Great Thread, Janfriend!

badujunkie said:

Why "thank you!!!Happy Black Music month to you too!...I have to say that Janfriend and others have done an amazing job of posting information about the various forms of music, its history and the plethora of Black Artists around the world that have made major contributions to the music industry. You've stated you listen to music from Black Artists all the time, so why not just enjoy reading about the history and many contributions that Black Artists have made to this industry.....and with that being said we shall continue celebrating "Black Music" month.....enjoy!
[Edited 6/27/07 8:24am]

THE UNFORGETTABLE, NATHANIEL ("NAT KING COLE") ADAMS COLE
Piano, Vocals







"Born Nathaniel Adams Coles in 1917, at four he moved to Chicago when his father was called to the True Light Baptist Church. Even at that age he could sing "Yes, We Have No Bananas" as he accompanied himself on the piano. His first public performance as a pianist was at four in Chicago's Regal Theater. His mother, who was his first music teacher, wanted him to become a classical pianist.

Although as early as 12 he played the organ and sang in his father's church, his interests were with jazz - an interest and type of music that displeased his parents because of Jazz's connection with nightclubs and the sporting life. However, three of Nat's brothers - Eddie, Fred and Isaac - were already jazz musicians, and Nat first played piano in Eddie Coles's jazz band, the Rogues of Rhythm.

In 1936 he moved to Los Angeles where he formed a group that later became the King Cole Trio. In 1943, he recorded his first national hit record, "Straighten Up and Fly Right," which was based on one of his father's sermons and on a traditional black folktale.

Success followed with "It's Only a Paper Moon" in 1945, "The Christmas Song" in 1947, "Nature Boy" in 1948, "Mona Lisa" in 1949 and "Too Young" in 1951.

Cole was the first black jazz musician to have his own weekly radio show (1948-49).

In early 1956, Cole returned to Alabama, where his integrated group played to a segregated audience in the municipal auditorium in Birmingham. Four members of the White Citizens Council attacked him on the stage. Although hurt, Cole returned to the stage and completed his performance for the audience of 4,000. Cole, who had frequently visited in Montgomery, vowed never to return to the South, and he did not.

Later that year he became the first black to have a weekly show on network television (1956-57), but the show was canceled because it could not find a national sponsor. Although Nat 'King' Cole moved away from jazz, and is best known as a melodious, smooth singer of such popular songs as "Pretend," "Route 66," "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" and "Rambling Rose," his stronger claim to a place in musical history is as a jazz pianist. He is also known as an actor in "St. Louis Blues" (1958) and "Cat Ballou" (1964)."
[Edited 6/25/07 9:22am]

CAB CALLOWAY
Musician, "Big Band Music" Bandleader, Actor..icon










"Cab Calloway was a legendary fireball of talent, whose infectious "hi-de-hi's," "ho-deho's," scattin', and jivin', in a baritone singing voice rich and vibrant, became the spirited cry of people wanting to be happy. "Every time I make an appearance on the stage to entertain people is a pleasure," Cab once enthused to me. "It's my top point of my life. Every time." He had conquered every branch of show business, from Harlem to Hollywood, so, toward the end of his memorable career which lasted more than 65 years, I asked Cab what the continuing attraction to performing was. "The audiences everywhere," he answered. "I don't care where it is. When I go to entertain people, boom, that's it! I give. That's all there is to that."

Perhaps we should have expected something special, since he was born on Christmas night, December 25, 1907, in Rochester, New York. The second of six children of Cabell and Martha Calloway, he was named Cabell III, after his father and grandfather. "My family was a middle, class family. We didn't have too much money," Cab said. When he was 6-years-old, they moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where, after school, he sold newspapers, shined shoes, was a checker, waited tables, and walked horses at the racetrack. His parents hoped young Cab would someday study law, but, by the time he graduated from high school at the age of 17, he had already made up his own mind to be an entertainer. "In high school I began to play drums and to sing with a small group and even do vaudeville with some kids from school," Cab recalled. "And best of all, I found out that I could get paid for entertaining. I could do two of the things most important to me - at the same time make people happy and make money.


Calloway's older sister, Blanche, was a singer and his idol. She was working in Chicago, in "Plantation Days," one of the first major African-American revues. Blanche gave him advice, and, when the show needed a replacement in a vocal quartet for a singer who was ill, she helped Cab get hired. From there, he worked in some clubs, among them the Sunset Cafe, gradually building up a reputation as a good singer, and a reliable and likeable emcee. This led to an offer to front the Alabamians, an 11-piece band that had come to Chicago. The outfit played jazz and novelties acceptably; but when Calloway took the bandstand, things perked up considerably."
[Edited 6/25/07 9:21am]

BILLIE HOLIDAY
Blues, Jazz Singer










"Billie Holiday was a true artist of her day and rose as a social phenomenon in the 1950s. Her soulful, unique singing voice and her ability to boldly turn any material that she confronted into her own music made her a superstar of her time. Today, Holiday is remembered for her masterpieces, creativity and vivacity, as many of Holiday's songs are as well known today as they were decades ago. Holiday's poignant voice is still considered to be one of the greatest jazz voices of all time.

Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan) grew up in jazz talent-rich Baltimore in the 1920s. As a young teenager, Holiday served the beginning part of her so-called "apprenticeship" by singing along with records by Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong in after-hours jazz clubs. When Holiday's mother, Sadie Fagan, moved to New York in search of a better job, Billie eventually went with her. She made her true singing debut in obscure Harlem nightclubs and borrowed her professional name - Billie Holiday - from screen star Billie Dove. Although she never underwent any technical training and never even so much as learned how to read music, Holiday quickly became an active participant in what was then one of the most vibrant jazz scenes in the country. She would move from one club to another, working for tips. She would sometimes sing with the accompaniment of a house piano player while other times she would work as part of a group of performers.

At the age of 18 and after gaining more experience than most adult musicians can claim, Holiday was spotted by John Hammond and cut her first record as part of a studio group led by Benny Goodman, who was then just on the verge of public prominence. In 1935 Holiday's career got a big push when she recorded four sides that went on to become hits, including "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You." This landed her a recording contract of her own, and then, until 1942, she recorded a number of master tracks that would ultimately become an important building block of early American jazz music.

Holiday began working with Lester Young in 1936, who pegged her with her now-famous nickname of "Lady Day." When Holiday joined Count Basie in 1937 and then Artie Shaw in 1938, she became one of the very first black women to work with a white orchestra, an impressive accomplishment of her time.

In the 1930s, when Holiday was working with Columbia Records, she was first introduced to the poem "Strange Fruit," an emotional piece about the lynching of a black man. Though Columbia would not allow her to record the piece due to subject matter, Holiday went on to record the song with an alternate label, Commodore, and the song eventually became one of Holiday's classics. It was "Strange Fruit" that eventually prompted Lady Day to continue more of her signature, moving ballads.

Holiday recorded about 100 new recordings on another label, Verve, from 1952 to 1959. Her voice became more rugged and vulnerable on these tracks than earlier in her career. During this period, she toured Europe, and made her final studio recordings for the MGM label in March of 1959.

Despite her lack of technical training, Holiday's unique diction, inimitable phrasing and acute dramatic intensity made her the outstanding jazz singer of her day. White gardenias, worn in her hair, became her trademark. "Singing songs like the 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck," she wrote in her autobiography. "I've lived songs like that."

Billie Holiday, a musical legend still popular today, died an untimely death at the age of 44. Her emotive voice, innovative techniques and touching songs will forever be remembered and enjoyed."
[Edited 6/26/07 6:27am]

Thank you to janfriend for easily the best thread on this site I have seen in a long time. I never knew there were so many real musicians over time and reading of their struggles for their art really opened my eyes to appreciating their skill more.
Also its good you didn't mention anything negative like the gangsta rap that so many people associate black music with, its clearly obvious theres so much more to Balck music than the chart garbage that is served up today. Even artists like Prince and Michael Jackson are ahead of people like Jay Z and Akon and Chingy, yet miles behind Miles Davis, Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Scott Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald and Jelly Roll Morton.

