Every stranger should visit Congo Square
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 to the experience, saw ”banjos, tom-toms, violins, jawbones, triangles and other various instruments.”
Harmony was present, and observed the dancers ”sing a second or counter to the music most sweetly,” and that in all (the dancers) movements, gyrations, and attitudinizing exhibitions, the most perfect time is kept, making the beats with the feet, head, or hands, or all, as correctly as a well-regulated metronome!
… Every stranger should visit Congo Square when in its glory.
Ned Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans, Lawrence Hill Books, 2008, p. 282
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 to the experience, saw ”banjos, tom-toms, violins, jawbones, triangles and other various instruments.”
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Detail of "Aspects of Negro Life" by Aaron Douglas - Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.1934 - Source
Harmony was present, and observed the dancers ”sing a second or counter to the music most sweetly,” and that in all (the dancers) movements, gyrations, and attitudinizing exhibitions, the most perfect time is kept, making the beats with the feet, head, or hands, or all, as correctly as a well-regulated metronome!
… Every stranger should visit Congo Square when in its glory.
Ned Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans, Lawrence Hill Books, 2008, p. 282
Brunias, Agostino c. 1730 - Dominica, c. 1796 The Handkerchief Dance, c. 1770-1780 © Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Source
"Aspects of Negro Life" by Aaron Douglas, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.1934 Source
Quite possibly the banjo came from Africa. Writing about the Negroes 1781-2, Thomas Jefferson observed : The instrument proper to them is the banjor, which they brought hither from Africa.
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On the other hand, the Pan’s pipes or quills (New Orleans drummer Baby Dodds said his father could make and play them) trace back to anitiquity.
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Panflöte / Panpipes - Kongo (Demokratische Republik) Inventory number : III C 1825 - Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ethnologisches Museum - Foto: Susanna Schulzof Source
On the other hand, the Pan’s pipes or quills (New Orleans drummer Baby Dodds said his father could make and play them) trace back to anitiquity.
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Quill Tune, noted by H. E. Krehbiel, The Century Magazine, February 1886 Vol. IX, No. 4, pg 519 - Courtesy of The Internet Archive and Victorian Voices - Source
Blowing the Quills by Edward Windsor Kemble -The Century Magazine, February 1886 Vol. IX, No. 4, pg 519 - Courtesy of The Internet Archive and Victorian Voices - Source
The most notable fact, however, is that the slaves are apparently singing in a French-Creole patois. And the melody is sung in the call-and-response pattern.
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Mossi Chant, Track 9, from the album African Coast Rhythms, Field Recordings by Arthur S Alberts, Tribal and Folk Music of West Africa - Cover art by Paul Bacon ℗ Riverside Records, RLP 001 Source
A few European instruments and a European melody, no doubt modified, exist in the middle of this predominantly African performance. The blending of European and West African music is well under way, therefore, and the transition to jazz has begun.
Marshall W. Stearns, The Story of Jazz, Oxford,1956, p. 54 prjc.org
"The festival", wood engraving by Whitney & Annin sc. (1852) Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life. On pg.112 of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Robert Criswell, Printed and published by D. Fanshaw, New York. Courtesy of The Library Company of Philadelphia Source
It is possible that the musicality of Louisiana Creole, which seduced generations of Louisianians and probably affected their own speech in Cajun and English as well as in French, is nonfunctional survival of tonality in African languages.
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"A language map of Africa" (Detail of West African coast region) Ravenstein, E. G. & Cust, R. N. (1883) London: Stanford's Geogl. Estabt. [Map] Courtesy of the Library of Congress Source
One of the ways in which musicality is expressed in Louisiana Creole is through onomatopoeia – through words that imitate sound. For example, in Louisiana Creole, a bull frog is called an ouaouaron…
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One of the ways in which musicality is expressed in Louisiana Creole is through onomatopoeia – through words that imitate sound. For example, in Louisiana Creole, a bull frog is called an ouaouaron…
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…the gabbling of birds zozoter…
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Plate 53 of Birds of America by John James Audubon (1785–1851) depicting Painted Finch Fringilla Ciris. Temm. & Chickasaw Plum, Prunus Chicasa. Engraved, printed & coloured by Robert Havell (1793-1878). From the Birds of America, Vols. I-IV, 1827-1838, courtesy of Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System Source
a violin player, a trouloulou…
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The Fiddler by Edward Windsor Kemble, The Century Magazine, April, 1886 Vol. XXXI, No. 6, pg 808 Source
a bird is a zozo, from the French word oiseau, but zozo also imitates the sound of the bird. Patterns of rhythm and tonality in Louisiana Creole might be linked to patterns of musical expression, including syncopation and jazz. It is surprising that linguists have paid relatively little attention to the study of rhythm and intonation in creole languages.
