Black music ~ the dominant voice of the 20th Century

[Ian Thumwood]

This thread has been prompted by an article in the BBC history magazine last month which looked at the a variety of people , pieces of music and incidents which marked the evolution of music over the last 500 or so years. As a fan of jazz I was intrigued that it got scant attention with the article largely being devoted to Classical music, opera and then more popular music through the 20th Century before culminating in the Cowell-ification of music with the likes of Rihanna. Obviously when you have distilled the "prime" incidents in music to about 12 events there is always plenty of room for debate but I was shocked that only in the last case was the musician involved not white. At the same time, I've also started David Schiff's controversial book "The Ellington Century" which places the jazz composer Duke Ellington centrestage as the most significant composer of the last century sharing a pre-eminant reputation with Ravel and Bartok. I've only just started reading this book and will post my opinion on the Jazz Messageboard when I have finished it.

In both cases, the writing set me thinking about the music of the last century and just how significantly the music of black musicians influenced and in some cases dominated all aspects of 20th Century music. there are hundreds of examples that I can think off where black music has defined the sound of the last 100 years far more than their white counterparts. I think popular dancing owed a lot to bandleader James Reece Europe whilst at the same time country blues emerged as one of the first recorded musics to describe social history. Within a decade jazz had emerged to become perhaps the most significant and enduring musical movement of the 20th century by far outlastin Impressionism, Serialism, Post-Modernism, etc. In 2013 jazz still continues to evolve and the likes of Gavin Bryars have commented that it is impossible for Classical composers not to have bee influenced by jazz is they want to remain relevant. On top of this black popular music has designed this field since the late forties with rock n' Roll through to Hip Hop and Rap. It could be argued that the latter is marking an end to the importance of black music as there isn't a great deal happening in the music. However, black popular music has includes the likes of Hendrix, Michael Jackson , Motown , Prince, Witney Houston, etc, etc and become the template against which white pop acts struggle to match. Even a comparison between The Beatles and Motown demonstrates the wide gulf with black artists generally standing up to scrutiny for a longer duration.

[Serial_Apologist]

In American music, yes. Citing commercial pop and soul as altogether positive outcomes of jazz's influence I'd have to disagree with. Outside America I wouldn't place jazz above Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, Messiaen, Prokofiev, Takemitsu.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

I was really shocked by the BBC History magazine article for it's conclusions. Whilst I agree with you about the greatness of Debussy, Bartok and Messaien and all three of whom clearly existed with absolutely no contact with jazz or any other "black music" there are significant composers like Ravel who took a lot of influence from jazz at least. Of your list, I would put to you that only Debussy probably has a wider reputation - most fans of any music are likely to be unaware of Toru Takemitsu who is probably too oscure to have registered any significant impact on the general consciousness. (I would add that I am a fan, even if I much prefer Messaien! ) Like it or not, American music has dominated music since the advent of recording and the development of the gramphone and the radio have caused the biggest impact on musical influence in history. It is even open to conjecture whether the web will have such an impact. As a fan of jazz it is easy to paint a picture that places this music centre stage yet I think this is nothing compared to the impact of popular music where black artists have consistently out-performed their white counterparts and have also set the trend for how the music develops. The ability of someone like Michael Jackson to reach such a vaste audience would not have been imaginable to any Classical composer nor would his ability to set the trend by which other artists have followed. Even hugely successful white artists in popular music like Elvis could not have existed without the (superior) contribution of black artists who made someone like Presley possible.

Taken as a whole, you are right about the importance of American music but perhaps we should be more specific and acknowledge that, as an aggregate, white artists in popular music have either been derivative or not particularly good when viewed over the perspective of time and the ability of their music to endure. The article in the BBC magazine was controversial to begin with notwithstanding the fact that all the achievements until Rihanna (of all people!!) were white. Perhaps the Schiff book is too much the other way but his arguments are entertaining even if I'm not quite convinced. (I think a prolonged session listening to the selected tracks on Youtube will be necessary. ) I don't think my thread is too controversial even if it is a generalisation. However, if Western Europeans can , at all, be said to have "owned" music up until 1900, from this date onwards I would suggest that the influence and important of black American musicians of all kinds of oeuvres defined a large part of the 20th century - atleast until the advent of Rap. Almost worthy to start another thread as to whether Prince was the last truly "great" black musical artist?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Like it or not, American music has dominated music since the advent of recording and the development of the gramphone and the radio have caused the biggest impact on musical influence in history.