Thank you very much. Here in New Zealand, we have a New Zealand music month, but haven't got a Maori Music month yet (waiata maramataka o Maori). But we should press for one just like you guys have.

tane1976 said:

Thanks for the thank you!

btw, there was a brief mention of gangsta rap

Aboriginal music

The music of the Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders is very much part of the social fabric of their life, their history and their culture It has a haunting and mysterious quality that draws the listener into the history, culture and the ancient dreamtime of the Aboriginal people

Although there were variations in the customs and skills of the hundreds of different
Aboriginal tribes across the vast continent of Australia, they all lived in equally close
community with their environment. The Dreamtime, the Aborigine's spiritual guide, encouraged their intimate involvement with the landscape, whether their home was on the lush coastal plains or in the harsh interior. They knew what to eat, how to prepare it, where and when to find it and, most important, how to protect their resources for the future. What the elders knew about survival, they passed on by example, legend and ritual. Along with this, there were songs for every occasion - hunting songs, funeral songs, gossip songs and songs of ancestors, landscapes, animals, seasons, myths and Dreamtime legends.

Indigenous Australian music, in this context, is taken to include the music of the Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who are collectively referred to as indigenous Australians. Music has formed an integral part of the social, cultural and ceremonial observances of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, down through the millennia of their individual and collective histories to the present day.

A song is sung as a series comprising many short verses, each of which tells about a particular event or place associated with the ancestor; or the performance may be a full ceremonial one which includes portrayal of relevant events in the performance of
dances accompanied by the singing of the appropriate verses.

The song associated with any one totemic "line" will have the one melodic form throughout. This means, in the case of very long "lines" of songs, where the ancestor is reputed to have crossed thousands of miles of territory, that the characteristic melodic form will be found in areas with different languages and musical techniques.

Because of the latter differences, an outside observer may well fail to recognise extreme sections of the one song-line as conforming to the same musical pattern, but that they do conform has been repeatedly stressed by performers and shown by a number of detailed analyses. The concept differs from our experience of melodic sameness; it consists of repetitions of sections of melody for a set proportion of the time the total verse takes to perform.

Because this technique allows flexibility in those areas of musical expression which tend to change from one tribe to another, the basic information can be kept intact even though the total history may be retained, section by section, in many different tribal areas.

This means that, even when a visitor from afar is unable to understand the language that the locals are using in a song, he can determine, from the musical structure, to which totemic line the song belongs.

And, because his own totemic song has been very strong conditioning agent in the total
processes of his education to adult status in the community, the recognition of his own song in another area will have very deep significance. These history songs link the time long past with the present; the singer is part of a continuum; he is reliving events of another era, and is yet part of them.

The Australian Aboriginal people developed a number of rare, unique and interesting musical instruments. These include the didgeridoo, the bullroarer, and the gum-leaf. Most well known is the didgeridoo, a simple wooden tube blown with the lips like a trumpet, which gains its sonic flexibility from controllable resonances of the player's vocal tract. The bull-roarer is a simple wooden slat whirled in a circle on the end of a cord so that it rotates about its axis and produces a pulsating low-pitched roar. The gum-leaf, as the name suggests, is a tree leaf, held against the lips and blown so as to act as a vibrating valve with "blown-open" configuration. Originally intended to imitate bird-calls, the gum-leaf can also be used as a musical instrument.

The didgeridoo originated in Arnhem Land on the northern coastline of central Australia, and has some similarity to bamboo trumpets and even bronze horns developed in other cultures, though it pre-dates most of these by many millennia. The characteristic feature is that the didgeridoo, which is a slightly flaring wooden tube about 1.5 metres in length, is simply hollowed out by natural termites ("white ants") from the trunk of one of the small trees of the region. After cutting down, the instrument is cleaned out with a stick, the outside refined by scraping and then painted with traditional designs, and the blowing end smoothed by adding a rim of beeswax.

The predominant sound of the didgeridoo is a low-pitched drone with frequency around 70Hz, but depending significantly upon the length of the instrument and the flare of its bore. In traditional use, the didgeridoo, with clap-sticks for emphasis, accompanies songs or illustrates traditional stories about ancestors and animals Recently, however, its use has spread into the popular music domain and has had world-wide influence.

The bullroarer consists of a simple wooden slat, 30 to 40cm in length and 5 to 7cm wide that is whirled around in a circle on the end of a length of cord. The slat rotates under the influence of aerodynamic forces and generates a pulsating sound with a frequency typically around 80Hz. This sound is an important feature of Aboriginal initiation ceremonies. The instrument itself is by no means unique to Australia, as similar instruments have been used by populations as diverse as those of ancient Egypt and Northern Canada.

The gumleaf is altogether more primitive as a musical instrument, since it consists simply of a leaf from one of the various species of Eucalypt trees growing throughout Australia, which held against the lips using the fingers of both hands. It does, however, have a long tradition and culture. Although it takes a good deal of trial and error for a beginner to even produce a sound from a gumleaf, a skilled player can control the pitch with good accuracy over a range of more than an octave and play simple tunes with ease.

As in most cultures, the Aborigines also used percussive instruments in their ceremonies. Often these were simply two boomerangs clashed together, but they also made special shaped sticks for this purpose. Because the wood used is a fine-grained hardwood, the clapsticks are physically long-lasting and produce a sharp and well defined sound.

In their usual form, these sticks are about 200mm in length and 20mm in diameter and
are shaped to a long point at each end. One stick is held in each hand and they are struck together at about the mid-point of each. The pointed ends ensure that the fundamental transverse vibration has a high frequency, so that the percussive effect stands out well above the low-pitched drone of the didgeridoo. The musical instruments of the Australian Aboriginal people have come into world prominence because of the popularity of the didgeridoo, both as a tourist item and as a musical instrument. It is only recently that we have begun to have an appreciation of the acoustical subtleties associated with performance on this and the other ancient instruments of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.

Indigenous Australian music has become a vehicle for social protest, and has been linked, by both performers and outsiders, with similar forms from Native Americans; Jamaican singer Bob Marley is often credited with helping to revive traditional Aboriginal music, as did the movie Wrong Side of the Road, which depicted Aboriginal reggae bands struggling for recognition and linked it with land rights. Yothu Yindi's sudden pop success in the 1990s surprised many observers, and helped bring many Aboriginal issues into mainstream Australian affairs. In 1980, the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) began broadcasting traditional music and has become extremely successful. CAAMA has helped popularise remote musical communities, such as Blek Bala Mujik whose "Walking Together" became a sort of Australian anthem after its use in a Qantas commercial. The Deadlys are the major showcase of contemporary Indigenous Australian music.

BLACK VIOLIN - Kev Marcus, Wil B and & DJ TK
For more info: www.blackviolin.net

(You can watch Black Violin perform with Mike Shinoda of Fort Minor in this AOL Session - click on link)
http://music.aol.com/vide...fort-minor

Black Violin performance at the Apollo click on link:
http://www.blackviolin.ne...video.html


On May 21st 2005 Black Violin, two classically trained musicians took home the title "2005 Apollo Legends" which catapulted them to international fame










"KeV Marcus and Wil b ..these two gentlemen, along with their DJ TK ,have created the ultimate synergy between classical and Hip-Hop music, and with it an incredible opportunity to reach young children. Since their triumph at the Apollo, Black Violin has toured with Linkin Park's lead singer Mike Shinoda throughout the country, performed at the NFL Kick off party with Puff Daddy "Diddy", performed at the Billboard Awards with Alicia Keys, been featured on the Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Lil Kim's, Brooke Hogan's upcoming albums, and has been giving an Award by the Brooklyn Center for Performing Arts for their Outstanding Contributions to Middle & High School Performing Arts Students. Kev Marcus, and Wil b, both graduates of Dillard Performing Arts High School, used their musical talents to earn full scholarships to college. Now Black Violin wants to make sure that America's young people get the same exposure to the arts, and therefore the same opportunity that they did.


WIL-B
Wil-B “Simply Sick” age 23, attended Dillard High School of Performing Arts, and joined the school band where he played the saxophone. At the age of 13 he was mistakenly put in the strings section of the band. But as luck would have it he mastered and grew to love it. He has participated with local pop orchestras such as the Young Artist Contemporary Orchestra in Palm Beach, Florida. Not only is this young man talented on the violin but he also can sing, play the piano, drums, trumpet and the bass guitar. His influences include some well - known musical artists such as Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, AZ, Jill Scott, Talib Kwali and Ludacris.

