdwatchers, right?
Artistic Expression
Music of Black diasporic communities is a means of exploring the transient nature of Blackness
Gilroy mentions the song “Keep On Movin'” by the British R&B band Soul II Soul as an example of “the restlessness of spirit which makes that diaspora culture vital.”
Quote: “Black music is so often the principal symbol of racial authenticity” (34). Why is that? Maybe because music is a safe space (for the most part) to express identity that matches cultural expectations; as seen in a previous post, the modern music industry was built out of Black artistic expression (even if that expression was coming partially through imitation and blackface in minstrel shows), so it was acceptable for Black people to also express themselves musically. Music performance is not a norm-defying physical action in the same way that holding binoculars to view birds is; it’s difficult for song to be interpreted as physically threatening (although music is used as a torture device in war, but that’s another story…). Even during slavery, slaves were not allowed to have instruments but they could usually sing in the fields. American society has underestimated the power music can have right from the start.
“Keep on Movin” is a truly transnational song; it was produced in England by the children of Caribbean settlers, includes samples of Jamaican and American records, and was re-mixed in a Jamaican dub format in the United States by Teddy Riley, who is African American.
Modernity
Gilroy believes that a new definition of modernism is needed and that the Atlantic is part of that.
Historians’ lack of focus on the subordination of Blacks and other non-Europeans thwarts a full understanding of modernism. Simultaneously, need to avoid the possibility of achieving “tidy, holistic conception of modernity.”
New “center” of modernism are constructs such as master and slave. Gilroy stresses that we need to revisit modernism with the existence of racism in mind, both historically and presently (even twenty-seven years later, we still need to work on that…).
The term “Black Atlantic” opened the door for a new way of exploring ideas about race, culture, and how location and human identity are related beyond just Africa and the “New World.” It expanded the limitations of thinking within national borders and challenged scholars to consider how Black experiences resulting from racism, slavery, etc. affect modernity.
Responses
Gilroy’s ideas were impactful; his concept is referenced extremely frequently in the sources I’m reading. Here are some stand-out responses:
Where are the women? In a review of the book, Renée R. Curry mentions that Gilroy analyzes masculinity in his writing but seems to only minimally consider feminist theory. Curry considers this to be an erasure of Black women from modern culture.
Eurocentric? In a 1996 article, Ntongela Masilela argues that Gilroy has decentered Africa from the Black Atlantic, creating a Eurocentric vision of modernity, cultural and national identities.
Too focused on African Americans? There are six chapters in Gilroy’s book, and despite his effort to focus on transatlantic Black experiences, four of those chapters focus on African American authors. A few reviews I read considered this to be a flaw that limits the book to African American experiences.
Limited by the term “black?” One author on my list, Nolan Warden, feels that using the terms “African Diaspora” and “black” are limiting in his personal area of study, Afro-Cuban religious music, especially for studies of Afro-Cuban religious music practiced in the United States (outside of the music’s region of origin). Gilroy states that “black music is so often the principal symbol of racial authenticity” (1993:34). Warden responds: “This is particularly troublesome in that the use of terms such as black, white, and even the word Africa, shows how difficult it is to avoid using a lexicon ingrained during the height of European imperialism and the era of Atlantic slavery…it seems we are nearly incapable of speaking about such cultural phenomena with anything other than terms developed with divisive intent” (Warden 2010). I understand Warden’s angle, but he doesn’t offer a solution.
Privileging the Atlantic? Paul Tiyembe Zeleza recognizes the importance of Gilroy’s work but also finds it limiting, giving preference to the Atlantic and not to other parts of the African diaspora. Rather than transatlantic, Zeleza wants African diaspora studies to have a global framework.
Do away with Diaspora? Kamari Maxine Clarke and Deborah A. Thomas think that Gilroy’s use of the term diaspora is limiting. They appreciate his work but choose to approach their own without the term diaspora, creating what they call “a critical, historical, and place-specific approach to globalization in order to foreground an analysis of the circulations and hierarchies contextualizing black communities at particular times in particular locations and in particular relations of power vis-à-vis one another.” (2006)
Respect and Appreciation Many scholars respect Gilroy for his concept and have expanded on his work. For instance, Shana Redmond, whose work I wrote about in my first entry in this series, follows Gilroy’s idea of Black identities being defined more by “routes” than “roots.” There are too many authors to name who use Gilroy’s work as a jumping off point; his name comes up more than any other as inspiration in the things I’ve been reading for this exam.
