Dr. Whitney Slaten and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Jonathan Crane discuss the concept of military music in the United States and introduce the centers of influence during the reconstruction period following the Civil War.
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The discussion continues into the relationships between religious and military ritual practices. How do different musical cultures combine to form new expressions, and how they are born out of necessity or mandate? Movement, both physical and spiritual, is a critical part of these musical engagements.
Staff Sgt. Kristina Teuschler brings up important issues of the imbalance between the study of musics that influence American culture. It is important to recognize this complexity of a multitude of cultures, as well as the so-called “cultivated” versus “vernacular” debate. Bands, with their combination of winds, brass, and percussion, straddle the divide between “high” and “low” music.
"The repetition of stanzas as the dancers circled around and around with ever greater acceleration reinforced and deepened the spirit of familial attachment, drawing within the ancestral orbit slaves who may not have known either a father or a mother, their involvement being an extension of that of others, the circle symbolizing the unbroken unity of the community (Stuckey 1987: 29, 35)."
Stuckey, Sterling. 1987. Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America. New York: Oxford UP.
"What Stuckey does not say, but which will be clear to readers familiar with black culture, is that from…burial ceremonies, the ring straightened itself to become the Second Line of jazz funerals, in which the movements of the participants were identical to those of the participant in the ring—even to the point of individual counterclockwise movements by Second Line participants…And the dirge-to-jazz structure of the jazz funeral parallels the walk-to-shout structure of the ring shout, where “the slow and dignified measure of the ‘walk’ is followed by a double quick, tripping measure in the ‘shout’ (Floyd 1991: 267)."
Floyd, Samuel Jr. 1991. “Ring Shout! Literary Studies, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry.” Black Music Research Journal. Vol. 11: 265-287.
"The first jazzmen's conception of rhythm resulted from a combination of elements of the military march and the polka, and of the Negro's sense of rhythm. By introducing the polka's off-beats into marches and by syncopating the accents that traditionally marked the first three half beats in the polka, the Negroes made a timid but nonetheless decisive step toward rhythmic emancipation (Hodier 1956: 211)."
Hodier, Andre. 1956. Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence. New York. Grove Press.
"Although jazz is frequently considered America's main contribution to the world's musical heritage, an irony exists: much of the information written about jazz is incorrect. Mr. Hodier is either unaware of the facts or chooses to ignore that the "conception of rhythm" he speaks of is present in spirituals. Furthermore, it is known that all of the elements of syncopation have always existed, but sometimes the pupils influenced the teachers. This kind of influence can be noticed in the relationship between Fats Waller and James P. Johnson. Through listening to their individual recordings of "Carolina Shout" one can detect the influence of the student upon the master. Unfortunately, much of the written material on jazz seems to reflect only one aspect of the situation, and this leads to many false premises and assumptions (Taylor 1975: 6)"
Taylor, William “Billy.” The History and Development of Jazz Piano: A New Perspective For Educators. Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press.
Allen, W. F., Ware, C. P., & Garrison, L. M. (1995). Slave songs of the United States. Courier Corporation.
Kraaz, Sarah, M. (Ed.). (2019). Music and War in the United States. New York, NY: Routledge.
Southern, Eileen, (1997). The Music of Black Americans: A History. New York, NY: Norton.
H. Wiley Hitchcock papers http://archives.nypl.org/mus/18246
Waza Trumpets of Sudan https://youtu.be/AjFiWHT-Hds
Haitian Rara https://youtu.be/elWgKHHoG-s
Jamaican Jonkanoo https://youtu.be/qGbQpgr5lj8
The United House of Prayer (Holiness) Church of the U.S. Carolinas https://youtu.be/d1QnzTnhcw0
New Orleans Second Line https://youtu.be/6NyzpMpbdzQ