KEV MARCUS
The second master of this unique duo, Kev Marcus, age 23, also attended Dillard High School of Performing Arts. He was encouraged by his mother and teachers at the age of nine to begin playing the violin. From there he grew so intrigued by it that he couldn’t let it go. He also began to participate with the local pop orchestras, the Miami Symphony and was also a semi-finalist in the Sphinx National Competition for Blacks and Latino’s in 2000. His musical artist influences are past great pioneers of the music world, such as Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Nat King Cole. Kev Marcus also has been influenced by some of today’s artists such as Mos Def, Notorious BIG, and Tupac Shakur."


DJ TK
DJTK, known by most as “Lethal Weapon”, is a part of The Black Violin and The Kidz Entertainment; two companies filled with a roster of talented artists, DJs, producers, and promoters that have been involved in some of the biggest events in the South Florida area. TK has spun records at significant events such as the annual Bob Marley Show.

The Movement
After high school the two enrolled at the Florida State University. There they met their manager Sam G and co-founded the production DKNEX which stands for Di-Versatile Music. Their group name, “Black Violin” is derived from the influence of a famous Jazz violinist, Stuff Smith, who changed the art and way of music played on a violin, and whose last album was entitled Black Violin.

“Black Violin” captivated the audience in Harlem and clinched the Showtime at the Apollo 2005 Legend title. Black Violin's notoriety has risen with their amazing performance accompanying Alicia Keys at the 2004 Billboard Awards, and by performing on the same bill with some of the industry's biggest artists. Such artists include Aerosmith, The Eagles, Stevie Nicks, Linkin Park, 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Nas, Fabolous, Ciara, Fat Joe, Lil Wayne, Tony Touch, and Miami's own Iconz and Wrecognize just to name a few. Black Violin’s ardor for music and neo-classical, innovative, urban style of violin mixtures, vocals, and funk has exploded onto the music scene with the consistency of listeners wanting more and more.

The duo has also performed on the Thank God its Friday Comedy Tour, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Carson Daly Show, Good Morning Chicago, Fox News In the Morning, BET Black Film Festival, and Jax Live ESPN to name a few. With events ranging from concerts, to colleges, to elementary schools, to Bar Mitzvah’s and their musical knowledge there is no reason this unique duo should not be your number one performance band and on your tour list."


Comment: It's great to see that there are still young people interested in and learning the value of "real music by real musicians."
[Edited 6/26/07 10:55am]

tane1976 said:

co-sign. Great thread Janfriend.

African Music


African music has been a major factor in the shaping of what we know today as blues and jazz. These styles have all, to some extent, borrowed from African rythms and sounds, brought over the Atlantic ocean by slaves. Paul Simon, on his album "Graceland" has used African bands and music along with his own lyrics.

Sub-Saharan music has as its special feature a rhythmic music that has spread to other regions, especially to the Americans. The unique way of African polyrhythm is the distinguishing coherence of the African rhythmic pattern.

African music is as vast and varied as the continent's many nations and ethnic groups, so a general description of African music is not possible. Although there is no distinctly pan-African music, there are shared forms of musical expression, and regional similarities between dissimilar groups.

The music and dance forms of the African diaspora (many Caribbean and Latin American music genres like rumba and salsa, as well as African American music) were founded to varying degrees on musical traditions from Africa, taken there by African slaves.

Besides using the voice, a wide array of musical instruments are used. African musical instruments include a wide array of drums, slit gongs, rattles, double bells as well as melodic instruments like string instruments (musical bows, different types of harps and harp-like instruments like the Kora as well as fiddles), many types of xylophone and lamellophone such as the mbira and different types of wind instrument like flutes and trumpets.

Drums used in African traditional music include tama talking drums, bougarabou and djembe in West Africa, water drums in Central and West Africa, and different types of drums are often called engoma or ngoma in Central and Southern Africa.

During colonial times, European instruments such as saxophones, trumpets, and guitars were adopted by many African musicians; their sounds were integrated into the traditional patterns and are widely used in African popular music.

In many African music cultures, there is a preference for "noisy" timbres. For example, on the ennanga harp, scales of a kind of goana are fixed on the instrument in such a way that the vibrating strings will touch it. This gives a crackling timbre to the sound. Another example are membranes made from spider webs attached to the openings of calabash resonators in some types of xylophones. In singing, one can often also meet raspy or rough timbres very unlike the voice ideal of western music.

The treatment of "music" and "dance" as separate art forms is a European idea. In many African languages there is no concept corresponding exactly to these terms. For example, in many Bantu languages, there is one concept that might be translated as "song" and another that covers both the semantic fields of the European concepts of "music" and "dance". So there is one word for both music and dance (the exact meaning of the concepts may differ from culture to culture).

For example, in Kiswahili, the word "ngoma" may be translated as "drum", "dance", "dance event", "dance celebration" or "music", depending on the context. Each of these translations is incomplete.

Therefore, from an intracultural point of view, African music and African dance must be viewed in very close connection. The classification of the phenomena of this area of culture into "music" and "dance" is foreign to many African cultures.

A lot of African traditional music is or was performed by professional musicians. Some of it is courtly music or sacral music. Therefore, the term "folk" music is not always appropriate. Nevertheless, both the terms "folk music" and "traditional music" can be found in the literature.

African folk music and traditional music is mostly functional in nature. There are, for example, many different kinds of work songs, ceremonial or religious music and courtly music performed at royal courts, but none of these are performed outside of their intended social context.

Music is highly functional in African ethnic life, accompanying birth, marriage, hunting, and even political activities. Similarities with other cultures, particularly Indian and Middle Eastern, can be ascribed primarily to the spread of Islam.
[Edited 6/26/07 23:09pm]

Sub-Saharan African music has as its distinguishing feature a rhythmic complexity common to no other region. Polyrhythmic counterpoint, wherein two or more locally independent attack patterns are superimposed, is realized by handclaps, xylophones, rattles, and a variety of tuned and nontuned drums. The remarkable aspect of African polyrhythm is the discernible coherence of the resultant rhythmic pattern. Pitch polyphony exists in the form of parallel intervals (generally thirds, fourths, and fifths), overlapping choral antiphony and solo-choral response, and occasional simultaneous independent melodies. In addition to voice, many wind and string instruments perform melodic functions. Common are bamboo flutes, ivory trumpets, and the one-string ground bow, which uses a hole in the ground as a resonator. During colonial times, European instruments such as saxophones, trumpets, and guitars were adopted by many African musicians; their sounds were integrated into the traditional patterns. Scale systems vary between regions but are generally diatonic. Music is highly functional in ethnic life, accompanying birth, marriage, hunting, and even political activities. Much music exists solely for entertainment, ranging from narrative songs to highly stylized musical theater. Similarities with other cultures, particularly Indian and Middle Eastern, can be ascribed primarily to the Islamic invasion (7th–11th cent.).

South African music


In the Dutch colonial era, from the 17th century on, indigenous tribespeople and slaves imported from the east adapted Western musical instruments and ideas.

The Khoi-Khoi, for instance, developed the ramkie, a guitar with three or four strings, based on that of Malabar slaves, and used it to blend Khoi and Western folk songs.

The mamokhorong was a single-string violin that was used by the Khoi in their own music-making and in the dances of the colonial centre, Cape Town, which rapidly became a melting pot of cultural influences from all over the world.

Western music was played by slave orchestras (the governor of the Cape, for instance, had his own slave orchestra in the 1670s), and travelling musicians of mixed-blood stock moved around the colony entertaining at dances and other functions, a tradition that continued into the era of British domination after 1806.

In a style similar to that of British marching military bands, coloured (mixed race) bands of musicians began parading through the streets of Cape Town in the early 1820s, a tradition that was given added impetus by the travelling minstrel shows of the 1880s and has continued to the present day with the great carnival held in Cape Town every New Year.