I think this is the point that totally validates your Thread Title, Ian. In previous Centuries, it was the Music from the European literate traditions that dominated what was considered important, discussed and valued by writers also from those traditions. With recordings and mass media, Musicians from aural/oral traditions were able to present their Art first-hand, by-passing the need for approval from commentators ignorant of the impulses, traditions and aesthetics behind these Musics. This, together with the serious questioning of the Western Cultural values that had led to Industrial Capitalism (with its dependence on slavery) and the two World Wars as well as to Mozart and Mahler, led to greater respect for Black Musics, especially from the young working-classes of Europe and the United States (themselves also victims of the exploitative Capitalist machine).

There is a two-forked development after the Second World War: commercialization (in which the Business World increasingly exploited Black Music for profit) and Academic credibility, in which Musics of Black Origin became as valid an area for intellectual discussion and consideration as any other. Too simplistic a division, I know, but the broad streams are sort-of there, even if there are myriads of tributaries and oxbows the closer we look at the terrain.

So, I've no problem with the Thread Title: it seems self-evident to me. Which is not to say that "dominant" = "only" or "best". There is now, I feel (and I so hope I'm wrong on both accounts), the twin danger of the neglect of the Western Classical Traditions ( = "Museum stuff"; not a living culture) and the reluctance to "allow" Black Musics to follow the courses that its Musicians discover for it (= "(Jazz) don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"). I first started reading serious Jazz journalism when the best reviews of Kolbbeinn Bjarnason's CD of Ferneyhough's Complete Music for Flute appeared in Jazz magazines (the "Classical" rags hadn't a clue!) - it seems to me that the best means of survival for both Modern Jazz and "Contemporary Classical" is precisely this mutual support.

[Serial_Apologist]

Superb post, ferney.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

There is a two-forked development after the Second World War: commercialization (in which the Business World increasingly exploited Black Music for profit) and Academic credibility, in which Musics of Black Origin became as valid an area for intellectual discussion and consideration as any other. Too simplistic a division, I know, but the broad streams are sort-of there, even if there are myriads of tributaries and oxbows the closer we look at the terrain.

reading the biography of Lester Young and his early career as a dance musician in the 1920s commercialism was a well entrenched feature of music with band leaders and Uncles behaving in ways we would know as gang masters now .... Louis A was not playing in brothels for art's sake surely the odd dollar changed hands ... let us not carve the reality to suit the arguments of the negator of negation eh? he used another n word pretty foully as well ...

in general i agree with Ian except for the word black, jazz is mutt, creole; a new language forged from the languages of Africa, Europe and the Caribbean .... and the orphanage ... a practitioner led development which very quickly became widely irresistible, addictive even, for music practitioners from all over the place ... and if jazz did not have this attraction how else would it spread and influence the music of a century .... [leaving aside the demi monde and its temptations as part of this process] the best economic analysis of early jazz is the one very firmly based in working the cotton fields .. if you could travel around playing in dance bands it was a no brainer ... with a certain buzz of freedom ....

imagine the club scene in NYC in the late forties early fifties when crowds of people would follow the legends of improvisation with anticipation and enthusiasm ... no wonder the golden year of jazz is 1959 and ij New York ... that city made the music what it is and enlarged its influence to global proportions .... on the back of the swing revolutuion in the war years ...after fifties NYC we have the concert hall and the recital as the mode for jazz and the academy is now taking a lot of notice ...

[Sydney Grew]

I find the so-called "black music" an unacceptably degraded and debased form, and men of spirit should struggle against it wherever they encounter it. To accept it uncomplainingly is a kind of crime. It really originates only from one small area of the world, which, while it may have a largish population, is of little or no significance where Art and Culture are concerned.

[Ed: An official complaint has been received about this post. In view of subsequent posts and the arguments put forward, I will let it stand since I consider that the later posts fully refute the opinion that black music 'is of little or no significance where Art and Culture'. But further, given the poster's well-known previous comments on this subject, I do believe that the comments had an unacceptable racist intent. Such posts will in future be deleted.

ff]

[Serial_Apologist]

I find the so-called "black music" an unacceptably degraded and debased form, and men of spirit should struggle against it wherever they encounter it. To accept it uncomplainingly is a kind of crime. It really originates only from one small area of the world, which, while it may have a largish population, is of little or no significance where Art and Culture are concerned.

