Black Music Research Bulletin, Spring 1989

Columbia College Chicago Digital Commons @ Columbia College Chicago Center for Black Music Research: Black Music Research Newsletter Publications Spring 4-1-1989 Black Music Research Bulletin, Spring 1989 Samuel Floyd Columbia College Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/cbmrnews Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Education Commons Recommended Citation Floyd, Samuel, "Black Music Research Bulletin, Spring 1989" (1989). Center for Black Music Research: Black Music Research Newsletter. 28. https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/cbmrnews/28 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Publications at Digital Commons @ Columbia College Chicago. It has been accepted for inclusion in Center for Black Music Research: Black Music Research Newsletter by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Columbia College Chicago. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BLACK MUSIC RESEARCH BULLETIN C B \I R COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO Vol. 11, No. 1 ISSN 0898-8536 Spring 1989 Contents Tum-of-the-Century Jug Bands in the Southeastern United States Black Music on the Southeast- em Seaboard by Bruce Bastin, Sussex, England Tum-of-the-Century Jug 1 and leffrey Green, West Sussex, England Bands in the Southeastern United States Sources of information on the mu sonal aspects of performers, although Bruce Bastin and Jeffrey Green sical styles and groups playing with they do not add very much to our in small communities are so scant knowledge of the societies that pro Black Vaudeville and the 3 that researchers have been forced to duced or listened to the music. TOBA in Atlanta rely on evidence of commercial pho Should we turn to sources that, on Thomas L. Riis nograph discs, recording company the surface, have no relevance to ei Kemper Harreld and Willis 5 files, recollections of veteran per ther· music or to black folk? We James: Music at Atlanta formers, and contemporary newspa should be alert to a paradox: the fact University, Morehouse Col- pers. This is especially true of jug that an event produced no apparent lege, and Spelman College bands, groups that performed popu comment does not mean that it did Rebecca T. Cureau lar songs, blues, and jazz on a variety not take place. In Arthur Conan of instruments, including a jug. Doyle's Silver Blaze, fictional detective Black Music Scholarship and Blown into or across the mouth to Sherlock Holmes, investigating a the Approaching New produce an amplified bass-like note, missing horse of that name, drew the Century the jug had orthodox companions attention of police inspector Gregory drawn usually from the string family to "the curious incident of the dog in Key Issues, Areas, and 8 (vioUn, banjo, guitar, and mandoUn), the night-time." Gregory said that the Topics in Black Music flute, and harmonica. The origins of dog did nothing, and Holmes ad Scholarship, Teaching, and this music have been obscure, but vised him that "that was the curious Performance, 1988-1999 Memphis, Tennessee, has loomed incident." The watchdog's silence Edith Borroff 8 large, as a commercially successful meant that it knew the intruder. Richard Crawford 8 group led by Gus Cannon was based Conan Doyle's Holmes stories ap Dominique-Rene de Lerma 9 in that city from the 1920s and made peared in serial form in Strand Maga D. Antoinette Handy 10 recordings. Other evidence strongly zine in the 1880s, and it is to that un Portia K. Maul Isby 10 suggests that jug band music was likely London monthly that we Eileen Southern 11 performed widely in Georgia, South turned for evidence of black jug Martin Williams 12 Carolina, and Florida at the begin bands in 1890s Georgia. Josephine Wright 12 ning of the century. In its October 1898 issue, Strand Hitherto untapped sources have Magazine published six: pages on 1989 National Conference on added to the documentation of black Georgia barbecues. Barbecues were Black Music Research grassroots music of the early years of unknown in Britain, so the English this century. Welfare files and death readers could marvel at the details: Abstracts of Papers 13 and prison records inform us of the one hundred sheep were roasted names, occupations, and other per- over two trenches, each over one 2 f .. ,. hundred feet long, the cooking su I pervised by a black chef ("a man of ~· . great ability and popularity") in a style capable of feeding one thou .