The penetration of missionaries into the interior over the succeeding centuries also had a profound influence on South African musical styles. In the late 1800s, early African composers such as John Knox Bokwe began composing hymns that drew on traditional Xhosa harmonic patterns.

The missionary influence, plus the later influence of American spirituals, spurred a gospel movement that is still very strong in South Africa today. Drawing on the traditions of churches such as the Zion Christian Church, one of the largest such groupings in Africa, it has exponents whose styles range from the more traditional to the pop-infused sounds of, for instance, the former pop singer Rebecca Malope. Gospel, in its many forms, is one of the bestselling genres in South Africa today, with artists who regularly achieve sales of gold and platinum status.

The missionary emphasis on choirs, combined with the traditional vocal music of South Africa, and taking in other elements as well, also gave rise to a mode of a capella singing that blend the style of Western hymns with indigenous harmonies.

This tradition is still alive today in the isicathamiya form, of which Ladysmith Black Mambazo are the foremost and most famous exponents.

This vocal music is the oldest traditional music known in South Africa. It was communal, accompanying dances or other social gatherings, and invovled elaborate call-and-response patterns.

Though some instruments such as the mouth bow were used, drums were relatively unknown. Later, instruments used in areas to the north of what is now South Africa, such as the mbira or thumb-piano from Zimbabwe, or drums or xylophones from Mozambique, began to find a place in the traditions of South African music-making.

Still later, Western instruments such as the concertina or the guitar were integrated into indigenous musical styles, contributing, for instance, to the Zulu mode of maskanda music.

The development of a black urban proletariat and the movement of many black workers to the mines in the 1800s meant that differing regional traditional folk musics met and began to flow into one another. Western instrumentation was used to adapt rural songs, which in turn started to influence the development of new hybrid modes of music-making (as well as dances) in the developing urban centres.

In the mid-1800s travelling minstrel shows began to visit South Africa.

At first, as far as can be ascertained, these minstrels were white performers in "black-face", but by the 1860s genuine black American minstrel troupes had begun to tour the country, singing spirituals of the American South and influencing many South African groups to form themselves into similar choirs.

Soon regular meetings and competitions between such choirs were popular, forming an entire subculture unto itself, and continue to this day.

This tradition of minstrelsy, joined with other forms, also contributed to the development of isicathamiya, which had its first international hit in 1939 with "Mbube".

Minstrelsy also gave form and a new impetus to the Cape coloured carnival singers and troupes, who began to use instruments such as the banjo in styles of music such as the jaunty goema dance style.

In the early years of the 20th century, the increasing urbanisation of black South Africans in mining centres such as the Witwatersrand led to the development of slumyards or ghettos where new forms of hybrid music began to arise.

Marabi was the name given to a keyboard style (usually played on pedal organs, which were relatively cheap to acquire) that had something in common with American ragtime and the blues, played in ongoing cycles with roots deep in the African tradition.

The sound of marabi was intended to draw people into the shebeens (bars selling homemade liquor or skokiaan) and then to get them dancing. It used a few simple chords repeated in vamp patterns that could go on all night - the music of Abdullah Ibrahim still shows traces of this form.

Associated with the illegal liquor dens and with vices such as prostitution, the early marabi musicians formed a kind of underground musical culture and were not recorded. Both the white authorities and more sophisticated black listeners frowned upon it, much as jazz ("the devil's music") was denigrated as a temptation to vice in its early years in the United States.

But the lilting melodies and loping rhythms of marabi found their way willy-nilly into the sounds of the bigger dance bands, modelled on American swing groups, which began to appear in the 1920s; it added to their distinctively South African style.

Such bands, which produced the first generation of professional black musicians in South Africa, achieved considerable popularity in the 1930s and 1940s: star groups such as The Jazz Maniacs, The Merry Blackbirds and the Jazz Revellers rose to fame, winning huge audiences among both blacks and whites.

So successful were some of these bands, in fact, that jealous white musicians used the regulations against racial mixing and the liquor laws (which restricted black access to "white" liquor) to hamper their progress.

Over the succeeding decades, the marabi-swing style developed into early mbaqanga, the most distinctive form of South African jazz, which has given its flavour to much South African music since then, from the jazz performers of the post-war years to the more populist township forms of the 1980s.

The beginnings of broadcast radio intended for black listeners and the growth of an indigenous recording industry helped propel such sounds to immense popularity from the 1930s onward.

Travelling variety shows, vaudeville troupes and dance concerts boosted the impact of black music, and schools began to arise teaching the various jazzy styles available, among them pianist-composer Wilfred Sentso's influential "School of Modern Piano Syncopation", which taught "classical music, jazz syncopation, saxophone and trumpet blowing", as well as "crooning, tap dancing and ragging".

A truly indigenous musical language was coming into being.

One of the offshoots of the marabi sound was kwela, which brought South African music to international prominence in the 1950s.

The primary instrument of kwela, in the beginning, was the pennywhistle, a cheap and simple instrument which was taken up by street performers in the shanty towns.

Apart from being cheap and portable, as well as susceptible to use as a solo or an ensemble instrument, part of the popularity of the pennywhistle was perhaps based on the fact that flutes of different kinds had long been traditional instruments among the peoples of the more northerly parts of South Africa, and the pennywhistle thus enabled the swift adaptation of folk tunes into the new marabi-inflected idiom.

The term "kwela" is derived from the Zulu for "get up", though in township slang it also referred to the police vans, the "kwela-kwela". Thus it could be an invitation to join the dance as well as a warning.

It is said that the young men who played the pennywhistle on street corners also acted as lookouts to warn those enjoying themselves in the illegal drinking dens of the arrival of the cops.

Janfriend, I have to say you have certainly given us a music history lesson, very valuable information.
[Edited 6/27/07 8:29am]

Maori Music of New Zealand

The Maori people of New Zealand are the most indigenous surviving people there and have a long history of oppression and racism from the European. Maoris had their land forcibly stolen off them or either bought of them at Outrageously cheap prices. They were practically excluded from NZ Society until the 1940s and were seen as dying a race of cannibalistic savages until the 1900s. Movement into the cities between 1945 and 1970 bought Maori into contact with Pakeha (European New Zealanders) and they have assumed the best part of the brown skinned working class. Today there are 500,000 people of Maori descent and a large percentage are living in substandard accommodation in poor suburbs, working low paying jobs, have poorer health and living standards than other New Zealanders. They are less educated than all other races in New Zealand including Pacific Island migrants, are more likely to commit violent and sexual crimes, abuse and kill their kids and die shorter lives. Maori society has also been ruined by the use of P (our version of crystal meth) and marijuana (electric puha). Alcoholism and pokies (electronic gaming machines) have also added to problems. The media in our country is very right wing and is forever showcasing Maori crime and disadvantage, mostly to prove European hegemony in New Zealand. Yet artistically Maori have persevered, Maori arts and culture are in demand around the world including their music which is action dances and songs and Karakia chants.

Traditional Maori music starts with the arrival of Eastern Polynesians in New Zealand between 1000 and 1250AD. They adapted to the temperate climate and became independent tribes (IWI), not known officially as Maori until 1947. As there were illiterate they developed an elaborate oral culture mixed in tales and songs about ancestors and a Hercules like figure known as Maui who performed many miracles over the gods, but met his match with the goddess of death (Hine Nui te Po) and died a mortal.
Call and response chants about hauling canoes and gathering food were early songs, along with Karanga or hi voiced shrill chants to a god for a favour or blessing, from these came Waiata or songs, including waiata tangi (Mourning chants), Waiata Poi (Action songs with Poi) Waiata Tu (War songs with haka or action dances) or Waiata Whanau (family songs). Instruments included nguru and whiu (nose flutes) and wooden pipes with small holes on top and a large one in the middle. There were also other nasal wind instruments where men would immitate bird noises in order to lure birds into traps.[b]

