Afro-Baroque New Orleans and the Jazz era

There is a marvelous recording of music from The Ursulines’ manuscript, performed by the French early music group Le Concert Lorrain.

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Listening to the first tune on the CD one notices that the eighth notes in the last beat of measure two, as well as all the other eighth notes in the piece, are not played as even eighth notes, but as unequal ones, with the first note longer, perhaps twice as long.

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This is the Baroque practice known in France as notes inégales. It is also the standard performance practice of jazz, where, with the upbeats accented, it is known as swing.

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In Cuba and its Music, I speculated that the swing feel of jazz derives from a typical feel still easily audible in traditional music in the Senegambia and Mali today, and that New Orleans was a key point in its dissemination.

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To that I would like to add that there was a point of reinforcement between French New Orleans and Senegambian New Orleans: both sides played unequal eighth notes.

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If the Ursulines, who were educators, were teaching the musical practice of notes inégales, that only helped to establish it in an environment where white, free colored, and enslaved musicians all crossed paths.

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If I were to hypothesize a continuum between Afro-Baroque New Orleans and the jazz era, I would locate it in the playing of black violinists, who were likely playing along with the whites in French New Orleans, as they were in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue, to say nothing of Cuba.

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If I were to hypothesize a continuum between Afro-Baroque New Orleans and the jazz era, I would locate it in the playing of black violinists, who were likely playing along with the whites in French New Orleans, as they were in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue, to say nothing of Cuba.

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If I were to hypothesize a continuum between Afro-Baroque New Orleans and the jazz era, I would locate it in the playing of black violinists, who were likely playing along with the whites in French New Orleans, as they were in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue, to say nothing of Cuba.

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If I were to hypothesize a continuum between Afro-Baroque New Orleans and the jazz era, I would locate it in the playing of black violinists, who were likely playing along with the whites in French New Orleans, as they were in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue, to say nothing of Cuba.

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I would also note the sometimes extreme fondness for melisma in New Orleans (e.g., the ornamentation of Aaron Neville’s singing or James Booker’s piano playing), which is an attribute of the French Baroque and the music of the Islamized Senegambia

Ned Sublette, The World that Made New Orleans, Lawrence Hill Books, 2001, p. 72

Virtually all avenues of contact with European music were open to Negroes. At the white balls a section of the hall was usually reserved for the free colored. They couldn’t dance, but they could watch and listen.

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LOC A Grand Jamaica ball

Slaves too must have gotten in often, judging from frequent appeals and warnings to owners not to insist on taking their slave in with them: ”not one slave will be admitted.”

The Orleans Ballroom declared such a prohibition in January, 1819 and fifteen years later was still insisting on it. At one point the managers tried having their own ballroom slaves wear an identifying armband.

The same situation obtained in the opera.

Henry A. Kmen, Music in New Orleans, The Formative Years, Louisiana State University Press, 1966, p. 232

Two-thirds of the slaves brought to Louisiana by the French slave trade came from Senegambia. While Senegambia means, geographically, the region between the Senegal and the Gambia rivers, it is much more than a geographical area.

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According to Philip D. Curtin, it is ”a region of homogeneous culture and a common style of history.” Three of its principal languages, Sereer, Wolof, and Pulaar, are closely related. The fourth language, Malinke, is a mutually intelligible language spoken by the Mande people to the east.

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The people of the Senegambia region have lived as neighbors for many centuries, and there have been a steady interchange of people among them.

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The great medieval empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were founded in the Senegambian region. The Islamic Almoravides empire, which overthrew the Ghana and united Spain, North Africa, and Senegambia, under its political dominance, was founded during the eleventh century on an island in the Senegal river.

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The trans-Sahara trade featuring gold from sub-Sahara Africa linked to West Africa, Iberian, and Mediterranean worlds of medieval Islam.

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, Louisiana State University Press, 1992, p. 29

The deduction that Basile Barès began as a former slave means that the 1860 New Orleans sheet-music imprint ”Grande polka des Chasseurs à Pied de la Louisiane” for piano is indeed a rare thing in American musical history. The composer of this piece is given simply as ”Basile,” without a last name, but the piece traditionally has been attributed to Basile Barès.