~ . sand salesmen at short notice and, ~ ' ~· during the recent Atlanta Exposition (1895?), operating every day. l·".: ~ \~:- The novelty of such gatherings, for Britons, led Wide World Magazine, in May 1920, to reprint much of the ar ticle and several of its photographs. The photographs show that the guests were white; but a new photo graph of "A Barbecue Orchestra at Work" shows four black men, neatly dressed in seemingly matching suits, high collars, and ties, playing a vio lin, two guitars, and a jug. The photo was taken by Howe of Atlanta, possi bly not at the same time as Howe's pictures that were reproduced by the Strand in 1898. The 1902 article men tions that six thousand were fed at a barbecue near Augusta, Georgia. dox music-making seen by Howe's dox instruments. Both articles show that barbecues barbecue orchestra. Could social A search of the social documents were an Ameri:can custom in both events around the St. Johns River of tum-of-the-century Atlanta, Pal North and South, often featuring and Jacksonville, Florida, have in atka, and Jacksonville might uncover music when politics were not behind volved music-making in the same other evidence of the employment of the public feast. The events lasted manner as Georgia's barbecues? jug bands in neighborhood affairs. three hours, which leads us to con Mamie Garven Fields's 1983 mem Howe's pictures and those of other clude that the black quartet had a oir of life in coastal Sou th Carolina at local photographers, the diaries and repertoire both extensive and varied this time2 contains an undated, but calendars of participants, and the and that they had rehearsed and al circa 1900 photograph of a South local newspapers seem obvious most certainly played in public be Carolina youthful jug band. The six places to look. Social clubs reported fore Howe snapped them. That a performers appear stiff and posed; to their members, especially of fund group of instrumentalists played but the picture is titled "Children's raising activities, and in those annual near Atlanta around 1901 is of con bands often entertained at commu financial reports there might be evi siderable interest in itself, but it is en nity picnics" (Fields 1983, ff. 110). dence of the employment of unortho hanced when we see that Wide World These photographs give evidence dox instrumental groups. Prize-giv Magazine in January 1905 published a of music-ma.king involving jugs ings, picnics, barbecues, excursions to photograph of five Florida youths across three states around the year scenic spots, sports days, and fish playing the unorthodox instruments 1900. Why has this gone undetected? fries were common among the myr of jugs, harmonica, and bones.' The The answer must be similar to Sher iad social groupings, black and commentator on the latter remarked lock Holmes's conclusion regarding white, of contemporary small-town that these jug bands were "one of the the dog in the night-time, which did America. Evidence of those activities most familiar sights of Florida, ... not bark because it knew the in may well show that jug band music formed in nearly every district by truder. Music-making by black jug had a wide but local acceptance. negro boys." The most famous was a bands in Georgia, Florida, and South We can hazard a guess at the sextet called the Palatka Jug Band. Carolina around 1900 may have been range of music performed by that The commentator added that Flor so well-known to the communities barbecue orchestra from the reper ida jug bands obtained pennies from that it was not worthy of comment. toire of the string band of Carl Mar tourists by "a kind of musical black But readers in distant Britain would tin, Ted Bogan, and Howard Arm mailing association," but surely they be intrigued by the size of the barbe strong- perhaps the best-known in were also aiming at the more ortho- cues and the novelty of the unortho- recent years and the best-docu mented on long-playing records. Ex 1. More details are given in Bastin 1986, 3'h35; photographs after 160 (see Fig. 1). 2. Fields was born in 1888. amples on record from the 1920s and 3 1930s of black string and jug bands Because the instruments were un should wonder why the ifamiliar are common einough, and even there orthodox, it seems likely that the sight" has for so long escaped the at the range is apparent. Martin, Bogan, players were not music-readers, and tention of those involved in black and Armstrong had a vast range of that suggests that they would not music research. tunes. Both Martin and Annstrong have performed in mainstream learned fiddle tunes at an early age; music-making. The curious might Ted Bogan played in a medicine have noted their music, but sophisti DISCOGRAPHY show. Their albums include such cates may never have known of these non-blues tunes as "Sweetheart of social activities and the music per Martin, Carl, Ted Bogan, and Howard Arm Sigma Chi," "Mexicali Rag," "You'll formed at them. The fact that the Pal strong. Barnyard dance. Rounder 2003, 1972. --. Martin, Bogan, and Armstrong. Flying Never Find Another Kanaka Like atka tourist saw them as a novelty, Fish 003, 1974.

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