Monday, November 11, 2013
Stills and Hurston
When Zora Neale Hurston collaborated with William Grant Still to create a "suite" of Caribbean-inspired songs she did not realize that calypso music would become immensely popular when it was later championed by Harry Belafonte. This cycle of songs shows the confluence of music and poetry begun in the jazz-influenced poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, particularly in the "Weary Blues" of Langston Hughes. Returning to traditional rhythms in poetry brought about the environment within which the ballad, the blues stanza, and the back-beat would create first the "folk music revival" in the work of Farina, Dylan, Baez, and so on--and R&B and then Rock music. The research of Hurston and of such pioneers as Howard Odum and John and Alan Lomax, who worked to record prison songs and common folk idioms of the rural South brought the beginning of an understanding to Anglo listeners of a style of music that would profoundly influence the remainder of the Twentieth Century.
Check out the music: Caribbean Suite
Here are paraphrases a few of the notes Hurston made on the first four of these pieces:
1. Two Banana: A jumping dance from New Providence (Bahamas). Jumps are set off both by words and rattle.
2. Going to My Old Home: Dance song from New Providence. A holiday rhythm made for Christmas.
3. Bellamina: Ballad from New Providence. During Prohibition an American gun-runner had three ships, including the Bellamina, the Maizie, and the Mystery. They had success smuggling from Nassau into Miami, Key west and other spots on the Florida coast. The Bellamina (called the "flagship" by Hurston) was captured by the Coast Guard. When she reappeared in Nassau, she no longer looked so beautiful. She had been painted black. Song-makers "put her in sing," expressing surprise at her change of color, but joy to see her.
4. Peas and Rice: Jumping Dance from Cat Island. Represents an argument in the market place over the price of peas and rice. Shopkeeper pretends he will throw them away rather than sell. They compromise, and Roland, a handsome young man, is urged to "roll it."
5. Mama, I Saw a Sailboat: Ring play from New Providence. A very young girl talks to her mother about her unusual love affair with a "yaller boy" whom she cannot marry because (presumably) her color is either lighter or darker, but with whom she has had a very satisfactory "torrid" affair.
6. Evalina: "Humorous Song" from Eleuthera Island. A brief but "sultry" affair has left the woman demanding marriage, which the man admits is right, but proceeds to decline in numerous ways.
7. Doo Ma: Jumping Dance from Abaco Island). The island is celebrated, especially the "wire waist" (narrow waist) and seductively rotating hips of the island women.
8. Hela Grand Pere: Rada Chant from Haiti. A melody chanted at the beginning of all "Rada" ceremonies. [note from me: Rada is ritual drumming that is part of Voodoo. There are groups of drums for different ceremonies, and the Rada group consists of three drums, The Manman, Segon and Boula - and a bell called the Ogan. In the absence of a bell, the blade of a hoe or other metal implement is substituted.]
9. Do An' Nannie: Jumping Dance from New Providence.
10. Ah, La Sa Wu!: Chant from Fox Hill. Ancient African--Hurston knows no English translation.
11. Hand a' Bowl: Voodoo Chant from Jamaica. Goat song, performed over the stone tomb of someone dead eighteen months, a length of time during which the soul ( called the "duppie") is supposed to have had time to "settle down." The sacrifice of the goat ceremony involves the hand being on the bowl to catch the blood that will flow from the goat's throat (the knife is poised). Just as the goat is tied, the duppie is supposed to be tied. There is a reference to daylight coming at the end of the ceremony. Some African words not known. [note from me: This ceremony bears a strong resemblance to the evocation of the dead in the Odyssey, Book Eleven, when Odysseus cspills the blood of a goat in order to summon spirits of the dead who are bound then to speak and tell what they know.]
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ReplyDeleteCaribbean Melodies shows a fine interplay between text and music. I dig it. The vocalists crafting of operatic interpretations from the simple refrains of the Caribbean folk songs creates a unique combination of musical forms. "Mama, I Saw a Sailboat" opens with a simple piano phrase echoed by the steel drums followed by Louise Toppin's sporano as she sings about taking a "yaller" boy as her lover. "Hand A' Bowl" takes a voodoo death ceremony ritual, builds musical tension with the piano's and steel drums' phrasing, vocals and hand claps, culminating with a pretty cool contralto-baritone ending.