I could go on with this post but for the sake of time and studying, I’ll stop here. If anyone reading this thinks I’ve missed anything crucial about Gilroy’s work or his term, please leave a comment. I’ve been reading so much for this exam that a lot of it just goes right out of my head!
Works Cited
Clarke, Kamari Maxine and Deborah A. Thomas. 2006. Globalization and Race:Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1994. The Souls of Black Folk. New York, Avenel, NJ: Gramercy Books.
Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Masilela, Ntongela. 1996. “The ‘Black Atlantic’ and African Modernity in South Africa.” Research in African Literatures 27 (4): 88–96.
Warden, Nolan. 2010. “Crossing Diaspora’s Borders: Musical Roots Experiences and the Euro-American Presence in Afro-Cuban Music.” African Music 8 (4): 101–9.
Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. 2005. “Rewriting the African Diaspora: Beyond the Black Atlantic.” African Affairs 104 (414): 35–68.
Poet-playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) published a book in 1963 entitled Blues People: Negro Music in White America. It’s an important text, the first book on the blues written by an African American, and is widely considered a major influencer for future studies on relations between African American music and culture.
It is important to note when this book was written. In 1963 Baraka was a young intellectual discovering his voice as Citizen-Poet in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. To Baraka, the fight for equality did not mean assimilation and sameness, but rather the celebration of culture, creativity, etc. It is no surprise then, that he focused on music as the critical factor for African American cultural identity formation in the US. Baraka’s work was popular with leaders of the Black Power Generation, including Malcolm X who Baraka met in January 1965, one month before Malcom X was assassinated. That experience and meetings with similar changemakers had an influence on Baraka, who dedicated his energy to the Black Arts Movement.
As I read all these sources (I’m up to 56/107 on the Music of the Black Atlantic list), Baraka’s work is mentioned many times. Ethnomusicologist Travis Jackson considers it to be “perhaps the first booklength study to attempt sustained theoretical argument about the relations between African American culture and African American musical forms” (Jackson 2000). Ethnomusicologist Ingrid Monson has a similar stance: “Baraka ought to be recognized for his contributions to theorizing the relationship between music and race…it is a mistake to view Blues People as simply an artifact of cultural nationalism” (Monson 2007). Other scholars agree, though it is important to note criticisms as well. In 1964, Writer and jazz performer Ralph Ellison published a now-famous review of the book, taking issue with a statement from the introduction – “Blues is the parent of all legitimate jazz” – which he believes puts “the tremendous burden of sociology” on the blues. He also thinks there is too heavy a link placed between social status, racial purity, and musical expression: “One would get the impression that there was a rigid correlation between color, education, income and the Negro’s preference in music” (Ellison 1964). Other critics have mentioned Baraka’s lack of experience as a musician, a possible reason for errors in his explanation of the elements of varieties of African music that were key ingredients for early blues and jazz.
This is a small but telling sample of how the book was received; the work is largely considered influential and widely praised with some criticisms. Nothing like this had been published before; this was new territory, so scholars have largely forgiven the musical errors for the book’s ingenuity.
Music and Culture
At a time when scholars were not typically writing about music and race in a theoretical manner, Baraka set out to prove a hypothesis: Music can reveal much about the cultural significance of African American existence in America, and by extension the culture of American society as a whole. His aim was to explore the emergence of “African American” as a race and as a culture through music development. We’ve seen this idea supported by other scholars I’ve blogged about. Matthew D. Morrison’s work on Blacksound and the work of authors he referenced demonstrated how Black musical forms defined (and continue to define) popular music in America and abroad, which seeped (and continues to seep) over into popular (non-musical) culture in general. Assumptions are made about who makes certain musical sounds, how those sounds are perceived, what is considered “sophisticated,” “authentic,” “primal,” etc. and how those factors influence societal norms and expectations within and outside of music.
Blues and Jazz
Amiri Baraka considers jazz performance to be a blues-based, ritual activity. His focus is on the pathfrom slavery to “citizenship” in the United States, the music of slavery, and the development of blues and later of jazz. As he explains, “it seems to me that if the Negro represents, or is symbolic of, something in and about the nature of American culture, this certainly should be revealed by his characteristic music.”
Robert Johnson, Delta blues guitarist (photo source)
Baraka believes that the musical experience of slaves in the US is different than that of African Americans. “The weight of the blues for the slave, the completely disenfranchised individual, differs radically from the weight of that same music in the psyches of most contemporary American Negroes…The one peculiar referent to the drastic change in the Negro from slavery to ‘citizenship’ is his music.”
