--Louis Armstrong
(this quote is not directly related to the thoughts I explore here, but I like it and wanted to include it)
I am not at all a science person, but when I was reading Jon Cruz’s exploration of the black spiritual, I could not help but think in scientific terms. I thought of the right conditions, variables, hypotheses. What I liked most about his work was the way it challenged the notion that either artifacts or testimonies are sufficient in exploring the history of a cultural experience. They are important to study, but so too is the historical context that surrounds them. I think we often look at artifacts out of context without realizing 1) that our perceptions of the products are totally defined by our own knowledge and experience (for example: the way we perceive slave spirituals is influenced by the country and region we grew up in, what textbooks we have studied and what they say about the history of slavery, whether our family was involved in the slave trade—on either side, what our conceptions are about the lives, emotions, thoughts of slaves, what our conceptions are about the morality of slaveowners, etc. etc. etc.) and 2) that there is a complicated historical situation that these artifacts emerged from before they were “preserved” (for example—as Cruz explores—the slaves being unaccepted by white culture and thus needed to retain their cultural identity as West Africans, slaves being taught Christian tenants and hymns and the evolution in white owners as thinking of slaves as having “souls” which allowed them to do so, songs as anthems adopted for abolition, songs as ways to maintain confidence in the self despite being constantly put down).
Cruz discusses how looking at artifacts themselves led people to disregard the people who made them, projecting their own ideology of what those people thought or felt onto them through the reader’s interpretation of the song. He says, “one would never really need to know much about historical subjects who were displaced and rendered invisible by the triumph of their artifacts.”
Cruz aims to “move toward understanding the spiritual as a culminating point upon a sociohistorical map.” He “treat[s] black song making as a cultural site, an intersection, where we see social interests and social struggles coincide and entwine as we go through the process of discovery and mapping black culture.” I thought this was really interesting to look at the production of the songs as a place on a timeline, where slaves producing the song were reflecting what they had experienced, where they were at the moment in light of their context, and in some ways, alluding to what was to come. I thought it was fascinating the way he looked at the black university choirs’ performance of the spirituals and the excitement national and international audiences as fueling the research, transcription, preservation and performance of these songs.
I began to think about this too in relationship to music in my homestate of Louisiana. There has been a recent rise, over the past five years or so, in young Louisiana musicians creating Cajun or Zydecho bands—and oftentimes a mix of the two. They record, they play in Louisiana, they tour. The bands, like the Pine Leaf Boys, often cite their desire to play this music because they learned this style of music growing up and want to continue in the tradition of their parents and older Cajun musicians. They often put their own style and twist on traditional tunes, and add their own songs, written in traditional styles, to the mix. But the other fact is that more and more cities and communities throughout the United States have begun to host “folk music festivals,” “Cajun music festivals,” “bluegrass festivals” over the past decade or so. With the growth of these festivals—oftentimes free or with a low ticket price—event organizers have created a demand for these bands. Before, there were a few festivals throughout the country, mostly in large urban areas. But now smaller cities like Tucson and even small towns in states like California are joining in. With the interest in the community, these events are popular, and with this popularity comes a desire to bring in diverse acts from all over. We have an old-style country band, a old-timey band, a couple of blues musicians, now we need…. A Cajun Band.
A similar thing has happened with brass bands in New Orleans. Brass bands evolved out of the Mardi Gras tradition in New Orleans. Bands, most often from mostly African American schools, would march in the parades, and the most talented musicians, upon graduation, repurposed their skills into large brass ensembles. One such musician was Kermit Ruffins, who graduated from St. Augustine High School to form Rebirth Brass Band. Since Ruffins formed Rebirth over twenty years ago, the band has gone through many formations, with members cycling in and out. And over time, brass bands became another signifier for New Orleans—with bands playing gigs on MTV and touring the country. As brass bands became a signifier of New Orleans, traveling brass bands gave people from other places a taste of New Orleans without having to actually get on a plane. Now there are dozens of brass bands in the city—Hot 8 Brass Band, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Soul Rebels Brass Band, Treme Brass Band, New Orleans Brass Band. A further increase of popularity and notoriety of these bands came after Hurricane Katrina, when many bands were displaced and toured the country playing shows more out of necessity than desire. Their home was a wreck. Bands that typically were home for most of the year were on tour more, exposing more people throughout the U.S. to their music and to the “culture” of New Orleans.
In all these cases, studying the context for music making does not make the artifacts themselves less significant. In fact, quite the opposite. By taking the time to examine the artifacts in the historical location where they were constructed, we can see them in a richer, more fleshed-out light. For it is not just about the making of the product, but how that making was influenced by and in turn influenced the culture around it.
~ Lisa
Images:
Pine Leaf Boys-- from Pine Leaf Boys website, publicity shot
Rebirth Brass Band- By PABLEAUX JOHNSON for New York Times
Published: November 26, 2006
No comments:
Post a Comment