Maori Music

With the arrival of European (Mostly British) settlers in the 19th century, Maori songs changed to accept the praises of a new god, like many Polynesian peoples it was easy to assimilate Christianity into their own cultures and soon many himene (hymns) were added to their ancient songs and chants. For most of the 1800s there was little change music was in Maori, people continued using whiu instruments and karangas, but by 1900 the use of band instruments has arrived. Maori brass band started to spring up everywhere along with concert groups who usually did hakas and poi songs, but also added guitars and ukuleles along with various brass instruments into the ensemble. More importantly, players started bringing in English songs and writing new music in English into these shows. One very early example was "Now is the Hour" by Deane Waretini and maori soprano Ani Hato, which ahd become a worldwide standard by 1920. There was also the emergence of Maori concert bands such as the Tahiwis, Princess Te Puea Herangis concert group and Maori bass singers like Inia Te wiata, as with most artists, these people were also social reformers and skilled artists (Inia Te Wiata was also a skilled woodcarver).
By the 1950s Maori were also following current R and B and pop trends and the first Maori pop group was the Howard Morrison quartet, who did covers of songs like Diana, yet had their own with titles such as "The battle of the Waikato" which was a send up of "The Battle of New Orleans" and "My old mans an all Black" a send of a Lonnie Donegan hit of 1959, but also a response to the South African rugby team who refused in 1960 to play the New Zealand team if they had Maori players in it. The Quartet split up in 1965, but many groups followed like the Quin Tikis, the hi Marks, the Keil Islanders and easily one of the best "The Maori Volcanics", which featured Prince Tui Teka (1939-1982), possibly the greatest Maori musician of all time. These groups all followed the showband craze of the 1950-1980 period and played a range of songs ranging form Maori action songs and hakas to contemporary ballads, r and b and pop tunes. Usually too comedy segments were added into the shows. Some became quite famous like the Maori Volcanics who were in demand over the USA and Britain and Europe during the late 60s and early 70s. (Maybe some of you have heard of them).
The 70s saw a change to Maori artists mainstreaming and trying disco and reggae along with pop fusion, artists from this time include Billy T James, Mark Williams, John Stevens, Ricky May, Herbs and Tina Cross. Herbs in particular had several hits ranging from issues such as Apartheid, nuclear power and racial harmony, down to the joys of smoking electric puha (marijuana). Billy T James (1949-1991), also became New Zealands foremost comedian after leaving his singing career behind.
The last twenty years has seen a return to more traditional Maori music with artists such as Emma Paki and Moana Maniapoto incorporating maori themes into their music and more research into ancient Maori music. At the same time unfortuantly there has been movement into maori gangsta rap, sex laden R and B and other low forms of music.

Check out the performance celebrating Black Music Month at the White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov...22-6.html#

Click on "video".

I'm so proud--KEM from Detroit performed as well as Nuttin' But Stingz, two brothas that are Black Violin's contemporary (see above). (Check President Bush gettin' his "head bob" on during Nuttin' But Stringz' performance )

Since time is running out, here are 2 performers that are probably not as well known, but IMO very important artistically in their respective genres of Afro-Beat and Avant Garde.

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Fela Anikulapo-Kuti - The Father of Afro-Beat



Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, previously Ransome-Kuti, was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1938. His family belonged to the Egba branch of the Yoruba tribe. His father, like his grandfather, was a minister of the Protestant church, and director of the local grammar school. His mother was a teacher, but later became a politician of considerable influence.

As a teenager, Fela would run for miles to attend traditional celebrations in the area, already feeling that the authentic African culture of his ancestors ought to be preserved. His parents sent him to London in 1958, but rather than study medicine like his two brothers and his sister, Fela chose to register in the Trinity School of Music, where he was to spend the next five years. While still a student, he married a Nigerian girl called Remi and had three children. In his spare time, Fela played in a highlife band called Koola Lobitos with other Nigerian musicians living in London. Among these was J.K. Bremah, who had previously influenced Fela by introducing him to African music circles in Lagos at a time when Western music predominated there.

Fela returned to the Nigerian capital in 1963, three years after independence. Soon after, he was playing highlife and jazz, fronting the band with those of the musicians who had come back from England. Over the next few years, they performed regularly in Lagos and then in 1969, in the midst of the Biafra war, Fela decided to take Koola Lobitos to the United States.

In Los Angeles, he changed the name of the group to Fela Ransome-Kuti and Nigeria 70. At the club where they were playing, he met an African-American girl, Sandra Isodore, who was a close friend to the Black Panthers. She introduced Fela to the philosophy and writings of Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver and other Black activists and thinkers, through which he was to become aware of the link existing between Black peoples all over the world. Through this insight, Fela also gained a clearer understanding of his mother’s fight for the rights of Africans under colonial rule in Nigeria, together with her support of the Pan Africanist doctrine expounded by Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian Head of State, who had negotiated independence for his country with the British.

While in Los Angeles, Fela also found the inspiration he was seeking to create his own unique style of music, which he named Afro-Beat. Before leaving America, the band recorded some of these new songs.

Back home, Fela once again changed the name of the group, this time to Fela Ransome-Kuti &Africa 70. The L.A. recordings were released as a series of singles. This new African music was a great success in Lagos, and Fela was to open a club in the Empire Hotel, called the Afro-Shrine. At that time, he was still playing the trumpet, having not yet changed to the saxophone and piano. He started singing mostly in Pidgin English rather than Yoruban, so as to be understood all over Nigeria and in neighboring countries. In his songs, he depicted everyday social situations with which a large part of the African population was able to identify.

Young people from all over Nigeria flocked to hear his songs, which developed themes relating to Blackism and Africanism, encouraging a return to traditional African religions. Later he was to become satirical and sarcastic toward those in power, condemning both military and civilian regimes for their crimes of mismanagement, incompetence, theft, corruption and marginalization of the underprivileged.

In 1974, pursuing his dream of an alternative society, he built a fence around his house and declared it to be an independent state: The Kalakuta Republic. To the chagrin of the bourgeois section of Nigerian society, this act of defiance was soon to spread throughout the entire neighborhood as more and more people were inspired by Fela’s stance. The authorities remained vigilant, fearing their potential power of his ‘state within a state.’

On countless occasions, Fela was to suffer the consequences of his scathing denunciations with arrests, imprisonment and beatings at the hands of authorities. With each incarceration and violent confrontation with the powers that be, Fela became more outspoken, changing his family name from ‘Ransome’ to ‘Anikulapo’ (‘he who carries death in his pouch’). His notoriety spread and his records began to sell in the millions. The population of the Kalakuta Republic grew amidst mounting criticism, particularly of the young people, many of whom were still in their teens, who left their families to live there.

During the ‘Festival for Black Arts and Culture’ (FESTAC) held in Lagos in 1977, Fela sang Zombie, a satire against the military, which was to become enormously popular throughout Africa, bringing down the fury of the Nigerian army upon him and his followers. As Fela relates in Unknown Soldier, a thousand soldiers attacked the “Kalakuta Republic,” burning down his house and beating all of its occupants. The song tells that, during the course of this attack, his mother was thrown from a first floor window and later died from her injuries. Homeless and without his Shrine, which had also been destroyed along with the entire neighborhood, Fela and his group moved to the Crossroads Hotel.

A year later, Fela went to Accra to arrange a tour. Upon his return, to mark the first anniversary of the destruction of the Kalakuta Republic, Fela married twenty seven women in a collective ceremony, many of whom were his dancers and singers, giving them all the name Anikulapo-Kuti. After the wedding, the whole group set off for Accra (Ghana) where concerts had been planned. In a packed Accra stadium, as Fela played Zombie, riots broke out. The entire group was arrested and held for two days before being put on a plane bound for Lagos, banned from returning to Ghana.

Upon his return to Lagos, still with nowhere to live, Fela and his entire entourage squatted at the offices of Decca, where they remained for almost two months. Soon after, Fela was invited with the seventy member-strong Africa 70 to play at the Berlin Festival. After the show, almost all of the musicians ran away. Despite this catalogue of set-backs, Fela returned to Lagos determined to continue.

The King of Afro-beat and his Queens went to live in Ikeja, in J. K. Bremah’s housea new Kalakuta. There, Fela, more political than ever, went on to form his own part, “Movement of the People” (M.O.P.). He presented himself as a Presidential candidate in the 1979 elections that would return the country to civilian rule. His candidature was refused. Four years later, at the next elections, Fela once more stood for President, but was prevented from campaigning by the police, who again rampaged through his house, imprisoning and beating Fela and many of his followers.