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, Louisiana University Press,1992, p. 196
a bird is a zozo, from the French word oiseau, but zozo also imitates the sound of the bird. Patterns of rhythm and tonality in Louisiana Creole might be linked to patterns of musical expression, including syncopation and jazz. It is surprising that linguists have paid relatively little attention to the study of rhythm and intonation in creole languages.
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, Louisiana University Press,1992, p. 196
An Australian Pied Butcherbird singing, recorded by ℗ Hollis Taylor near Trephina Gorge in Western Australia in August 2016. Absolute Bird by Hollis Taylor available on Amazon Source
New Orleans jazz often features Creole plectrum performers in New Orleans band recordings. The New Orleans style of plectrum playing reveals a strong tie to the style of guitar and cuatro (little guitar) playing which predominates in traditional recordings by Caribbean musicians. In addition, there are strong melody ties.
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Not coincidentally, the New Orleans jazz recordings also reveal similar characteristics in Island ensemble instrumental styles. However, even where the plectrum instrument is not present, the same overlay of the rhythms pattern occur.
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Not coincidentally, the New Orleans jazz recordings also reveal similar characteristics in Island ensemble instrumental styles. However, even where the plectrum instrument is not present, the same overlay of the rhythms pattern occur.
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As one important example, Danny Barker, like a number of plectrum artists from New Orleans, represents the New Orleans Creole tradition in American music. He has recorded Creole songs in several sessions and in the company of other New Orleans Creole musicians.
Don Rouse, New Orleans Jazz and Caribbean Music, The Potomac River Jazz Club, www,prjc.org
Music Inside Out by Gwen Thompkins: Remembering Danny Barker (1909-1994) presented by New Orleans Public Radio WWNO 89.9
We have seen that the sources of black song are widely varied. The creole music of Louisiana had strong affinities with the French patois songs of the Caribbean and almost none with the rest of black music, except for zydeco, the music of the blacks in the bayou regions settled by the Cajuns, descendants of French Canadian refugees.
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We have seen that the sources of black song are widely varied. The creole music of Louisiana had strong affinities with the French patois songs of the Caribbean and almost none with the rest of black music, except for zydeco, the music of the blacks in the bayou regions settled by the Cajuns, descendants of French Canadian refugees.
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We have seen that the sources of black song are widely varied. The creole music of Louisiana had strong affinities with the French patois songs of the Caribbean and almost none with the rest of black music, except for zydeco, the music of the blacks in the bayou regions settled by the Cajuns, descendants of French Canadian refugees.
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The very form of these French-influenced songs set them apart. Call-and-response passages come out more like the bobbin of Jamaican song, as in ”Zamours Marianne”’ which uses an interpolated ”Michié-la’‘ or ”Marianne” rather than the longer response phrases of the rest of the Southern states.
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Creole music became part of the heritage of New Orleans and passed as one element in jazz, in which the ”creole” musicians brought a French touch.
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Freddie Keppard (seated) and his younger New Orleans friend, the future great Sidney Bechet, c. 1914-17. Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive Collection at Tulane University Source
Creole music became part of the heritage of New Orleans and passed as one element in jazz, in which the ”creole” musicians brought a French touch.
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The ”creole” tone, inherited from French reed technique, instantly distinguished clarinetists like Albert Nicholas, Sidney Bechet, or Alphonse Picou from the much bluer and African-derived sound and more African-derived sound of black New Orleans musicians.
John Storm Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds, 1972, p.157
Creoles like Nicholas, Picou, Paul Barbarin, Danny Barker (also of the Barbarin family) , Jelly Roll Morton, and Kid Ory brought to jazz a degree of ”legitimate” musicianship, which also allowed to broaden its base without swamping the more earthy elements.
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There were also a few creole songs in the jazz repertoire. The most famous, perhaps, is ”Eh Là Bas,” which Kid Ory made popular during the New Orleans revival of the 1940’s. Something of the Caribbean-creole touch remained in these tunes, but not as a major ingredient.
John Storm Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds, William Morrow & Company, Inc.,1972, p.224
There is an affluence of bitter meaning hidden under there apparently nonsensical lines (Cf. Milatresse). It mocks the helpless lot of three types of human life in old Louisiana whose fate was truly deplorable. Milatraisse was, in Creole song, the generic term for all that class, famous wherever
New Orleans was famous in those days when all foot-passengers by night picked their way through the mud by the rays of a hand-lantern – the freed or free-born quadroon or mulatto woman. Cocodrie (Spanish, cocodrilla, the crocodile or alligator) was the nickname for the unmixed black man; while trouloulou was applied to the free male quadroon, who could find admittance to the quadroon balls only in the capacity, in those days distinctly menial, of musician-fiddler.