Baraka couples the beginning of the blues with the beginning of African Americans. He uses an analogy to explain what he means:
If you are taken to Mongolia as a slave and work there seventy-five years and learn twenty words of Mongolian and live in a small house from which you leave only to work, I don’t think we can call you a Mongolian. It is only when you begin to accept the idea that you are part of that country that you can be said to be a permanent resident. I mean, that until the time when you have sufficient ideas about this new country to begin making some lasting moral generalizations about it -relating your experience, in some lasting form, in the language of that country, with whatever subtleties and obliqueness you bring to it -you are merely a transient.
The development of the blues, in Baraka’s opinion, signified that transition from visitor to permanent resident; the blues is heavily influenced by various African musical forms but fuse with the language and culture of America, making it an African American musical form.
This notion of a difference in the function of blues music for slaves vs. African Americans is one of the reasons author Ralph Ellison, a musician himself, so heavily critiques Baraka’s book. Ellison feels that this explanation rejects blues as an art form and discounts the role of music for slaves:
“A slave was, to the extent that he was a musician, one who expressed himself in music…from the days of their introduction into the colonies, Negroes have taken, with the ruthlessness of those without articulate investments in cultural styles, whatever they could of European music, making of it that which would, when blended with the cultural tendencies inherited from Africa, express their own sense of life” (Ellison 1964: 254-255).
From Ellison’s perspective, Baraka did not recognize the role of music – and the development of the blues – as a critical part of identity formation and artistic/cultural expression for not only free African Americans but also for slaves.
Blues to Jazz
Baraka’s book moves from slavery to blues to jazz over the course of a dozen chapters. As we’ve seen from other authors featured in this blog series, jazz music has the ability to act as socio-political commentary and reflection of African American culture while simultaneously articulating actual and idealized visions of existence. Baraka too recognizes jazz as a powerful tool for communicating African American views of the world and ways of organizing and responding to experience through both performance and listening practices.
Baraka presents a detailed jazz history in his book, starting with the first jazz (or “jass”) recording, made by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. The ODJB was a group of white Italian-American musicians who were inspired by King Oliver’s band in New Orleans. As Baraka writes, “They had a profound influence upon America, and because they, rather than the actual black innovators, were heard by the great majority of Americans first, the cultural lag had won again.”
Freddie Keppard’s Original Creoles – a band whose members were black – was invited to record the first “jass” album a few months prior to the ODJB. Keppard supposedly turned down the offer, believing others would imitate his style. Baraka notes, “that is probably true, but it is doubtful that Keppard’s band would have caught as much national attention as the smoother O. D. J. B. anyway.” Thus, an African American art form spread across the country through a recording by white musicians.
“The Four Horsemen” (L to R): Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson (1955) (photo source)
As the chapters develop, Baraka demonstrates how black jazz music was appropriated by white culture time and again, and how that dynamic affected musical developments in jazz. As we’ve learned in this series, the development of bebop was a response to frustration with swing music. Baraka emphasizes the ironies of the swing era, calling out Benny Goodman for the “spectacle” of hiring Black musicians such as Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Christian, and Cootie Williams in his band in order to make them “big names” in the swing world. He finds this “fantastically amusing,” along with the fact that Black musicians hardly won polls won by jazz magazines in the late thirties and early forties. “Swing music…had very little to do with black America, though that is certainly where it had come from.”
Benny and Hamp
Vibraphonist Lionel Hampton with bandleader/clarinetist Benny Goodman (photo source)
The rest of Baraka’s book continues to go through various jazz eras and point out ways that instances of appropriation, segregation, discrimination, etc. affected music development. However, I want to pause and unpack this statement about Benny Goodman. As a vibraphonist myself, Lionel Hampton’s legacy is very important to me – I’ve played his tunes, read his books, learned about his commitment to jazz education, etc. I was taken aback when Baraka called Goodman and Hamp’s relationship a “spectacle.” I recalled reading in multiple places that Goodman hired musicians for their talent rather than skin color and that Hamp and Goodman had a good professional and personal relationship. But is this my own white ignorance talking in defense of Goodman?
To check, I pulled a book by jazz critic Stanley Crouch off my shelf called Flying Home: Lionel Hampton: Celebrating 100 Years of Good Vibes. I’ve read this book many times, so I immediately flipped to the section on “The Four Horsemen,” the nickname given to Benny Goodman’s quartet: Goodman, Hamp, Teddy Wilson, and Gene Krupa. In that section, Stanley Crouch writes about Goodman’s perspective on racism and segregation (11):
He viewed the color barrier as merely a pebble to kick out of his path toward the music he wanted to create. He would do what he had to do or take whatever chances he had to take in order to create the best possible music – and Hampton was integral to his quest…Goodman did as much as he could to protect Hampton and Wilson from the prongs of racism. He would insist on contracts that allowed them to stay with the band in hotels. He would even go so far as to hire men to escort them to and from their rooms. While in New York, Goodman would hire a limo to take Hampton and Wilson to Harlem since taxi drivers wouldn’t pick up black men, much less drive into Harlem at night.
