Black music ~ the dominant voice of the 20th Century

[french frank]

I have posted my comments as an edit to the initial post which received a complaint.

[ahinton]

Thanks so much for posting this! One of the great pianists, greatly admired by Horowitz, Peterson, Rubinstein, Rachmaninov, Gershwin, Bernstein, Ogdon, Stevenson, Previn and many so many others - not least that luminary of the keyboard, Godowsky. Few knew and understood more about the piano and pianists than Leopold Godowsky, as his writing for the instrument well shows - and Godowsky was not only so taken with the music of the Far East that it became the fons et origo of his ambitious piano cycle Phonoramas (otherwise known as Java Suite) which, like Albeniz's magnificent Iberia, comprises 12 pieces in four books of three each (albeit on a somewhat more modest scale), he wasn't averse to a little "black music" himself; of his seminal piano work, 54 Studien über die Etüden von Chopin, comprising some of the most elegant, exhaustive and imaginative commentaries on (all but one of) Chopin's studies that has ever been penned, no less than seven are devoted to inventive recastings of Op. 10 No. 6, the so-called "Black Key" study...

[Serial_Apologist]

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.

A long shot attempt at irony on my part that failed utterly to reach the target, AH!

[ahinton]

A long shot attempt at irony on my part that failed utterly to reach the target, AH!

Never mind; it's probably quite easy to miss targets in a place as big as Australia!...

I wonder what my pianist friend Richard Black would make of all of this - or indeed the composer Richard Blackford; as for Birtwistle's Night's Black Bird and Holloway's Domination of Black, well...

[Ian Thumwood]

French Frank

Whoever complained about my original post is either an idiot or a white supremicist. I can't believe that anyone coiuld ever have contrived that my post was racist - careful reading would have proved otherwise. My whole point was that it was extremely naive to have published an article in a BBC magazine wthout recognising the contribution the black musicians have made to 20th Century music.

Ferney's post is exceptional and well thought out. I totally agree with his comments. However, I would like to add that I think black musicians have made the way people think about music in a totally different way than in previous centuries. Gunther Schuller has written very eloquently as to how when Louis Armstrong first sang on his records in the mid-twenties how this changed the perception of how the human voice should sound. I think he should have also added the likes Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith in to the equation too. Prior to these pioneers vocalists were either folk musicians, opera singers, lieder singers or operetta. Even black composers like Joe Jordan were writing music that owed more to European culture.

The notion that "black" music was somehow "simpler" or limited to three chords may be an exageration of country blues but totally ignores the genius of Ellington , Shorter, Nichols, etc whose musical language may have borrowed from Classical composers but recast it as something totally fresh and original. From a point of view of rhythm, I would suggest that very little classical music is quite as sophisticated in this respect as most jazz. Even something like Jelly Roll Morton is amazingly complicated in this respect as early as 1926.

I would also add that the 20th century in making music more readily available through the radio or recorded media introduced a brave new world of music being fashionable / subject to trends. I think in popular music this has developed at a far greater rate than any when in the previous 500 years. Black musicians set the agenda in this change and even the "better" white musicians followed in their wake to a large degree. Amongst the record buying public a perception grew up (rightly or wrongly) that black music was euthentic whereas white music was derivative which existed ever since "race rec ords" in the 1920's were sold under the counter to a white audience. Later in the 60's this also manifested itself during the blues revivial. The fact that it is black musicians who have spearheaded this revolution is true in blues, jazz and all kinds of pop from Louis Jordan to Prince. I'm staggered that this was never introduced in the article .

[Beef Oven]

French Frank

Whoever complained about my original post is either an idiot or a white supremicist. I can't believe that anyone coiuld ever have contrived that my post was racist - careful reading would have proved otherwise.

Come on, you are being niave. Did you really think we wouldn't get our knickers in a twist about a discussion like this?

[ahinton]

French Frank

Whoever complained about my original post is either an idiot or a white supremicist. I can't believe that anyone coiuld ever have contrived that my post was racist - careful reading would have proved otherwise. My whole point was that it was extremely naive to have published an article in a BBC magazine wthout recognising the contribution the black musicians have made to 20th Century music.

You've misread what French Frank wrote about the complaint, although I accept that it's perhaps a little less clear than it might have been. FF's post reads "I have posted my comments as an edit to the initial post which received a complaint" and, by that, what is meant is not "the initial post" in this thread (i.e. yours) but "the initial post" that received a complaint, i.e. that of Sydney Grew, a fact that can be seen from the amendment to his first post in the thread which FF has edited and given a reason for editing.

I hope that I - and the evidence in this thread - have together now made it clear that there was no complaint about your post and that FF did not assume that this was the case.

[ahinton]

Come on, you are being niave. Did you really think we wouldn't get our knickers in a twist about a discussion like this?

See my post above and the evidence in support thereof; wrong knickers, wrong twist - OK?...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm glad you clarified this, ahinton: since frenchie's post, I've read and re-read Ian's OP trying to find what anyone might find to complain about, and wondering if her "edit to the initial post" meant that she'd cut something out. I hadn't noticed the amendment to the offending post: I find it generally best to ignore such comments.

EDIT: The comments in the offending post, that is; not frenchie's amendment/edit!

[Beef Oven]

See my post above and the evidence in support thereof; wrong knickers, wrong twist - OK?...

Are you stalking me hinton?

[french frank]

Ian,

As far as I know, no one complained about YOUR post. I was referring to the earlier one which received a complaint, the one to which I added my comment.

Ah! I see ahinton has rightly interpreted. I would have used OP or Original Post, if I had meant the first one in the thread.

My profuse apologies for the confusion.

[ahinton]

Are you stalking me hinton?

See FF's subsequent post for the answer to that unnecessary question.

[ahinton]

Come on, you are being niave. Did you really think we wouldn't get our knickers in a twist about a discussion like this?

"Niave"? Haven't you got your spelling in such a twist?

[Beef Oven]

"Niave"? Haven't you got your spelling in such a twist?

Are you stalking me hinton?

[JoeG]

Well judged ff the responses here answer most eloquently the accusations made by the earlier poster. Good music is good music and we should treasure from whatever culture it springs from - that is why festivals such as Womad and Musicport and programmes such as World on 3 and World Routes are so precious