George Washington Cable, Creole Slave Songs, Century Magazine, 1886, p. 808
Creole songs are romantic or morose. Motifs range from the most sensuous dances to sheer nonsense rhymes. Some, improvised by servants and slaves as sly thrusts at their white masters and mistresses, are taunting and insinuating, others point contemptuously at the attempts of colored people to pass as white. Many approach purest fantasy.
Saxon, Dreyer and Tallant, Gumbo Ya-Ya, Folk Tales of Louisiana, Pelican, 1945, p. 428
One thing, however, is clear. Although we are inclined these days to view the intersection of European-American and African currents in music as a theoretical, almost metaphysical issue, these storied accounts of the Congo Square dancers provide us with a real time and place, an actual transfer of totally African ritual to the native soil of the New World.
Ted Gioa, The History of Jazz, Oxford University Press, p. 4
Many free Negroes in New Orleans were educated abroad, usually in France, and among them were not a few musicians. To take but one example, Eugene Macarty was sent to France in 1840 after preparatory study on the piano. In Paris he was admitted to the Imperial Conservatory to study voice, harmony, and composition.
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More stayed home than were able to go abroad, but their training was adequate. The opera and other musical opportunities in New Orleans attracted many French, Italian, and German musicians who were not adverse to teaching talented Negroes. Men like Eugene Prevost, director of the Orleans Theatre orchestra;
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![[Eugène] Prevost, critique musical; Nadar, Gaspard Félix Tournachon (French, 1820 - 1910); 18611865; Salted paper print; 22.7 × 16.4 cm (8 15/16 × 6 7/16 in.); 84.XM.436.145; No Copyright - United States (http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/)](https://mokouzin.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/EUGENE-PREVOST-HARVARD-COLLECTION.jpg "[Eugène] Prevost, critique musical")
More stayed home than were able to go abroad, but their training was adequate. The opera and other musical opportunities in New Orleans attracted many French, Italian, and German musicians who were not adverse to teaching talented Negroes. Men like Eugene Prevost, director of the Orleans Theatre orchestra;
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L. Gabici, onetime director of the St. Charles orchestra; and J. Norres, an eminent piano teacher – all taught some Negro musicians, as did many of their fellows. In time competent Negro musicians taught both colored and white students.
One thing is certain : the Negro in New Orleans had ample opportunity to hear and to participate in the music around him. Indeed he could not escape it. In the dance field it is possible that he played more than whites, as the trade of musician was not encouraged for the native born white male, even though the imported musician was respected.
Henry A. Kmen, Music in New Orleans, The Formative Years, Louisiana State University Press, 1791-1841, (année 1966). p.234, 236
Sheet music cover of "The Belle of Louisiana",1859 - Music composed by L. Gabici - Courtesy of The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music, The Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University
One more great shout went up from the waiting slaves and the black men sitting astride the big drums beat a fanfare on them with their hands. A tall fine looking negro, Kiflo, with mighty muscles and a shiny black face, came to the front and made a commanding gesture. The noise ceased.
The banza players began to tune their rude instruments, made from half gourds attached to the ends of sticks and strung with four or five strings. It was the ancestor of the modern banjo.
Kiflo, like all Mandigoes, had brought with him from Africa the art of improvisation. He gave a signal and there was a roll of drums and picking of banzas as he intoned in his rich throaty baritone:
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Jordi c’est jour calinda
-and all the others joined in the chorus,
They were eight islets or so further and then they heard music. Toucoutou began to walk and swing her slight hips to the rhythm. The music grew louder as they reached Congo Square
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A wooden drum covered with stretched leather hide that has been attached to drum body with nine wooden pegs. Materials: wood, leather, hide and metal. Created by: Unidentified, 19th century, Beaufort County, South Carolina - Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
In the centre, in the most conspicuous place was an orchestra that was particularly alluring, to judge from the large crowd that surrounded it.
An old Santo Domingo negro sat astride a section of a large hollowed tree and beat with the palm of his hand and then his fingers upon the stretched skin.
He produced a splendid savage rhythm as he played with the rapt absorption of a fanatic, completely insulted from all the world by his music.
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Detail of "The Spirit of Congo Square", cast bronze sculpture by Adewale Adenle, commissioned by the city of New Orleans, located in Louis Armstrong Park
In the centre, in the most conspicuous place was an orchestra that was particularly alluring, to judge from the large crowd that surrounded it.