Crouch positions the quartet as an important force for desegregation, calling them “the harbingers of the end of segregated jazz.” He writes that the Benny Goodman Quartet was “the first band to put both black and white musicians on the same stage as part of the regular act. Nervous promoters were warned of race riots during the inaugural tour, but those fears faded as hundreds of thousands of people came out to see the band play without incident.” (12)
Those hundreds of thousands of people…did they come for the music, or for seeing a mixed band? If the latter, Baraka’s label of “spectacle” may be correct. Perhaps even if Goodman’s intentions were mostly good ones, he understood the stir that a mixed band would cause. Baraka’s description is harsh, Crouch’s is softer. Both Baraka and Crouch are Black Americans, both are writers, both are jazz critics, both were activists in the Civil Rights Movement, and Crouch is a jazz musician himself. How to work through these differing viewpoints? As a white person I don’t have the right to decide, and thus have to believe that both perspectives are valid.
Lionel Hampton was a bandleader on the West Coast before meeting Benny Goodman but faced frustration and disappointment due to segregation and discrimination. After a stint playing a steady gig at the Paradise Nightclub in LA he joined Goodman’s group and then, propelled by his new fame and popularity, tried his hand leading again in 1940 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. This time he was successful, establishing a legacy that has influenced countless musicians, myself included. Would he have had the same legacy and impact if not for his time in the Benny Goodman Quartet? That’s not for me to decide.
Works Cited
Baraka, Amiri [LeRoi Jones]. 1963. Blues People: Negro Music in White America. New York: Harper Perennial.
Crouch, Stanley. 2008. Fying Home: Lionel Hampton: 100 Years of Good Vibes. Ann Arbor, MI: State Street Press.
Ellison, Ralph. 1964. Shadow and Act. New York: Random House.
Jazz Performance as Ritual: The Blues Aesthetic and the African Diaspora.Jackson, Travis. 2000. “Jazz Performance as Ritual: The Blues Aesthetic and the African Diaspora.” In The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective, ed. Ingrid Monson. New York: Garland Publishing.
Monson, Ingrid. 2007. Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa. New York: Oxford University Press.
Goodness gracious time is FLYING. How I am going to not just read but also become an expert on 200+ academic sources for this exam is beyond me. Seven weeks to go…
Today I’m writing about artistic othering in jazz music. My focus is a chapter by Kevin Gaines, W.E.B. Du Bois professor of Africana Studies and History at Cornell University, from the book Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (O’Meally et al 2004). Gaines’ chapter is entitled “Artistic Othering in Black Diaspora Musics: Preliminary Thoughts on Time, Culture, and Politics.” His chapter is sixteen years old yet still relevant.
The purpose of Gaines’ chapter is to explore the relationship between cultural practice and historical consciousness in jazz music. In other words, rhythm and history; the connection between what jazz artists play and the history and memories linked to that playing. By this definition, jazz music is art intended for universal(?) consumption that also acts as political commentary rebelling against systems of racial oppression; an “artistic act of othering.”
Coined by literary scholar-poet Nathaniel Mackey, this term transforms “other” from a noun/adjective into a verb – something people do.1 It is a response to social othering. In Mackey’s words, “artistic othering has to do with innovation, invention, and change, upon which cultural health and diversity depend and thrive. Social othering has to do with power, exclusion, and privilege, the centralizing of a norm against which otherness is measured, meted out, marginalized” (Mackey 1992:51). Social othering creates an “us vs. them” mentality while artistic othering says “Okay, groups are marginalized and excluded in mainstream society, let’s highlight their culture and history through artistic endeavors.”
Artistic othering is a response to social othering and disempowerment within the music industry, an antidote to “the oppressive commodification and objectification of African Americans within a U.S. society shaped by institutionalized racism” (Gaines 2004:205). Artistic othering is rebellion; it’s a way for Black artists to express cultural identity through music without adhering to the norms and expectations of a system established by dominant, white culture.
Gaines defines artistic othering in two ways: 1. As an “affirmative othering,” a dialogue that takes places between black artists and audiences and creates a “musically-enacted community.” (208) 2. As a form of othering that provides refuge from the white world for Black artists and audiences, offering creative spaces where white-enacted boundaries can’t reach.