Any further Presidential aspirations were crushed, however, when a coup brought Nigeria back to military rule. In 1984, with General Buhari in power, Fela served twenty months of a five year prison sentence on trumped-up currency charges. He was only released when, under General Babangida, the judge confessed to having sentenced him with such severity because of pressure from the previous regime. The judge was dismissed from office and Fela was given his liberty.

Over the next decade, with an entourage of up to eighty people, now called Egypt 80, Fela made several visits to Europe and the United States. These tours were to receive tremendous public and critical acclaim, and made an important contribution to the worldwide popular acceptance of African rhythms and culture. Considering himself to be the spiritual son of Kwame Nkrumah, the renowned Pan Africanist, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was a virulent critic of colonialism and neo-colonialism.

Over the past twenty years, he became famous as a spokesman for the great mass of people, in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa and the African diaspora, disenchanted with the period of post-independence.

Fela’s sad death in August 1997 was mourned by the nation. Even those who did not agree with him were among the million people or more who attended his funeral. Even the many governmental letters of condolence sent to his family were eloquent testimonials to a great man. His death was attributed to an AIDS-related heart failure, though a more popular diagnosis was that, as a result of the countless beatings at the hands of the authorities, his system was sufficiently weakened to allow disease to enter.

Throughout his life, Fela was sustained by the unconditional love and respect offered to him by the millions of people whose lives he touched. In death, he retains the legendary status to which he was elevated by the throngs of people who came to pay their last respects at his laying in state in Tafa Balewa Square

http://worldmusiccentral....hp?id=1067

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Sun Ra: Stranger from Outer Space by Mike Walsh



In tomorrow's world, men will not need artificial instruments such as jets and space ships. In the world of tomorrow, the new man will 'think' the place he wants to go, then his mind will take him there. -- Sun Ra, 1956



Nothing about Sun Ra's six-decade musical career could be called normal. He recorded somewhere around 200 albums, although no one knows for sure. He toured the world, was revered in Europe, and staged at least three 100 piece concerts, one at the pyramids in Egypt. He was the subject of several films, pioneered the use of electronic keyboards like Moog synthesizers, created his own independent record label, and influenced countless jazz and rock musicians. His pronouncements were drenched in his unique cosmic mysticism, and his band members claimed he had telepathic powers. Most importantly, he made music, as he wrote, "rushing forth like a fiery law."

Sun Ra claimed that he was sent to earth from outer space to save humanity and bring harmony to the world. If you were lucky enough to catch Sun Ra's live show before he died in 1993, you probably believed him.

Mr. Ra came from the tradition of vaudeville, swing, and Chicago show clubs. He was also deeply spiritual, and his live shows encompassed all of these elements. They were several hour ritualistic ceremonies featuring a hot orchestra of a dozen or more (referred to as the "Arkestra"), poetry, light shows, dancers, marches through the audience, and squealing sax solos.

Sometimes the band members would take the stage to the chant of "Heigh-ho, heigh ho, it's off to work we go." Most shows included a long percussion jam with the horn players switching to persussion instruments, many of them homemade. If he was in the mood, Ra would take a synthesizer solo that inevitably erupted in a volcanic crescendo.

The Arkestra members wore colorful, glistening outfits that were a combination of African tribesman garb and outer space suits. As was appropriate for a high priest, Sun Ra usually wore the most outrageous outfit, with a headdress and flowing cloak.

Jerry Gordon, who co-owns Evidence Music, which has re-issued twenty early Sun Ra albums on CD, remembers being overwhelmed by the first Sun Ra show he saw in the early 70s.

"It was an incredible concert," he says. "It was music like I had never heard before. Ra and the dancers were wearing capes. Fans on the floor blew the capes so they looked like multicolored wings. They had a spiral light on John Gilmore during his solos that created a tunnel effect. Ra was also using lights to make it look like he was sticking his head in a black hole in space. It was just unbelievable. I considered it holy music, music people should hear."

If you didn't get a chance to see Sun Ra perform, you should seek out Space is the Place, an early 70s movie starring the jazz master from Saturn himself. Ra floats about in a rocket ship propelled by his music and does battle with the FBI, NASA, and other supernatural bad guys. The movie has a cosmic humor, and like Sun Ra it is at times fascinating, indecipherable, and absurd.

The Arkestra makes several appearances in the film in full regalia, and the soundtrack, also re-issued by Evidence, is full of ferocious full-orchestra jams. Horn, percussion, and synthesizer freakouts move in and out like waves of turbulence on sixteen tracks of Sun Ra favorites.

Sun Ra's costumes are extravagant, even for him. The film was directed by filmmaker Jim Newman, who has since admitted that even he doesn't understand it. (Space is the Place is currently available on video from Rhapsody Films.)


If you find earth boring
Just the same old same thing
C'mon sign up with
Outer Spaceways, Incorporated


Sun Ra was born Herman P. Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama. His father left the family when he was a child, and he was raised mostly by his aunt and grandmother. 'Sonny,' as he was nicknamed, received a piano for his seventh birthday, and with little musical training, taught himself to read music.

He formed his own band in high school, and an associate from those days recalls that back then Sonny was able "to get different rhythms and peculiar notes."

Sonny went to Alabama A&M on a scholarship, where he led the student band. He would transcribe the popular swing band tunes from the radio and soon have his band playing them.

While in college, an incident took place that transformed his life. He claimed that he had been transported into a spaceship by aliens, who informed him of his higher calling. He dropped out of college and, for several years leading up to World War II, played throughout the South with various Birmingham-based bands. He had to play behind a curtain in certain southern clubs because the white patrons objected to the sight of black musicians.

It was during this time that Blount developed a rehearsal style that he would use the rest of his life: he turned his living quarters into a rehearsal and recording studio and practiced virtually around the clock. He also recruited a cadre of musicians--not quite a 'band' because they performed in public very infrequently--and gave them free music lessons if they were willing to show up at his house on short notice and try out his arrangements.

During World War II, Sonny Blount was jailed for being a conscientious objector. He was so engrossed in music and his research in ancient black cultures and so adverse to violence, that fighting in a war was inconceivable to him. He left Birmingham for good after the war and moved to Chicago, a jazz hotbed.

He was soon hired as the practice pianist at the popular and glamorous Club DeLisa, which had show girls, comedians, singers, and floor shows. At the DeLisa he got to work with his idol, Fletcher Henderson, one of the originators of the swing sound.

Even in the '40s other musicians spoke of the strangeness of the music he played. Erskine Hawkins said of Blount in the '40s, "Sun Ra would go into chords that nowadays are pretty common but back then were in another world." He was nicknamed "Moon Man" for his spacey lingo and far-out music, although he went by the stage name of Sonny Lee.

In the early '50s, he formed small groups that played mostly be-bop and standards. He slowly increased the number of musicians in his combo. Some of them were still in high school. As trumpeter Phil Cohran explains, "He had a lot of trouble with the so-called good musicians. He became successful when he started training young guys."



John Gilmore, the band's tenor saxophone mainstay for the next four decades, joined Le Sony'r Ra, as he was known then, in 1953 after a stint in the Army. Pat Patrick and Marshall Allen, sax players who would work with Sun Ra for decades, also joined up during this early period.

By the mid-'50s, he had dubbed himself Sun Ra, and the band, which had grown to a dozen players, was known as his 'Arkestra.' In 1956, he established Saturn Records to produce and distribute his records.

This was an extremely creative period for Ra, who would write new material constantly and sleep very little. His band practiced, recorded, and played virtually every day. After a few years, Ra had whipped the outfit into a tight, focused, swingin' machine. It was an eccentric ensemble that could swing or play exotic mood pieces.

By the late '50s, Ra was incorporating odd instruments into the Arkestra's sound, like zithers, timbales, chimes, claves, all kinds of bells and gongs, and things with names like "solar drum," "space lute," and "boom bam." He also had the Arkestra wearing space costumes, like helmets with flashing lights and propellers. Some of the early costumes were hand-me-downs from a Chicago opera company.

