African American Music and John Powell…Representative??
In our 20th-century music course, we have been asked a very simple yet difficult question. What is American music? Can you define it? What makes that music “American.” I certainly have a few opinions to offer, but when it comes down to it, can we really put “American” music into one box tightly defined? I’m not so sure we can. Do we define it based on origins? Composers? Compositions and performers?
I found an interesting article that helped me think about this question a little more deeply. It was published in 1924 in London, England at The Times. The author isn’t named, just referred to as their “music critic.”
His school of thought for this article was interesting. He starts by stating that when was abroad in America and returned, he was asked about “American Music.” He mostly referred to the symphony and the Metropolitan productions that he states simply don’t seem American at all. “How many members of these orchestras or of the brilliant company assembled at the Metropolitan are American?” A GREAT question. The music in question is most certainly pieces brought over from the Eastern European lands they originated from. Not American in my opinion, let along their performer.
He goes on to talk about other music he encountered that was perhaps the American sound he was after, the African American “Negro” music and Jazz. His argument is that “negro folk-song is a natural basis for the art of the white American.” He doesn’t back up his claim, which irritated me a little…what evidence is there of this? Earlier, he talks about a composer named; “Mr. John Powell, Virginian born and bred, suns himself in his native climate, and combines a cosmopolitan experience with suggestions from the negro music of his, ‘home town.” …what cosmopolitan experience? And what negro music of Virginia is there, I asked myself? I am a little surprised by the answers and was also surprised at my expectation of his story. For some reason, I didn’t expect John Powell to be a white male…not sure why because his name is a bit clearly traditional. He was a pianist and composer and was, according to some of the program notes from a concert given, a racist, “typifying “negros” as “savages” and “the child among the peoples.” How would his music be the most successful negro folk-song work when he wasn’t apart of this culture let alone respectful of it? CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE, as a friend of mine would say! :) Why was I so surprised though? This was the 1920s after all. This is WELL after the civil war but nowhere near a clear BIPOC equal rights age.
SO, I checked out John Powell's music anyway, link below. He is most famous for a piece called Rhapsodie nègre. In this excerpt you hear what might be considered his take on the musical interlude of African American folk-song. You hear a majority of it in the piano until the texture of the orchestra becomes a little more dense and ordamented. The “motif” or thematic material, perhaps a working song or a lullaby reimagined, comes back in the piano at around 16:40 mins, a bit mockingly I might add, with the orchestration suddenly in the background. And then at 16:57, the dense texture dissapears and the thematic theme returns building into the last section of this “Rapsody.” The last significant part is at 17:33, once again after the orchestra dissapears and we have heavy chords replacing the simple one note piano “motif.” Was this to drive home the point that he used “folk-song” elements? It seemed out of place to me so I wonder the actual significance of it was. Perhaps to make sure people understood it was derived from African American song.
I had to cross-reference this with what might be considered traditional African American songs during the era of slavery. Before I share the music I found, I would like to share a very interesting history on African American folk-tunes that I found in another article on The Library of Congress website…it’s a very long quote, so stick with me. “The slaves brought musical traditions from Africa with them. Many of their activities, from work to worship, were steeped in song. African Americans accompanied their labor with work songs that often incorporated field hollers — call and response chants tinged with falsetto whoops called “Arhoolie's.” …They also fashioned instruments similar to those they had known in Africa. For example, the modern banjo is a descendent of African banjos. Because colonists considered indigenous forms of African worship involving drumming and dancing to be idolatrous, the slaves performed their music-infused religious rites in seclusion. The slaves’ informal gatherings in praise houses and brush arbor meetings in the eighteenth century involved songs and chants like the ring shout, a shuffling circular dance to chanting and handclapping. Sometimes the participants would enter ecstatic trances.”
So, what I’m looking for in John Powell's music is perhaps the use of banjos, drumming, dance, religious influences, chanting or handclapping. Wouldn’t that make this “music critics” statement about how successful his fusion of theses genres actually true?? (For those interested in reading the whole article here is the link: https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197451#. If this doesn’t work lookup The Library of Congress, African American Song, no author was indicated.)
One such African American folk-song that I listened to and particularly liked was: “Come up, Horsey, Hey, Hey” performed by Vera Hall (vocals with humming) at On porch of home of Mr. & Mrs. W.P. Tartt, Livingston, Alabama, on May 26, 1939.” — the link below is not the version I found on The Library of Congress website, but it is the same song. Can you hear how Powell might have been influenced by this? I can see it with the simple tune and the fluidity of the movement, although that might be a stretch.
Another interesting example is a song called, “All the Pretty Little Horses.”
I use this example because the artist, Holly Cole, took the original song from a 1930’s lullaby sung in the slavery era. For the first minute of the piece it is purely her vocals, reminicent of the orignal song (of which I wasn’t able to embed here or I would have shown you.) Can we see some of these elements in Powell’s piece as well? If you are looking hard enough, perhaps you could. Some of the intruments in the Powell Rhapsody and the instruments used in “Pretty little Horses” like the oboe in Rhapsody and the entrance of the guitar in “Pretty Little Horses” could strike me as similar to perhaps a banjo or a quick paced recit like chant. But I’m not so sure Powell really brought the essence of African American music into his orchestrated song. Elements fo it…maybe, but as much as the “music critic” of the London Times claimed, I’m not so sure!
More later. TTFN!