Artistic Othering in Practice
Gaines explores the careers of Black diaspora musicians2 to unpack the idea of artistic othering, demonstrating how Black artists’ music practices “oppose racist attempts to circumscribe black bodies and beings.” (206) A few examples are described below and, as Gaines notes, “the musicians discussed here are just a few of numerous possible examples…they embody the apparent tension between music as universal expression and as historically situated practice that, in its aesthetics and performance, claims and constitutes an autonomous refusal of the dynamics of racial domination.” (206)
1. The Birth of Bebop
What brought about the emergence of bebop in 1940s New York City? My understanding of jazz history allows me to provide a few answers: -Musicians were tired of the structured arrangements of big band music, designed for swing dancers over individual musical expression. -After playing swing gigs, musicians met after hours at clubs like Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem (where bebop is said to have been born) to hone their individual skills and try things musically that they couldn’t in big bands. -WWII drafts meant that there were less musicians to play with, leading to smaller combos than the typical swing band needed.
Thelonious Monk, Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge, Teddy Hill at Minton’s Playhouse, New York, September 1947 (photo credit here)
Those are some of the reasons for bebop’s formation, but Gaines encourages a more critical examination. Who were the pioneers of bebop? Although not all, the majority were African Americans: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Bud Powell, Max Roach, etc. Why? As we’ll see later in this blog, big bands were some of the more racially inclusive spaces of the 1920s and 1930s (with exceptions, of course), but Black musicians still experienced some exclusion. Bandleaders like Benny Goodman had Black artists in their bands and/or hired them as arrangers, but they were rarely bandleaders (with exceptions), didn’t fully profit from arrangements and compositions they wrote, and often played for all-white audiences (again, with exceptions). Having Black musicians in a band could also complicate a band’s ability to procure gigs. I don’t remember the source, but a book I once read described the experience of an entire swing band sleeping in a bus because the hotel they were staying at wouldn’t allow their African American band member – I think it was Melba Liston? – entry. There are many instances of clubs, hotels, etc. not letting a group enter with a Black band member. For musicians making a living through gigs, what to do? Cancel the gig? Play without that band member? Avoid hiring Black musicians when possible? Gaines also references Dizzy Gillespie, who freelanced as a big band arranger for white bandleaders but was rarely hired. As bandleader Woody Herman confessed, “he would have loved to have hired Gillespie in his band if he weren’t so dark.” (211)
Experiences like this give new perspective to the late night jam sessions of the 1940s that led to bebop’s formation. Jam sessions were spaces of shared cultural values and mutual encouragement where (mostly) Black artists could express themselves musically without adhering to norms and expectations of white-established society. Thus, the birth of bebop is politically charged; it is a form of artistic othering responding to social othering of the time.
Langston Hughes had his own politically charged explanation of the birth of bebop, shared by his character Jesse B. Simple:
“Every time a cop hits a Negro with his billy club, that old club say, ‘BOP! BOP! . . . BE-BOP! . . . MOP! . . . BOP!’ That Negro hollers, ‘Ooool-ya-koo! Ou-o-o!’ Old cop just keeps on, ‘MOP! MOP! . . . BE-BOP! MOP!’ That’s where Be-Bop came from, beaten right out of some Negro’s head into them horns and saxophones and piano keys that plays it. . . . That’s why so many white folks don’t dig Bop,” said Simple. “White folks do not get their heads beat just for being white. But me–a cop is liable to grab me almost any time and beat my head–just for being colored. In some part of this American country as soon as the polices see me, they say, ‘Boy, what are you doing in this neighborhood?’ I say, ‘coming from work, sir.’ . . . Then I have to go into my whole pedigree because I am a black man in a white neighborhood. And if my answers do not satisfy them, BOP! MOP! . . . BE-BOP! . . . If they do not hit me, they have already hurt my soul. A dark man shall see dark days. Bop comes out of them dark days.”
Langston Hughes, “Bop,” in Abraham Chapman, ed., Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature (New York: New American Library, 1968), pp. 104–5.
Jazz musician, composer, and bandleader Sun Ra (1914-1993), born Herman Poole Blount (nicknamed “Sonny”) in Birmingham, AL, insisted that he came to Earth by way of Saturn. In his lyrics and in statements throughout his later life, Sun Ra described outer space as a realm of freedom. When asked about his lyrics, Sun Ra replied:
It’s all about space. . . . I didn’t find being black in America a very pleasant experience, but I had to have something, and where was that something? It was being creative. Something that nobody owned but us….Now I [have] a treasure house of music that no one has…..I have music from the creator which is more valuable than anything.