An old Santo Domingo negro sat astride a section of a large hollowed tree and beat with the palm of his hand and then his fingers upon the stretched skin.
He produced a splendid savage rhythm as he played with the rapt absorption of a fanatic, completely insulted from all the world by his music.
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Beside him sat a younger man who beat a staccato counter rhythm on a very much smaller drum.
A tin whistle, an accordion, and a fiddle were played by three other negroes, while still another rattled a gourd that had been part filled with pebbles or grains of hard corn.
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One tooted a wooden trumpet shaped like the horn of a cow, but he strangest instruments of them all was half the jawbone of a mule with all its teeth staring from their sockets, which a little bow-legged, wide-grinned Congo held in one hand while he scraped an enormous brass key up and down the teeth with the other, making a sound reminiscent of the wooden rattles of the Spanish ”Serénos.”
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The men and women collected around this orchestra were no field-hands, but the elite of slave society – the house servants; and they were about to dance the Congo, sometimes called Calinda or Danse Creole. There was a flourish of the drums and ten or fifteen young negresses stepped into the middle of the circle.
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They were all shades of yellow-copper and red-copper, ”teint sauvage” they called the latter, and there were no deep blacks among them. Earth graspeda gay Madras handkerchief ”catty-cornered” in their hands and, raising their arms, held it behind their necks as the assembled company began to chant:
”Ah voilà, mo la, Ah voilà mo la
Ah voilà mo la, jeunes gens
M’allez voir ça y a fait moi”
Luckily, just at this instant, old Boule de Neige, the cotton-pated negro who played for all the dances, started up a quadrille. This broke the ice and everybody began to have a good time. Waltzes, mazurkas, polkas and schottisches followed.
Edward Larocque Tinker, Toucoutou (novel), Dodd, Mead & Company, 1928, p. 171
Certain Muses were abroad that night. Faintly audible to the apothecary of the rue Royale through that deserted stillness which is yet the marked peculiarity of New Orleans streets by night, came from a neighboring slave-yard the monotonous chant and machine-like tune-beat of an African dance.
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There our lately met marchande (albeit she was a guest, fortified against the street-watch with her master’s written ”pass”) led the ancient Calinda dance and that well-known song of derision, in whose ever multiplying stanzas the helpless satire of a feeble race still continues to celebrate the personal failings of each newly prominent figure among the dominant caste.
There was new distinct to the song to-night, signifying that the pride of the Grandissimes must find his friends now among the Yankees :
Trouvé to zamis parmi les Yankis
Dancé Calinda, bou-joum! Bou-joum!
Dancé Calinda, bou-joum! Bou-joum!”
they cried unitedly:
A song! A song! Une chanson Créole. Une chanson des nègres!
Yé tolé dancé la doung y doung doung!
cried a black-eyed girl. Raoul explained that it had too many objectionable phrases.
But instead he sang them this:
La premier’ fois mo ti ‘oir li,
Li té posé au bord so lit;
Mo di’, Bouzon, bel n’amourèse!
L’aut’ fois li té si’ so la saise
Comme viê Madam dans so fauteil
Quand li vivé côté soleil.
So giés yé té plis noir passé la nouitte
So dé la lev’ plis doux passe la quitte!
Tou’ mo la vie, zamein mo oir
Ein n’amourèse zoli comme ça!
Mo’ blié manzé – mo’ blié boir’ –
Mo, blié tout dipi c’ temps-là –
Mo’ blié parlé – mo’ blié dormi,
George W. Cable, The Grandissimes (novel), Hill and Wang,1879, p. 167
The banjo then was strictly a rhythm instrument. Buddy Bolden would say, ”Simmer down, let me hear the sound of them feet.”
The New Orleans bands, you see, didn’t play with a flat sound. They’d shade the music. After the band had played with the two or three horns blowing, they’d let the rhythm have it.
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That’s what Buddy Bolden meant when he said that. The rhythm then often would play that mixture of African and Spanish syncopation – with a beat – and with just the rhythm going. They’d let the people use their imagination for the other sounds.
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He (Chris Kelly) just played for a certain element in New Orleans and couldn’t play for the people that Piron played for, and couldn’t play the cabarets, but he played for those people.
He worked all the little towns and worked every night and always made the job. He talked a real, broken patois, African almost. The Creoles couldn’t understand him.
Danny Barker quoted in: Hear Me talkin’ To Ya, Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Dover Publications Inc., 1955, p. 20, 51
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
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
Afro-Baroque New Orleans and the Jazz era
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There is a marvelous recording of music from The Ursulines’ manuscript, performed by the French