Which is doubtless why you choose to live in Australia

[ahinton]

I find the so-called "black music" an unacceptably degraded and debased form, and men of spirit should struggle against it wherever they encounter it. To accept it uncomplainingly is a kind of crime. It really originates only from one small area of the world, which, while it may have a largish population, is of little or no significance where Art and Culture are concerned.

How then do you account for its widespread influence on European musicians such as Ravel, Stravinsky, Milhaud and heaven knows who else?

On what grounds would you conjecture that Richard Rodney Bennett, (who died just one month ago today and had been a pupil of composers as diverse as Lennox Berkeley, Cornelius Cardew and Pierre Boulez, absorbed a certain kind of jazz into his highly varied means of expression as both composer and performer?

Why should anyone "complain" about such music just because they happen to dislike it? - wouldn't it be better simply to avoid listening to it, having first listened to enough of it to establish that it's not the kind of things to which one might want to listen further?

"A kind of crime" occurs only when a kind of law has been transgressed; I am unaware of any laws requiring anyone to complain about any kind of music anywhere, even in Iran!

Who and what are "men of spirit" and why should they be the only ones entitled to "struggle against" such music? (whatever that means - how do you "struggle against" any music?)...

Presuming you to refer to America when you describe it as just "one small area of the world", is it really so, given that it occupies more than 9.5m km² and, at over 315m, is the world's third most populous country? And should you in any case be referring only to America and not also to Africa which, as the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent, occupies at least 30m km², covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of its total land area and, as home to more than 1bn people (as of 2009, see table), accounts for about 15% of the world's total human population? Hardly "one small area of the world", surely?

[ahinton]

Which is doubtless why you choose to live in Australia

I omitted mention of Australia in my post above, but is there no "black music" there? At less than 23m, Australia may be far from populous - less so, indeed, that the municipality of Shanghai - it's hardly small in area, its 7.5+ km² making it the sixth largest country in the world.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Mr Grew if you had made that commentary about degraded black music in the jazz thread i would have removed your post .... it is close to, if not actually, a racist comment and is most unwelcome in its spirit and intent ... you could do us a favour and delete it your self?

[Sydney Grew]

That's wrong - the degradation and debasement I am writing about is in the harmony. Most of the pieces it has been my misfortune to overhear use only three or four chords, repeated over and over and over again. That is degraded music. That is debased music. "Race" has nothing whatever to do with it.

[ahinton]

That's wrong - the degradation and debasement I am writing about is in the harmony. Most of the pieces it has been my misfortune to overhear use only three or four chords, repeated over and over and over again. That is degraded music. That is debased music. "Race" has nothing whatever to do with it.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that it does. The "degradation" and "debasement" to which you refer each imply a kind of dismembering and dissolution of something; the "harmony" to which you refer (and indeed all else that you imply in your statement) relates to European "classical" music and even that from only the past few centuries, whereas the kind of music that you so vehemently deride here is, I think, Afro-American, although I daresay you could be persuaded to say something along not dissimilar lines about the music of India and the Far East, China and Mongolia and Latin America that would in all probability be equally distasteful and unenlightening in its determination to deem it inferior in every way to Western "classical" music and its steadfast refusal to accept pertinent cultural differences and origins.

I note also that you have omitted to respond to why certain non-European musics have exerted influence on so many diverse composers, especially in the context of its implied inferiority.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

That's wrong - the degradation and debasement I am writing about is in the harmony. Most of the pieces it has been my misfortune to overhear use only three or four chords, repeated over and over and over again. That is degraded music. That is debased music. "Race" has nothing whatever to do with it.

well if race and debased are not entangled in your post perhaps you might amend the post to make this clear

historically the repetitive use of three or four chords is a feature of both naive traditional music all over the globe, and also commercial music from tin pan alley; .... so you are inaccurate if not offensive ...

[MrGongGong]

That's wrong - the degradation and debasement I am writing about is in the harmony. Most of the pieces it has been my misfortune to overhear use only three or four chords, repeated over and over and over again. That is degraded music. That is debased music. "Race" has nothing whatever to do with it.

So I guess we won't be seeing you at the La Monte Young fest then ?

The problem with bread is that it doesn't taste green enough !