Taken from a 1987 interview with Sun Ra conducted by Phil Schaap, rebroadcast in March 1993 on 89.9 mhz, WKCR-FM, New York.
Sun Ra experienced segregation, racism, and poverty throughout his life, first while growing up in the Jim Crow South and later while living and working in Chicago and Philadelphia. In 1952 he legally changed his name to Le Sony’r Ra, claiming that Blount was a slave name. As a black man he was socially othered regularly, and he responded by recording over 100 full-length albums, producing one of the largest discographies in music history, and becoming one of the pioneers of Afrofuturism.
One example of Sun Ra’s artistic othering is his musical collective, The Arkestra (which still exists today). Established in the mid-1950s, The Arkestra features musicians and dancers dressed in elaborate costumes inspired by ancient Egypt and the “Space Age.” In addition to the content of his music, Ra’s costumes allowed him and his band to demonstrate black nationalism visually as a counter-narrative to mainstream American culture.
As stated earlier, despite some exclusion, big bands were valuable spaces for cultural aspiration and freedom for Black musicians. Sun Ra agreed, citing the culture of big bands as “the nearest temporal approximation of the utopian possibilities of outer space” (Gaines 2004: 216). At a time when procuring employment was difficult for Black Americans, big bands simultaneously offered income, expression of cultural heritage, and “collective ideals and aspirations to dignity, organization, and power” (ibid). It is no surprise then, that the Arkestra was formed as and remains a big band rather than a smaller combo. As Gaines writes, “the band was not unlike a church for its members, and Sun Ra was no less than a spiritual leader for his musicians, who lived and rehearsed with total commitment in a communal situation.” Further, the focus on space is important: “Outer space functioned symbolically as a pastoral refuge from the dangers of urban poverty and alienation facing African American migrants from the South” (ibid).
Conclusion
I’ll end this blog post here because, frankly, I just spent half a day writing it and still need to study other sources. This concept of artistic othering is one that I will keep in mind as I learn about the music of other Black artists. I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that all the music discussed in my last blog post on Shana Redmond’s book are also examples of artistic othering. One question I am left with: Can artistic othering only be accomplished by members of a socially othered group? If a white musician plays politically charged Black jazz music knowing the history and cultural memory that it carries, can that performance also function as artistic othering? I don’t think I need to know the answer for my exam, but just something to think about. Thanks for reading!
1 Mackey credits this noun-to-verb othering concept to Amiri Baraka, who transforms the word “swing” to describe white appropriation of black musical innovation in his book Blues People. He also mentions Zora Neale Hurston who, thirty years earlier, was a pioneering practitioner of “resistant othering” in black vernacular culture.
2 Gaines uses this term because “to call them African American would obscure the broader, black diaspora identities they claimed for themselves” (206).He uses a lowercase b, but as of June 2020 “Black” as an identity is now written with a capital B, recognized by the Associated Press.
I’m beginning today with an extremely relevant book by Dr. Shana L. Redmond called Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora. Now is an especially important time to amplify black voices, so I’ll have Dr. Redmond start us off in her own words:
Music is a method. Beyond its many pleasures, music allows us to do and imagine things that may otherwise be unimaginable or seem impossible. It is more than sound; it is a complex system of mean(ing)s and ends that mediate our relationships to one another, to space, to our histories and historical moment…Within the African diaspora, music functions as a method of rebellion, revolution, and future visions that disrupt and challenge the manufactured differences used to dismiss, detain, and destroy communities. The anthems developed and deployed by these communities served as articulations of defense and were so powerful that they took flight and were adopted by others…Listening to Black anthems is a political act in performance because it mobilizes communal engagements that speak to misrecognition, false histories, violence, and radical exclusion.
Redmond, Shana L. 2013. “Introduction.” Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora. New York: NYU Press. 1.
Note: In this book, “diaspora” refers to Africans no longer in their country of birth. One reviewer, Mareli Stolp, thinks “pan-Africanist” is a more appropriate termthan “diasporic” but agrees that these songs are anthems (Stolp 2016).
Dr. Redmond’s book focuses primarily on six Black anthems, each of which she describes as a transnational text with a set of musical forms and a set of organizing strategies. She pins the starting point for Black anthems as 1920, when Mamie Smith became the first black artist featured on a “race record,” creating commercial investment in Black music.1, 2 Race records were driven by financial gain, and Black movement anthems emerged as a sort of counterpoint built not on commercialism but on what Robin Kelley calls “freedom dreams.” Black anthems “publicly grappled with how the ‘race’ of ‘race records’ was (and should be) constituted” (Redmond 8). They aimed to liberate what Redmond calls the collapsed Black identity through race (“a different way of living”) and sound (“a different way of hearing”).