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It is not a particularly remarkable work musically, save for a few chromatic bits and some interesting passage work at the extremes of the keyboard, but it certainly would have been quite an accomplishment for a sixteen-year-old.

What now makes this sheet music so unusual is that it appears to be the work of a slave published while he was still a slave. Furthermore, contrary to all laws at the time, the copyright appears to have been assigned to the slave.

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, Louisiana State University Press, 1992, p. 29

What they saw was not merely groups of slaves and free people of color dancing. Such was common enough sight throughout the South. They saw something in New Orleans that had not been seen elsewhere in North America for nearly a century, native African music and dance still being performed.

What they saw was not merely groups of slaves and free people of color dancing. Such was common enough sight throughout the South. They saw something in New Orleans that had not been seen elsewhere in North America for nearly a century, native African music and dance still being performed.

What they saw was not merely groups of slaves and free people of color dancing. Such was common enough sight throughout the South. They saw something in New Orleans that had not been seen elsewhere in North America for nearly a century, native African music and dance still being performed.

And that was what so fascinated the observers. Such African music and dance elsewhere had long been acculturated to the Anglo-America norms, or, under pressure from protestant preachers, black as well as white, had eroded.

”Only in Place Congo in New Orleans was the African tradition able to continue in the open,” concluded Dena J. Epstein from her masterful examination of antebellum black folk music.

Jerah Jonhson, Congo Square in New Orleans, The Samuel Wilson, Jr. Publications Fund of the Louisiana Landmarks Society, 1995, p. 27

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Continuing in this rich tradition of some two and half centuries, the Creole songs as sung in this album disclose an interplay of French tunes and espirit, Spanish-African rhythms and African syncopation, tonalities and timbres.

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This amazing counterpoint, with the ubiquitous and witty double entendre of the words, operates behind the facade of simplicity, on a level of complexity that is breath-taking in its sheer virtuosity. Yet, through the different cultural strands are still so separate and clearly defined, the overall character of the music is predominantly of the nature of jazz.

Harriet Janis, Jazz A’ La Creole, 2000 GHB Records (original release:1946)

Joe Massie’s French Creole songs performed ”for his own amusement while running the dummy engine on the Saint John’s Plantation, for the last nineteen years” in St. Martinville, Louisiana, fall into the category of individual performance.

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Massie’s improvised satirical lines about the presence of John A. Lomax are examples of the tradition of extemporaneous repartee, long a feature of African-American performance..

Kings Langley, Deep River of Song, Catch That Train and Testify!, Rounder Select, 2004

Massie’s improvised satirical lines about the presence of John A. Lomax are examples of the tradition of extemporaneous repartee, long a feature of African-American performance..

Kings Langley, Deep River of Song, Catch That Train and Testify!, Rounder Select, 2004

The Bambara were the preponderant nation among the formative contingent of slaves sent to Louisiana, and slaves coming from Senegambia continued to be prominent throughout the eighteenth century.

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Linguistic as well as historical evidence has established that the Louisiana creole language was created by these early slaves and was not imported from the French Islands. The language became a vital part of the identity, not only of Afro-Creoles, but of many whites of all classes.

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Creole New Orleans, Race an Americanization, Hirsh and Logsdon, Louisiana State University Press, 1992, p. 69

Linguistic as well as historical evidence has established that the Louisiana creole language was created by these early slaves and was not imported from the French Islands. The language became a vital part of the identity, not only of Afro-Creoles, but of many whites of all classes.

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Creole New Orleans, Race an Americanization, Hirsh and Logsdon, Louisiana State University Press, 1992, p. 69

One would suppose that the music of Africans in Louisiana during the French period bore strong resemblance to the music of Senegambia, the homeland of the majority of its people. It is worth noting the numerous correspondences between essential characteristics of African American music of those of that relatively arid, Islamized region of Africa.

Very different from the communal, syllabic, highly polyrhythmic, drum-dominated music of the forested Kongo, this was a bardic, melismatic, swinging music, influenced by Koranic chanting, with a less polyrhythmic texture, favoring portable stringed instruments.

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Fiddles came to French Louisiana from two directions: from Europe, but also from Africa, because the Senegambians had a bowed-instrument tradition, and had possibly had it as long as, or longer, than, France.

