PAUL BOWLES AND LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC

LUIS HÉRNANDEZ MERGAL

This article traces Bowles’s interest in Latin American music, from his early childhood exposure to popular recordings to his folk-influenced music written in Mexico and the Caribbean. After a look at Bowles’s early musical training, the major composers who influenced his own musical style, and his period of study with Aaron Copland in Paris and elsewhere, the article discusses the artist first sojourn in Latin America. His trips to the Spanish Caribbean, including Puerto Rico are discussed at length, as well as some notable pieces written in Puerto Rico and in Mexico. Bowles’s writings on Mexican folk music are discussed in relation to today’s ethnomusicological understanding of the dialectic of preservation and innovation, the “authentic” versus the “inauthentic,” in traditional music.

Paul Bowles’s interest in Latin American music can be traced back to his childhood. In his autobiography Bowles relates the story of his first encounter with music (as far as he could remember) when his father brought home a phonograph and some classical music recordings (WS 28). This was in 1918. The first piece he recalls hearing was Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Soon enough, Bowles began buying his own records, the first being “At the Jazz Band Ball,” by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Indeed, the album was released in New York on September 3, 1917, according to “The Original Dixieland Jazz Band Discography” (Mainspring Press). Bowles, born on December 30, 1910, was six years old at the time. In his autobiography, Bowles recounted the story to illustrate his difficult relationship with his father, who considered jazz to be “trash” and at once prohibited Paul from playing such records. Paul’s reaction was to turn to a different type of music: “After that I bought military bands playing Latin-American pieces” (28). Bowles does not specify which military bands he heard, but as an illustration, it might be mentioned that the Victor label at that time had

170 Luis Hérnandez Mergal a military band (The Victor Military Band) that issued recordings from at least 1903 until 1923. Their repertoire was a mixed bag ranging from German marches (“Hoch Deutschland,” JCE-377, released March 1, 1903) to Irish songs (“St. Patrick’s Day,” B-11083, released November 11, 1911), to early jazz (“Ragtime Violin,” B- 11506, released January 24, 1912), and Latin American music (“Maurice Tango,” “Argentine Tango”, “Tango Medley,” “Tango Land,” “Echale Manteca al Gringo,” “La Rumba,” “Lukoumi Tango,” all released in 1913-14).1 It is a well-known fact that the Argentinian tango (or what passed as tango outside of Latin America) was the rage at the time, both in Europe and in North America. Actually, the term became a catch-all for “Latin” music in general, but it did open the way for the diffusion of other Latin American styles such as the Cuban Rumba. More than a mere anecdote, this story encapsulates what will become a major theme in Bowles’s art, both music and writing: his interest in the “exotic” as a means of escape from the strictures of mainstream, middle-class American culture. A short time after buying the phonograph, Bowles’s family also acquired a piano, and Paul took lessons on piano technique as well as music theory and sight singing. So began Bowles’s musical life. A few other major music-related events in Bowles’s formative years might well be worth mentioning. First, his encounter with the music of Stravinsky. In 1926, Bowles attended a concert by the New York Philharmonic, which included Stravinsky’s Firebird. He immediately bought a recording and listened to it for hours on end. It was his introduction to twentieth-century music (Sawyer-Lauçanno 41-2). However, it is not Stravinsky’s Russian ballets, but his particular brand of neo-classicism, in works such as Apollon Musagète and L’Histoire du Soldat, that may well be considered one of the major influences on Bowles’ style. Later on Bowles attended the University of Virginia, where he discovered Gregorian chant, Prokofiev, Duke Ellington and bought his first blues record (WS 76). In New York on Christmas vacation 1928, Bowles attended one of the Copland- Sessions Concerts, where the program included Henry Cowell’s Seven Paragraphs for String Trio and George Antheil’s Second String Quartet, among other pieces by contemporary American composers. Thus he became acquainted with the latest in American music. Of course, Copland himself would later become Bowles’s mentor and composition teacher.