1Okeh Records, the studio that recorded Mamie Smith, also had a line of “foreign” records for immigrant communities prior to the “race records” produced from the 1920s-1940s. (source) 2Mamie Smith’s recording was extremely popular among black audiences despite the fact that it cost the equivalent of roughly two hours of work at an average black person’s salary. Her “Crazy Blues” record sold over 100,000 copies! (source)
When someone sings an anthem they become part of a collective, amplifying a message and its associated struggles and refusing the limitations of an “audience,” choosing instead to merge into a “public.” Singing an anthem is an act of what Christopher Small calls “musicking,” an active engagement with music rather than a passive one (9).
Anthems cross borders, carrying musical traditions, performance techniques, history, politics, and associated struggles across the world. More than just casual songs, anthems construct what Redmond terms sound franchises.
Sound franchise: An organized melodic challenge utilized by the African descended to announce their collectivity and to what political ends they would be mobilized (4-5).
Here are six anthems mentioned in Redmond’s book and the sound franchises they construct:
“Ethiopia (Thou Land of Our Fathers):” Composed in 1918 by E. Burrell (coauthor of lyrics) and Arnold J. Ford (composer, coauthor of lyrics).
Anthem of the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association).
1920: In a manifesto titled Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, UNIA president Marcus Garvey announced a human rights platform for the protection of the Black race. Members of the UNIA sang this anthem after the manifesto was read, marking ” their moment of exultation and collective advance, signaling the introductory chapter of their ascent into the world corps of nations” (21).
“Ethiopia” set the stage for the use of anthems for global community building and mobilization.
1927: Marcus Garvey’s deportation led to the rapid decline of the UNIA and its anthem.
“Ethiopia” enforces notions of male superiority and power but is nonetheless historically important as what might be the first example of a Black anthem.
“Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing:” Composed by James W. Johnson and James R. Johnson. Based on a poem by James Weldon.
Anthem of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).
1933: Request to translate it into Japanese. Example of the global reach of a tool of representation for blackness.
Widely considered to be one of the most important Black anthems of all time, though it is not as popular today due to non-performance (276).
“Ol’ Man River:” Composed by Jerome Kern (melody) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) for the 1927 musical Show Boat.
Singer/actor/activist Paul Robeson rewrote the words and transformed the song into a personal anthem for his work in Civil Rights Movement, the Spanish Civil War, movements against fascism, movements for social justice, etc.
1950-58: Robeson’s passport was revoked under McCarthyism, but his message spread across the globe through his performances.
“Ol’ Man River” became Robeson’s signature performance in crusade for civil and human rights, creating an association with freedom struggles in US and abroad.
According to historian Mark Naison, Robeson is the “most complex and challenging African-American cultural figure of the twentieth century,” yet “within a span of ten years, 1947–1957, [he] was virtually erased from historic memory.” (278)
2004: The American Film Institute named “Ol’ Man River” one of the “top movie songs of all time.” (276)
“We Shall Overcome:” Known by many previous names and versions. One possible origin is Charles Albert Tindley’s gospel hymn “I’ll Overcome Some Day,” published in 1900. Melodically, “We Shall Overcome” is similar to the spiritual “I’ll Be Alright.” Although I don’t have a source to back this up, I learned from Rev. Robert B. Jones that “I’ll Be Alright” was a code song used by slaves to signify who was staying behind when an escape was planned.
1938: Under the leadership of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, African American tobacco workers in Richmond, VA went on strike and sang the spiritual “We Shall Not Be Moved.”
1945-1946: First documented singing of the “modern” version of Tindley’s hymn. Became the anthem of Black women industrial workers in Charleston in the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organization) who lead strike action against the tobacco industry.
Regarding the song’s importance for the Charleston strike, Local 15 member Isiah Bennett said: “Everytime [sic] we opened up a meeting we would sing a song. ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ‘We Shall Not Be Moved.’. . . The song ‘We Shall Overcome’ originated on the picket lines, in the union halls and in the churches where we would meet” (164).
1947: Zilphia Horton (music director of the Highlander Folk School) taught the song to Pete Seeger and it was published as “We Will Overcome” in the People’s Songs Bulletin (directed by Seeger). Seeger began singing the song in performances.
1959: Guy Carawan became song leader at Highlander and spread his and Seeger’s version. Other folk singers picked it up and started singing it at rallies, protests, etc.