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In the New World, the Senegambians’ musical knowledge could be expressed on the European violin, as well as on the banjo, an instrument that derives from a Senegambian family of plucked instruments.

Ned Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans, Lawrence Hill Books, 2008, p. 60

But the largest single African group in Spanish New Orleans came from the Kongo-Angola region, the most heavily slaved territory in Africa and the one slaved for the longest period of time. ”In the Spanish period (in Louisiana) Gwendolyn Midlo Hall told me, ” there’s a continuous migration from Bight of Benin…

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and there’s continuous migration from greater Senegambia, but there’s an increased migration from the Kongo… Shortly after the Spanish took over, it became heavily Kongo in New Orleans.”

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and there’s continuous migration from greater Senegambia, but there’s an increased migration from the Kongo… Shortly after the Spanish took over, it became heavily Kongo in New Orleans.”

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The Kongos were taken in numbers to everywhere there were slaves, so it is not surprising that their influence is felt all over the hemisphere. Geographically ubiquitous, they were the strongest single influence on African culture in the New World. The largely uncomprehended legacy of Kongo permeates the popular music the world listens to today.

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The Kongos were taken in numbers to everywhere there were slaves, so it is not surprising that their influence is felt all over the hemisphere. Geographically ubiquitous, they were the strongest single influence on African culture in the New World.

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The largely uncomprehended legacy of Kongo permeates the popular music the world listens to today.

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It is perhaps the strongest single link between the music of Havana and New Orleans, which is to say, between Afro-Cuban and African American music, which are in other ways quite different.

Ned Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans, Lawrence Hill Books, 2008, p. 107

Many people in New Orleans speak today of the ”Haitians” who came to the city. In fact, very few Haitians came to New Orleans, because the Republic of Haiti didn’t exist yet when the people came to New Orleans left Saint-Domingue. (This is why I speak of ”Domingans” rather than ”Haitians” in referring to people who left La Española prior to January 1, 1804.)

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All three of the groups that came in 1809-10- white, mulatto, and black – had spending six years in Cuba in common; the youngest of them had been born there. Within the city, it’s safe to say that no aspect of New Orleans culture remained untouched by their influence.

Ned Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans, Lawrence Hill Books, 2008, p. 252

Research studies also tie the cinquillo, tresillo, and clave rhythmic cells to early jazz based on the frequency of their use during the development stages of the musical form.

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These were the rhythms and the influence on jazz that Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the Spanish tinge.

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Research studies also tie the cinquillo, tresillo, and clave rhythmic cells to early jazz based on the frequency of their use during the development stages of the musical form. These were the rhythms and the influence on jazz that Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the Spanish tinge.

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Preceding the rise of jazz, Creole slave songs – songs that accompanied Ring Shouts on the Carolina and Georgia Sea Coast as well as in Louisiana – and Ragtime compositions embodied these rhythmic patterns.

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Preceding the rise of jazz, Creole slave songs – songs that accompanied Ring Shouts on the Carolina and Georgia Sea Coast as well as in Louisiana – and Ragtime compositions embodied these rhythmic patterns.

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These cells were not only performed in Congo Square nor were they only performed for and and among people of African heritage as musicians of descent frequently included them in European-based dance music. The published and unpublished compositions of enslaved African descendant Basile Jean Barès (1845-1902) present perfect examples.

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Barès, perhaps the most popular entertainer in New Orleans from the Union occupation in 1862 until the end of reconstruction, performed along with his string band for Rex and other Carnival balls.

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His still unpublished piece, Las Campanillas, dating probably from the late 1880’s, and the only music in Barès’ own hand to have survived, embodies the habanera rhythmic cell. Barès wrote all of his music for piano, which includes either marches or European-style dances such as polkas, quadrilles, gallops and waltzes.

Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square, African Roots in New Orleans, 2011, pp. 39, 40

New Orleans-based performers have indeed continued the conversation and embraced the legacy as well as the African-based performance styles and practices handed down through generations.

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New Orleans-based performers have indeed continued the conversation and embraced the legacy as well as the African-based performance styles and practices handed down through generations.

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Neither acculturation nor syncretization can overshadow the influence inherently found in New Orleans’ music, songs, rhythms, and dances including the second line or parade beat, jazz funeral music, Mardi Gras Indian rhythms and chants, and early New Orleans jazz.

