Repertoire advice? Early banjo pieces that show African influence?

[Jared Denhard]

Hi everyone--really enjoying everyone's videos and high level discourse, a relative rarity online these days, it seems!

Anyway, sorry if this has been beaten about somewhere before, but I'm putting together a little lecture/recital on traditional bloodlines of early banjo music, exploring African/ Celtic and European contributions to early repertoire and playing styles.

I wanted to ask if anyone could suggest some pieces that best represent the West African roots of the banjo, that would be good examples to include in this concert.

I was thinking of adapting some Ekonting riffs off of videos, but that seems kind of like extreme reverse engineering, since that music has obviously developed over the last 200 years, and mostly seems to consist of repeated ostinato figures under ornately sung melodies.

I think the argument can be made for "Injun Rubber Overcoat," with its bluesy flat 5th and call and response form, but would appreciate any other ideas or input. 

Thanks!

[Jared Denhard]

Wow, great comments--

The habanera rhythm was probably evolving in Argentina (tango) Cuba, Puerto Rico (danzon) and cakewalk (later) ragtime on the "mainland." Always an African/latin bloodline, but yes, African/Spanish musical cross pollination goes back to the renaissance (Canary Islands, etc)

That rhythm is also the main call of the lead drum in Ewe Gahu drumming (Ghana).

Traditional jazz aficionados call it the "hello my baby" rhythm, even though it's a lot older than that song.

It definitely makes a great starting point for a lively discussion, so many hints, little proof...

And Strumelia--"Pompey" is really intriguing, mainly for the attribution! The tune seems more like a European minuet or galliard, but if someone in the 1780s claimed it had African roots, deserves consideration. It can be played as a "Canarie," a 3/4 or 3/8 early baroque dance considered imported from the long colonized Canary Islands right off of West Africa. Once again, a gap...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBgGs39Or2U

[Strumelia]

Jared, yes, the 'Latin' music from places like Cuba and Puerto Rico is most definitely a collision of Spanish and African music, a few other influences thrown in.  But the African side can be plainly heard/seen.

Pompey (sorry I misspelled it)-  I recall the first time I heard this tune, without knowing anything about it at all..just idly listening to a playlist and it popped up.  It struck me like a ton of bricks that it sounded sooooo strongly African, and I immediately loved it for that reason.  It really effected me when I heard it.

[Tim Twiss]

What is a 19th Century African song that has any ties to "Pompey"?

Better said, what are the elements that would draw a similarity.....got a sample?

[Strumelia]

Tim, (if you are asking me?) all I can say is that it's an aural impression I get.  When i listen to African traditional stuff on youtube, on plucked lute instruments, then the tune Pompey... evokes for me the same- the elements that draw the similarity in my head are the rhythm, the note sequences and their emphasis.  The notes more playfully tumble vertically like a seesaw, rather than following a logical destination pathway that evolves the same expected way of european tunes.  Lousy way to describe it, but that's the best I can do.  I'm sorry, I cannot find tunes that show 'ties' to pompey or prove anything.   I cannot provide samples or proof.  Like I described, it was only my immediate impression, my feelings upon hearing it.

[Jared Denhard]

Hi Tim and Strumelia--here's a guy who kind of tries to make Pompey "the missing link."

I guess the way that the material could be played over a 3/4 or 6/8 feel would be the strongest argument, if I had to look for one. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Yw2pLQ8SA

Gets a pretty groovy maybe african feel going, Sure doesn't prove pedigree, but 

keeps the argument alive!

[Strumelia]

Hmm, ok like listen to the instrumental part (not the singing so much) of this:  http://youtu.be/Pc9Y_uu1KH8

To my ears, it has real similarities to a banjo tune like Pompey.  Listen to the variations towards the end as well. The playfulness of the notes and phrases repeating and tumbling up and down...not following the usual tune pattern of western or european music, not working its way to a musical 'conclusion' and not built around western chord changes.  I personally find less similarity between Pompey and the Charcoal Man for example, which sounds so very Irish and predictable to my ears.  It's all just my impressions, which prove nothing, but then I don't claim they do.  I'm no banjo scholar, like so many members here seem to be.

[Tim Twiss]

Maybe Pompey is an accompaniment to a higher melodic line.

[Strumelia]

Or maybe it's just an accompaniment to a high colonic.

Tim Twiss said:

Maybe Pompey is an accompaniment to a higher melodic line.

[Jared Denhard]

Yes, it is a shame that the original style is lost to history, and especially tantalizing that the minstrel technique and performance style was so meticulously documented in its own time. But that's the way it is in oral/folk tradition versus 'paper trained" music, I guess. Stuff just disappears, dies out.

[Jared Denhard]

Happy ending for the thread? 

[Strumelia]

There was of course more focus on documenting and/or promoting white musicians and performers than black musicians, so there is a serious gaping hole in the documentation of black banjo players early on.

The famous Cecil Sharp traveled through the Appalachians with his assistant Maud Karpeles, collecting and meticulously documenting the traditional songs of the local rural population, particularly interested in finding evidence of Anglo ballads, though they also documented local and American songs they encountered.  They had no interest in documenting black singing, however.  Black settlements were passed over altogether during their travels, as described in Maude's notes from their 1916 song collecting journey:

We arrived at a cove and got sight of log cabins that seemed just what we wanted.  Called at one.  A musical 'Good Morning', turned round.. and behold he was a negro.  We had struck a negro settlement.  Nothing for it but to toil back again.

Somewhat off topic, but Sharp's (an Englishman) description of hearing Appalachian fiddle and banjo is interesting:

These (tunes) were played by two youths, the one playing the air on the fiddle (con-sordini i.e. by hanging his clasp knife with partially opened blade on the bridge) accompanied by the other with arpeggios on the banjo.  The thing was very skilfully played, plumb in tune, and its constant repetition had a very hypnotic effect on me and apparently on the players ... the tunes look little enough when committed to paper, but the way they were played produced a very curious and not un-beautiful effect.

Also of possible note for those with the CD:  "For an excellent essay concerning the introduction of the banjo into the mountains, see Andy Cahan's 'Manley Reece and the Dawn of North Carolina Banjo' in the booklet accompanying The North Carolina Banjo Collection (Rounder CD 0439/40)."

[Mark Weems]

Paul, which evidences are you referring to?

Paul Ely Smith said:

Hm, I guess it was a little disappointing for me when I figured that out 30 years ago, since all the evidence on what African-Americans were doing with the banjo is very interesting (more interesting to me, frankly, than trying to play melodies) and I wish the minstrels had been paying more attention.  I am more interested in the African-American tradition, since its influence was vastly more important to 20th-century music.  But that's just me.