The song grew from a locally-situated protest song to become the rallying cry and unofficial anthem for the Civil Rights Movement and a universally recognized protest anthem.
Malcolm X didn’t share the general enthusiasm for this anthem. In his speech “The Ballot or the Bullet” he stated: “Uncle Sam’s hands are dripping with blood, dripping with the blood of the black man in this country. He’s the earth’s number-one hypocrite. He has the audacity—yes, he has—imagine him posing as the leader of the free world. The free world!—and you over here singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ Expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, take it to the United Nations.” (280). Similarly, he said: “Revolution is never based on begging someone for an integrated cup of coffee. Revolutions are never fought by turning the other cheek. Revolutions are never based upon love-your-enemy and pray-for-those-who-spitefully-use-you. And revolutions are never waged singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’” (ibid). Nonetheless, “We Shall Overcome” remains a universal anthem for social change.
“To Be Young, Gifted and Black” by Nina Simone (1969), lyrics by Weldon Irvine.
Written in memory of Simone’s mentor, writer Lorraine Hansberry (author of A Raisin in the Sun) who passed away in 1965.
Written as “a defiant celebration of and for the young people who through sit-ins, marches, and community organizing continued the fight of the many leaders gone.” (Redmond)
1971: Became the anthem of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which then led to its popularity as an unofficial civil rights anthem.
Nina’s voice drew people together. As Redmond writes, “it is necessary to note that often it literally was her voice that put them in the same place at the same time. The power of these acts, then, is not simply as sonic art—as important as that is; it is also pedagogical and organizational in that these performances compelled reactive and proactive engagements and debate, all of which contributed to political alternatives in the present” (14).
“Nkosi Sikilel’ iAfrika” (“God Bless Africa”): Hymn by Xhosa choral music composer Enoch Sontonga
1897: Adopted by African National Congress (ANC), considered to be the most significant political force in the resistance struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
Best known version sung by Miriam Makeba
Multilingual composition made it an easy choice for a resistance anthem across Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.
1994: Nelson Mandela installed as president of South Africa, gets to choose symbols of post-apartheid. Replaced “Die Stem” with “Nkosi Sikilel’ iAfrika” as South Africa’s national anthem.
Bonus: “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy (1989)
Featured in Spike Lee’s film Do The Right Thing
Redmond presents “Fight the Power” as possibly the last Black anthem of the 20th century, adopted by various urban communities and uprisings.
Its relevance goes beyond Brooklyn to other locations, conditions, and political mobilizations: “The song’s growth from and response to collective Black struggle went beyond reporting to build discourse and debate; it was not simply narrative but was instructive” (261).
Long but very relevant quote: “’Fight the Power’ joined in the lexicon of anthemic sound bites like ‘We Shall Overcome,’ becoming an oft-repeated way to signal the Black response to the acquittal of the four white LAPD officers who in 1991 brutally beat Black motorist Rodney King within a few inches of his life. The anthem played in the streets of the Palms neighborhood of west L.A. during the events, becoming a critical voice and strategy within the Black rebellion. ‘Fight the Power’ was the song that marked this last decade of the Black century—the violence of its turning and the innovation of its future. Through their Brooklyn performances, the members of Public Enemy were organizers whose sonic manifesto moved bodies and reconstituted the multiple centers of Black diasporic existence.” (269)
That last quote makes me think. Redmond deemed “Fight the Power” as the last Black anthem of the 20th century. Here in the 21st century, while we wait to see what will happen with another group of four cops involved in the unnecessary murder of George Floyd (among many others), will a new Black anthem emerge? At one of the protests I attended last week, a trumpeter played “We Shall Overcome” and people laid down flowers while the names of black people killed by police was read aloud. That anthem is clearly still a part of the ongoing movements for civil rights, but others have emerged along the way. What’s waiting in the wings now?
It is only fitting to end where we began, with Dr. Redmond’s own words, shared below. I hope this blog post has been useful. I believe it is important to know the history of the songs we sing, and the same can absolutely be said for Black anthems.
The fact that some of these songs have passed the time of their utility in movement cultures does not diminish their importance to the political histories and futures of the diaspora…With every reference to these movements and musicians, with every performance, a conversation continues between the actors of the past and those of the present. The histories that these anthems have helped to build and the present efforts that they condone structure a radical movement timeline for members and actors within diaspora. Anthems, therefore, have a future, even if the nation does not. The project and practice of Black anthems represented here will, with any luck, mobilize another cohort with the talents to remake the world.
Redmond, Shana L. 2013. “Introduction.” Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora. New York: NYU Press. 288.
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