The Arkestra's sound was becoming increasingly abstract. Ra was experimenting with pieces that dealt more with sound coloring and texture than structure. He was also utilizing African rhythms with multiple percussionists, which was unusual for the late '50s.


In 1961, the Arkestra moved to Montreal briefly and, following a series of aborted gigs, then to New York. By that time, only Gilmore, Allen, and bassist Ronnie Boykins remained with the Arkestra.

Within a few years, Ra built the ensemble back up to full strength with New York musicians and began to attract attention. He was part of the "free jazz" revolution taking place in Greenwich Village in the '60s along with John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, and others.

"As we started adding New York musicians, we started moving to the avant-garde," said John Gilmore. "That was right in our bag, and we were ready for it because Sun Ra had trained us in Chicago, playing half tones and quarter tones, stuff like that."

By the mid-'60s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra weren't just visiting deep space; it was their permanent residence. The music had become an otherworldly mix of atonal, aberrant, sounds and effects. Sun Ra had transformed his eccentric big band of hard bop soloists into a experimental open-improvisation ensemble. Ra was becoming "the philosopher-king of Afro-psychedelia," as writer Michael Shore put it.

Ra's music of this period was typified by counter melodies, off-key horn barrages, polyrhythms, titanic organ and synthesizer solos, and dissonant note clusters. The works were getting longer and the solos more stretched-out. A piece might be in several different keys, in no key at all, or in Ra's so-called "space key." When he was charged with being too eccentric, Ra pushed himself even further into the void.

Despite the pioneering far-outness, Sun Ra objected to the term "free" jazz. His pieces weren't free. They were carefully crafted, structured works.

The Arkestra was known by a variety of names including the Solar Myth Arkestra, Cosmo Jet Set Arkestra, Myth-Science Arkestra, Intergalactic Research Arkestra, and Astro-Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra. The pay was usually so low that many of the musicians played outside gigs with other bands.

In late 1968, Ra moved the Arkestra to Philadelphia. "To save the planet, I had to go to the worst spot on Earth," he later explained, "and that was Philadelphia, which is death's headquarters."

Actually, the Arkestra was faced with eviction from the house it rented in the Lower East Side, so the band relocated when Marshall Allen's mother offered them a rowhouse in the Germantown section of the city. "We didn't have anywhere else to go," Gilmore said.

In the late '60s, vocalist and dancer June Tyson joined the arkestra. Ra had decided to spread his message through lyrics as well as music, and Tyson fit the Arkestra perfectly in spirit and style. She eventually became Sun Ra's foil, confidently espousing Ra's puzzling ideology. She said that when she was on stage singing Sun Ra's lyrics, she thought of herself as a celestial being.

During the next few years, Ra and the Arkestra traveled several times to California. In 1971, Ra taught a course at Berkeley called "The Black Man in the Cosmos." Few students took the course, although large numbers of Oakland residents attended. The reading list included the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Bible, and books on hieroglyphics. Ra also spent part of each class playing the keyboards. He responded to the puzzled students' questions with a riddle or a knowing smile. He was never paid for the course.


Impulse, a division of ABC, released a handful of Sun Ra LPs in the '70s. These releases gave him wide distribution and international exposure for the first time.

As Sun Ra's reputation grew, he and the Arkestra, which at times grew to thirty members, toured extensively especially in Europe. They even visited Egypt for a spiritual vacation and concert. Gilmore calls the visit to the pyramids, "The most beautiful experience I had on this earth. It made everything worthwhile."

Like many jazz musicians, Ra received much more acclaim in Europe than in the U.S. Unfortunately, the European tours usually generated no more income than was necessary for expenses.

Gilmore remembered the Arkestra returning from a European tour with nothing more than pocket change. "It was rough at pay time with all those guys in the band," he said, "but that's what Sun Ra always wanted, that big sound."

Hundreds of musicians came through the Arkestra over the years, some lasting only a few gigs and some, like saxophonist John Gilmore, lasting decades. But being in the Arkestra was a difficult way of life. The band members never made much money, and Ra demanded discipline and hard work. He banned drugs, alcohol, and women, and band members had to be available for practice around-the-clock.

Despite these inconveniences and Ra's many idiosyncrasies, virtually all of the musicians who came through Sun Ra's Arkestra attest to how much they learned from him.

When asked why he stayed with Sun Ra for forty years, John Gilmore remarked, "He was the first one to introduce me to the higher forms of music, past what Bird and Monk were doing. It's unbelievable that anyone could write meaner intervals than those guys, but he did. When I realized that, I said, 'Well, I guess I'll make this the stop.'"

Gilmore almost left Sun Ra in the '50s but changed his mind. "I learned more from Sun Ra in my first nine months with him than I had my whole life, not only in music but in philosophy and life in general. He elevated my whole scene. He changed my life."

During his 40-year recording career, Sun Ra released well over 100 self-produced records on Saturn and distributed them at his gigs and a few choice record stores. They were usually packaged in white sleeves with wild homemade cover art.

The Saturn records were full of discrepancies that Ra seemed to enjoy. "Some of the records he had recorded in 1956, '57, or '58, and didn't come out until, say, 1965," says Gordon, who sold Sun Ra's records at Third Street Jazz & Rock in Philadelphia. "Stuff from three different years and three different sessions would appear on a record. Almost always the records listed the wrong personnel. Some had no titles, no dates, no documentation. Everything to do with his label was confused, and I believe it was intentionally confused. He'd bring in a Saturn record, I'd sell out of it, but I could never get it back because he'd pressed a different album already. Some of them had no title, just a psychedelic design on the cover."


Outer space is a pleasant place
A place where you can be free
There's no limit to the things you can do
Your thought is free and your life is worthwhile
Space is the place


By far, the oddest element to Sun Ra's career was his eccentric philosophy. He always appeared in an outer space costume and never relinquished his odd ideology, going space-bound whenever it suited his purpose.

"I'm a spirit master," he said. "I've been to a zone where there is no air, no light, no sound, no life, no death, nothing. There's five billion people on this planet, all out of tune. I've got to raise their consciousness, tell them about the wonderful potential to bypass death."

He claimed that cars and rocket ships would one day run on music, presumably his music. He refused to reveal much about his past. "That's his-story," he'd say. "My story is a my-stery." With his soft monotone voice, he gave the impression of a musical Buddha, speaking in riddles and contradictions at every opportunity.

"People loved to question Sun Ra about being born on Saturn, but these things were said to bring people out of their normal, humdrum, everyday reality," says Gordon. "It's not about whether he's telling the truth. He tried to express his vision and get people out of the shadow world with his music. He was an educator and philosopher who tried to enlighten people."

Sun Ra's mysticism was based on faith in a better world elsewhere. "Somewhere in the other side of nowhere is a place in space beyond time where the Gods of mythology dwell," Mr. Ra said. "These gods dwell in their mythocracies as opposed to your theocracies, democracies, and monocracies. They dwell in a magic world. These Gods can even offer you immortality."

Ra confused and confounded the mainstream jazz world, and he found little acceptance or recognition there. Purists ignored him as an eccentric kook, and many jazz critics found his idiosyncrasies annoying. He was the antithesis of slick, smooth, high-profile, commercially-acceptable jazz musician. He simply refused to compromise and preferred to operate as a cult figure outside the jazz establishment.

"A lot of people never got past the costumes and the mysticism," says Gordon, "but Sun Ra was a genius and was not nearly as popular as he should've been. You could put out a college kid doing the music of Sun Ra, and it would probably sell better than Sun Ra."

Near the end of his life, Ra complained about the lack of acceptance and recognition he received in this country. He was especially bitter about Philadelphia. "The city has insulted me," he said in 1988. "I've been in this city long enough to be respected. There's a conspiracy, not by the government, I don't know who, to keep my music down."

In the late '80s and early '90s, Sun Ra did garner national recognition. The alternative rock world embraced him as a major influence. The Arkestra played a gig on Saturday Night Live and jammed in Central Park with Sonic Youth. Robert Mugge made an excellent documentary about him and his space age theology called Sun Ra, A Joyful Noise. He was honored with the Liberty Bowl award from the city of Philadelphia and was voted the top big band in a Downbeat magazine critic's poll. And for the first time, he released two recordings on a major label-A&M.