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That influence is attributed to the African descendants who perpetuated traditional performance style in Congo Square and to those who continued those performance styles and practices after the gathering ended.

Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square, African Roots in New Orleans, 2011, p. 46

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The practice of using a foot to alter a drum’s tone, as drummers from West Central Africa demonstrated, continued in New Orleans’ spasm bands, using upside-down buckets, drummers hit the tops to produce high-pitched sounds and lifted the buckets with their foot then dropped them by hitting to produce deeper pitches. (Robert Farris) Thompson held that bands composed of such modified and home made styles of musical instruments linked the practices of Congo Square to those of jazz.

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Although such trends in instruments gained popularity during the mid 1890s, eyewitnesses observed these practices much earlier. While in Louisiana during 1829-30, (Theodore) Pavie observed enslaved Africans beat an upside-down milk bucket to accompany a dance. In the early 1880s, Hearn witnessed African descendants beat a dry goods box with sticks or bones to accompany the Congo dance.

Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square, African Roots in New Orleans, 2011, p. 72

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Creole slave songs have inspired the works of several nationally recognized musicians. Composer Henry Gilbert (1868-1928) chose the Creole song Aurore Pradère (Bradère) …

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Creole slave songs have inspired the works of several nationally recognized musicians. Composer Henry Gilbert (1868-1928) chose the Creole song ”Aurore Pradère (Bradère)” as the theme for his symphonic ballet, The Dance in Place Congo, which the Metropolitan Opera Company performed in New York and Boston in 1918.

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…as the theme for his symphonic ballet, The Dance in Place Congo, which the Metropolitan Opera Company performed in New York and Boston in 1918.

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Prior to Gibert, Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) adapted a section of ”Beautiful Layotte” for the theme of his Ballet Creole, and the following song, ”Musieu Banjo,” inspired his composition ”Banjo, Op. 15.”

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Prior to Gibert, Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) adapted a section of ”Beautiful Layotte” for the theme of his Ballet Creole, and the following song, ”Musieu Banjo,” inspired his composition ”Banjo, Op. 15.”

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African descendant Maud Cuney Hare translated and published the following version of the last song, ”Gardé Piti Là (Musieu Banjo)” :

Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square, African Roots in New Orleans, 2011, p. 79

African descendant Maud Cuney Hare translated and published the following version of the last song, ”Gardé Piti Là (Musieu Banjo)” :

Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square, African Roots in New Orleans, 2011, p. 79

Gardé P i t i Mulet Là
(Musieu Bainjo)
(SATIRICAL SONG)

1

Gardé piti Mulet là,
La com’ li insolent!
Chapeau sul’ côté,
Soulié qui fait “cric-crac
Gardé piti Mulet là, “Musieu Bainjo”
La com’ li insolent!

1

See the little mulatto, “Mister Banjo”
Hasn’t he a saucy air!
Hat cock’d on one side,
New shoes that go “cric – crac
See the little mulatto, “Mister Banjo”
Hasn’t he a saucy air!

2

Gardé piti Mulet là,
La com’ li insolent!
Foular à la pouche
La canne à la main.
Gardé piti Mulet là, “Musieu Bainjo,”
La com’ li insolent!

2

See the little mulatto, “Mister Banjo”
Hasn’t he a saucy air!
Kerchief in his vest,
Walking – cane in hand.
See the little mulatto, “Mister Banjo”
Hasn’t he a saucy air!

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“Musieu Bainjo” is a satirical song that was sung on a plantation in St. Charles Parish, La. Songs of mockery, pointed at times with cruel satire, were common among the Creole songs of Louisiana and the Antilles.

The African sense of using song for purposes of satire and praise

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And then there was Black Benny, the drummer, six foot six, nothing but muscle. He was handsome in some sort of African way. He was

Every stranger should visit Congo Square

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The variety of sounds at Congo Square was commented on by James Creecy who, visiting fifteen years after Latrobe’s description (1818) and more favorably disposed

Are there any other characteristics of West African Music that survive in jazz today?

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Grenadier Guards, Band of Toro – Photo by Rev A.L. Kitching, 1908. Published in “Tramps round the Mountains of the Moon and through the back

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