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Black Music Month Celebrated in June in United States
By Michael Jay Friedman
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- American music reflects the diverse character of the American people. Each musical form reflects a mosaic of contributions by groups and individuals who arrived on U.S. shores from every corner of the world. It is difficult to imagine American music without the rich and continuing innovations of African Americans. Even as today’s hip-hop and rap owe much to the call-and-response patterns that black slaves brought from Africa, virtually every other American musical form similarly has been leavened by African-American traditions and innovations.
Spurred by the songwriter and record producer Kenny Gamble, President Jimmy Carter in 1979 designated June as Black Music Month. A quarter century later, President Bush continues to issue an annual Black Music Month proclamation.
The original African Americans were transported across the Atlantic to lives of involuntary servitude. They mostly came from West Africa, where call-and-response interaction between speaker and listener was common in civic and government gatherings, religion and music. As slaves, black Americans could not participate in government, but they were quick to adapt their native culture to Christian religious services, and to church music.
Church-going slaves of the 17th and 18th centuries would repeat, in call-and-response fashion, the hymns and psalms sung by the service leader. In the plantation fields of the American South, they employed these patterns in a variety of work songs, field hollers and other kinds of black folk music. Often improvised and typically syncopated (stressing the weak beat), these forms would develop in many directions and exert a strong influence on much of the nation’s popular music.
Slave religion also spurred the "Negro spiritual," often called a “jubilee.” Among the most beloved spirituals were Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and Roll Jordan Roll. Beginning in 1871, the touring Fisk Jubilee Singers, (based at Fisk University, a historically black college founded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1866) brought the spiritual, arranged for chorus, to much of the United States and Europe. The exposure helped catalyze the fusion of African American and other forms of popular music.
By the beginning of the 20th century, African-American music had evolved into new forms. Composers like Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake pioneered a piano style combining a regularly accented left (bass) hand beat with a highly syncopated right (treble) melody. It was called ragtime, and was one the genres that later combined to form jazz. Compositions like Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag (1899) transcended racial divisions and deepened the influence of black roots on American music.
At about the same time, the field hollers, work songs and other black music of the South gave birth to the blues. Incorporating a call and response pattern in lyrics (a-a-b pattern, "a" line repeated) or between vocals and instrumentation (often "slide guitar," applying a round metal tube rather than fingers to the guitar strings) and unique harmonic progressions, blues artists sang of sadness and melancholy in love. W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues (1912) is a leading example. Artists like B.B. King and John Lee Hooker continue the tradition. The blues, in its many regional (Chicago blues, Memphis blues, Delta blues) and other variations, remains popular in its own right, and its influence is apparent in the development of jazz, rock and later musical forms.
The black church remained a fecund source of musical inspiration. By 1930, elements of the blues and old Negro spirituals were crystallizing into gospel music. Thomas A. Dorsey, music director at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, was instrumental in popularizing the sound, which featured a full-throated vocalist accompanied by choir, piano or organ, and by energetic audience participation, often vigorous rhythmic handclapping. Mahalia Jackson, who would perform at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy and the funeral of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., frequently is cited as the finest vocalist of the gospel tradition.
Gospel placed a direct imprint on later, more secular forms of black music, like rhythm and blues (R & B) and soul. Artists like Aretha Franklin (a preacher's daughter), Sam Cooke (a preacher's son) and the Reverend Al Green each incorporated gospel elements into their personal, form-transcending styles.
These African-American sounds are a treasured part of the nation's cultural heritage. They continue to bring great enjoyment to millions. Their influence spread even further through two of America's most popular musical idioms -- jazz and rock -- and then into the new music of the 21st century.
For additional information on American music and art, see U.S. Life and Culture.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- American music reflects the diverse character of the American people. Each musical form reflects a mosaic of contributions by groups and individuals who arrived on U.S. shores from every corner of the world. It is difficult to imagine American music without the rich and continuing innovations of African Americans. Even as today’s hip-hop and rap owe much to the call-and-response patterns that black slaves brought from Africa, virtually every other American musical form similarly has been leavened by African-American traditions and innovations.
Spurred by the songwriter and record producer Kenny Gamble, President Jimmy Carter in 1979 designated June as Black Music Month. A quarter century later, President Bush continues to issue an annual Black Music Month proclamation.
The original African Americans were transported across the Atlantic to lives of involuntary servitude. They mostly came from West Africa, where call-and-response interaction between speaker and listener was common in civic and government gatherings, religion and music. As slaves, black Americans could not participate in government, but they were quick to adapt their native culture to Christian religious services, and to church music.
Church-going slaves of the 17th and 18th centuries would repeat, in call-and-response fashion, the hymns and psalms sung by the service leader. In the plantation fields of the American South, they employed these patterns in a variety of work songs, field hollers and other kinds of black folk music. Often improvised and typically syncopated (stressing the weak beat), these forms would develop in many directions and exert a strong influence on much of the nation’s popular music.
Slave religion also spurred the "Negro spiritual," often called a “jubilee.” Among the most beloved spirituals were Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and Roll Jordan Roll. Beginning in 1871, the touring Fisk Jubilee Singers, (based at Fisk University, a historically black college founded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1866) brought the spiritual, arranged for chorus, to much of the United States and Europe. The exposure helped catalyze the fusion of African American and other forms of popular music.
By the beginning of the 20th century, African-American music had evolved into new forms. Composers like Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake pioneered a piano style combining a regularly accented left (bass) hand beat with a highly syncopated right (treble) melody. It was called ragtime, and was one the genres that later combined to form jazz. Compositions like Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag (1899) transcended racial divisions and deepened the influence of black roots on American music.
At about the same time, the field hollers, work songs and other black music of the South gave birth to the blues. Incorporating a call and response pattern in lyrics (a-a-b pattern, "a" line repeated) or between vocals and instrumentation (often "slide guitar," applying a round metal tube rather than fingers to the guitar strings) and unique harmonic progressions, blues artists sang of sadness and melancholy in love. W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues (1912) is a leading example. Artists like B.B. King and John Lee Hooker continue the tradition. The blues, in its many regional (Chicago blues, Memphis blues, Delta blues) and other variations, remains popular in its own right, and its influence is apparent in the development of jazz, rock and later musical forms.
The black church remained a fecund source of musical inspiration. By 1930, elements of the blues and old Negro spirituals were crystallizing into gospel music. Thomas A. Dorsey, music director at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, was instrumental in popularizing the sound, which featured a full-throated vocalist accompanied by choir, piano or organ, and by energetic audience participation, often vigorous rhythmic handclapping. Mahalia Jackson, who would perform at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy and the funeral of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., frequently is cited as the finest vocalist of the gospel tradition.
Gospel placed a direct imprint on later, more secular forms of black music, like rhythm and blues (R & B) and soul. Artists like Aretha Franklin (a preacher's daughter), Sam Cooke (a preacher's son) and the Reverend Al Green each incorporated gospel elements into their personal, form-transcending styles.
These African-American sounds are a treasured part of the nation's cultural heritage. They continue to bring great enjoyment to millions. Their influence spread even further through two of America's most popular musical idioms -- jazz and rock -- and then into the new music of the 21st century.
For additional information on American music and art, see U.S. Life and Culture.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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