However, Sun Ra suffered a stroke in October 1992 and returned to his native Birmingham for medical care. (Ever the cosmic jester, when he was admitted to the hospital he listed his address as "Saturn.") On May 30, 1993, the spirit master from outer space left this world. He was 80 years old.


All of Sun Ra's music was steeped in the past but was simultaneously pioneering. He used tradition not to repeat but to take the music somewhere new. Whatever the style, his music always challenged the listener.

"Sun Ra's music didn't need any explanation," says Jerry Gordon. "Once you stopped trying to intellectualize it and just gave yourself to it, the music was self-evident. You can't look for secrets of the universe in it. You understand Sun Ra only by listening to the arkestra and abandoning yourself to the music."

In his music he created a utopian world with its own logic and mysteries. His live shows, like a religious ceremony, invited the audience to take up concerns beyond this world. Part sci-fi shaman, part comic book character, part genius, Sun Ra wanted to lead us to a cosmic paradise through his music. His music was a blessing of mysterious grace from a world only he understood. As he once wrote:

In some far off place
Many light years in space
I'll build a world of abstract dreams
And wait for you


http://www.missioncreep.c...sunra.html

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tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Aaaahhh...Audience, I was actually going to mention Fela Kuti. Just learned about him 2 months ago. He has this song called "Expensive Sh*t" that I love.

Fela Kuti/Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson
http://www.youtube.com/wa...hFi-Iyke9k

Fela Kuti
http://www.youtube.com/wa...4AA6EuZe-k

Army Arrangement" with Fela Kuti
http://myspacetv.com/inde...id=4387715



Here's a group called "Sila and the Afrofunk Experience
covering Fela Kuti's song "Expensive Sh*t"
http://myspacetv.com/inde...id=7503836


There is also a very long 4 part, deep documentary on youtube about Fela Kuti and who he was and what he fought for, besides being a great musician/artist.(some parts may be graphic as it shows a few clips of casualties during the Biafra war that took place in Nigeria at the time)

http://www.youtube.com/wa...MdsIeQeKZw
http://www.youtube.com/wa...fe641a_h-E
http://www.youtube.com/wa...W1-8GESFqg
http://www.youtube.com/wa...gbHg02R_3o
[Edited 6/30/07 7:45am]

2elijah said:

YouTube is being temperamental at the moment and won't play the clips.

I'm guessing it's the Fela documentary...



...Music Is The Weapon


Thanks for reminding me about this. I need to transfer it from my DVR to disc.



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

Really? I have no problem getting in to it. It's deep, the man was a true revolutionary to his people, besides being a fantastic musician/artist.
[Edited 6/30/07 7:35am]

MIRIAM MAKEBA aka "Mama Africa and Empress of African Song"
South African Singer, Actress, Activist







Watch "Mama Africa" in action in her younger days singing "Pata Pata"
http://www.youtube.com/wa...-VrfadKbco

and in a recent performance years later still singing her famous song
http://www.youtube.com/wa...6w1u8o9ZBc


"Miriam Makeba's life has been consistently marked by struggle. As the daughter of a sangoma, a mystical traditional healer of the Xhosa tribe, she spent six months of her birth year in jail with Makeba's father, a schoolteacher and member of the Xhosa tribe, could only choose between two places for his family to live: either a rural tribal reservation where the soil remained uncultivated or a regulated township near a city. He opted for the latter and, after securing government permission, moved to Prospect Township. Located near Johannesburg, Prospect, Makeba's birthplace, was one of many segregated shantytowns surrounding the city. Typically, the cheaply-built homes on the crowded reservations had no electricity or running water, and children had little room outdoors to play. Africans were permitted to work in Johannesburg, where they arrived on designated buses each day, but the law required them to leave in the evenings by a certain time. In order to help make ends meet, Makeba's mother, a Swazi, took a job as a domestic worker at a white household in Johannesburg.Miriam finally did return to South Africa in 1990. Just before she’d left a ‘spirit’ had warned her mother that she would never come back. And Miriam never did see her mother again, since she wasn’t even allowed to attend her funeral. So the first thing she did when she set foot on South African soil was to go straight from the airport to visit her grave.

From her start in a church choir, Miriam Makeba went on to sing professionally under the strong influence of her American idols, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. . She emigrated to United States in 1959 and since then has performed in nearly very country in the world. She made a triumphant return to South Africa as part of the Paul Simon Graceland tour of Africa in 1987, and of the U.S. the following year.

Gifted with a dynamic vocal tone, Makeba first came to the public's attention as a featured vocalist with the Manhattan Brothers in 1954. After breaking with the Black Manhattan Brothers, Makeba formed an all-female group called the Skylarks in 1958. The following year, she toured for 18 months with a musical extravaganza, African Jazz and Variety, and began performing solo engagements. These personal appearances, coupled with a series of popular recordings, established Makeba throughout her native land. Thereafter, Makeba further enhanced her reputation playing the female lead of Joyce, the owner of an illegal African drinking place called a "shebeen," in the jazz opera King Kong. Based on the tragic account of an African prize fighter jailed for a crime of passion, the production, which premiered on February 2, 1959, toured South Africa for eight months with surprising success, despite the humiliating restrictions levied because of apartheid.Just as she was becoming a household name at home, Makeba left for the US, performing with Harry Belafonte and others. Her song "Pata Pata" was an international success in 1967, becoming the first African song to reach the United State's Top 10 pop charts

The clicks made famous by Miriam Makeba in "The Click Song," were already an integral part of San - ... known as Bushmen - chants about 4 000 years ago. Then some 2 000 years ago, another group called the Khoi developed these chants into a much more complex music. Vasco da Gama noted in 1497 that his Khoi hosts greeted his arrival with a five-men ensemble of reed flutes. The vocal tradition that this country is renowned for, really started around 200 AD, with the arrival of the Bantu-speaking peoples in the region. Each tribe had its distinct and characteristic songs, tonalities and harmonies, but the musical structure remained the same. The call and response structure of many African- American styles including Gospel and its later derivatives could have been a Bantu invention.

Forced into exile from her native country in 1960, Makeba used her stature to speak out against apartheid - the institutionalized practice of political, economic, and social oppression along racial lines. Such efforts earned her the title "Mama Africa," as she became an enduring symbol in the fight for equality. In 1991, following the 1990 prison release of Nelson Mandela, Makeba triumphantly returned to South Africa, settling in the city of Johannesburg. Since then, she has served as a spiritual mother and inspiration to numerous South African musicians and remains committed to social change within the country. South Africa, despite the dissolution of the apartheid regime and the creation of a new democracy, continues to face racial tensions, economic hardships, a high rate of crime, and a rising AIDS epidemic, all of which count among Makeba's primary concerns. In 1995, she founded her own charitable organization designed to help protect the women and young girls of her homeland.

Grammy Award-winning chanteuse Miriam Makeba finds an exciting space between her South African roots and the world of international pop on HOMELAND. This extraordinary woman seems to bring several lifetimes worth of experience to the microphone, as an exiled anti-apartheid activist, author, ambassador, and actress--she even sang at JFK's infamous 1962 birthday celebration! The result is music that is groovy, graceful, and wise, with a revolutionary yet maternal brand of soulfulness. The recording further benefits from the touch of producer Cedric Gradus.

Miriam Makeba never considered herself to be a politician, but was, and still is, an activist for human rights. World leaders such as John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, the Pope and François Mitterrand were always glad to receive her. Over the years she has received many international awards for her humantirianism from countries such as the USA, Libya, several European countries and eventually her birth country, South Africa."
[Edited 6/30/07 8:40am]

So Black Music month is coming to a close. Thanks Janfriend for letting me post information regarding this subject on this thread. Lot of history there and also appreciate all your posts, regarding the history and various forms of music practiced by Black Artists/Musicians, and also thanks to the other orgers for posting information on this subject as well.
[Edited 6/30/07 20:19pm]

I want to thank everyone, especially 2elijah, for contributing to this thread. It was great!

Now, I am going to put more Doo Wop, Blues, and African music into my collection