ReplyDeleteStill's compositions seem ahead of his time. The multi-instruments (piano, sax, voice, percussion) and the fusion of caribbean rhythms with classical compositions sound as if they could have come out of the musical experiments of 50s and 60s jazz or a stage production. This collection of works differs from Hughes' attempts by its inherent musicality of form. Trained performers craft the sounds of the lyrics with technical expertise that Hughes did not have. Hughes' exploration into the merging of poetry and jazz retains the political nature of his work and puts his poetry in the forefront. With Hughes' spoken works it feels like a casual conversation between him and the combo while the interplay of vocalist to percussion with Still's work creates a direct dialogue.
The contributions of Harry Smith to the folk and blues revival of the 50s and 60s should be mentioned. His 1952 publication, The Anthology of American Folk Music, remains canonical in the history of folk music. A direct lineage exists from Smith's obscure collection of 78s of backwater blues musicians such as Mississippi John Hurt and Blind Lemon Jefferson—in addition to his exhaustive liner notes (check them out, they look like a modernist collage or a copy of Blast!)—to their rediscovery by musicians such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. Apparently, Jerry Garcia learned blues from Smith's collection (by playing the records half speed, some say).
I was caught off guard by the range of sounds in Caribbean Suite beginning with the silliness of "Two Banana" and progressing toward the very dramatic "Hela Grand Pere." My knowledge of Caribbean music is limited enough to make me think that it was nothing but good feelings all the time. Hurston and Still have certainly shown me otherwise as their music flows from jaunty to operatic to haunting ("Hand A' Bowl" is still ringing in my ear).
ReplyDeleteLooking at some of the songs that went to number one on the Billboard charts in 1941--which included Glenn Miller's "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and an eight-week reign for Freddy Martin's recording of Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto in B Flat"--gives a sense of just how different this type of music would have been. To say that it would have appealed to a niche audience is no doubt an understatement. But how fascinating that this would be considered a progenitor to rock music. On the surface, the two genres seem like they couldn't be farther apart, but you can hear in Caribbean Suite, with its sometimes manic energy that also brings to mind Sitwell and Walto's Façade, the beginnings of the rebellious spirit that defined the rock era.
I definitely preferred the music of the “Caribbean Suite” to the recitation of “The Weary Blues.” These songs are very rhythmic and most of them are upbeat, jaunty tunes, with the exception of a few. This early Caribbean music sounds as if it could have fallen into the realm of what white audiences regarded as primitivism during the early 20th century. The singing is playful, yet chant-like at times, especially in “Hand A’ Bowl,” the quick drumbeats lend a tribal quality of the sound, and the steel drums definitely infer some sort of “otherness” to the music. Since some upper-class white audiences had a bit of a penchant for “primitive” entertainment as they sought to discover in visiting Harlem, I would assume this music had quite an impact on people. It is easy to see how early Calypso music was able to morph and develop into new forms, such as Folk and Rock n’ Roll.
ReplyDeleteWow!
ReplyDeleteLike Michael, I was not expecting this much variety. The vocals did not quite seem to match the music exactly, but was not discordant either. I noticed that the vocals sometimes eclipsed the instrumentals, which I'm not sure is a positive. I am in no way a calypso expert, but from I have heard, the steel drum is usually more centralized than it is here.
I agree with Peter that there is a completely different dialogue going on here than Hughes' work with the jazz accompaniment. I find it a bit jarring, even cacophonous. Even though Hughes may have lacked musical expertise, I enjoyed Hughes' voice, presentation, and relationship with the band much more.
I can see it's influence on some of the folk revivalists, I was especially reminded of Odetta's "Waterboy".
A few thoughts I had while reading from the Hughes collection...
ReplyDeleteSomething I find interesting is Hughes's frequent use of female narrators in poems such as "A Ruined Gal," "Black Gal," "Misery," and "Down and Out," to name but a few. I can't think of another author we've studied this semester who has used the opposite gender to such prolific effect (Toomer probably comes closest). It seems like this would have been considered unusual, especially since women were still fighting their way out of second-class citizenship. Might Hughes be seen as something of a feminist crusader? Hughes's preoccupation with love and how its loss can lead to thoughts of death and suicide also seems out of step for a time when men weren't expected to express such intimate feelings. I wonder if tackling such topics ever proved problematic for Hughes in terms of how he was regarded by the literary (and maybe even scholarly) community.