DOCSLIB.ORG

•Œresearch Reportâ•Š. Review of the Music and Scripts of "In

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
•Œresearch Reportâ•Š. Review of the Music and Scripts of Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Music Faculty Publications School of Music 1997 “Research Report”. Review of The Music and Scripts of "in Dahomey," Music of the United States of America, Vol. 5. Marva Carter Georgia State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/music_facpub Part of the Music Commons Recommended Citation Carter, Marva Griffin. 1997. “Research Report”. Review of The Music and Scripts of "in Dahomey," Music of the United States of America, Vol. 5. The Choral Journal 38 (1). American Choral Directors Association: 41–41. This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Music at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Music Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Research report Christine D. de Catanzaro, editor The Prowse of a Editor's Note: This month's guest writer, any other of its kind. Keith, challenge presenting palatable to white audiences while Marva Griffin Carter, is Assistant and Company piano-vocal score (pub- image of the work's London an to black Professor of Music History and Literature lished as a result making explicit appeal serves as the to which xxxiv). at Georgia State University, Atlanta, tour) centerpiece pride (p. numbers are added. This edi Georgia. She is currently writing a interpolated tion the music and used This is Cook's most and musical biography of Will Marion Cook presents scripts song performed from which a recorded for Oxford University Press. in various performances, composition, be mounted. The value of this edition is enhanced modern performance could of such There are choral numbers, solo songs, by Riis's inclusion interpolated But I Ain't No Thomas L. Riis, editor and instrumental dance numbers that are songs as "I May Be Crazy, ' modern Fool" and the well-known "I'm a The Music and Scripts of "In Dahomey, still interesting to ears, including Jonah both written Alex and Music of the United States ofAmerica, Vol 5 "Caboceers Entrance," "Swing Along," Man," by Rogers as well as "I Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, Inc., "Society," "On Emancipation Day," and performed by Bert Williams, Wants to Be a Actor Von 1996. 245 pp., $128. ISBN: 0-89579 "Brown-Skin Baby Mine." They range Lady" by Harry to choral Tilzer with Vincent 342-3 (paperback only) from syncopated ragtime songs lyrics by Bryan, the is a rare orches operatic ensembles. Among appendixes tration of the "On of Broadway's landmark Most of the songs conform to turn-of- two-step Emancipa tion which was used as musical comedies, In Dahomey the-centuryTin Pan Alley styles, although Day" by Cook, exhibits novel from these the finale to the musical, ONE has been masterfully edited b> Cook expansions cake-walking of In Thomas L. Riis in the fifthvolume of Musii norms. Educated at conservatories in Ober- The songs and scripts Dahomey New to about in the United States ofAmerica. The MUST5 lin, Berlin (with Joseph Joachim), and attempt convey positive messages edition! Antonín Cook blackness that are free of the series of forty projected scholarly York (with Dvorák), brings degrading racial of was established in 1988 by the Americar his training to bear on these compositions. stereotypes minstrelsy. Although in order to In "Caboceers Entrance," with the and are occasionally Musicological Society represen lyrics by dialogue lyrics ethnic hu notable achievements and to reflect the di Paul Laurence Dunbar, Cook begins with marked by turn-of-the-century mu shifts to mor, the music of In transcends verse character and shape of American pseudo-African effects, ragtime Dahomey with a chorale-like both time and race. This edition deserves sic-making. Previous editions have includec style, and culminates finish.The to be included in school's the compositions of Ruth Crawford, Irvinj operatic opening chorus, "Swing every library. at Marva Carter Berlin, Amy Beach, and Daniel Read. Along," illustratesCook's skills composi- Griffin fon-vm/l State\+si +0 T fw1HÛYC1 P\> This latest edition features the firstfull tional synthesis. Riis astutely notes: Georgia University a Atlanta, length black musical comedy presented Georgia It a the chief merit is the a major Broadway theatre. opened Perhaps song's the dual the New York Theatre on February 18 way it deftly negotiates -CI 1903, and ran for fifty-three performances talents of com In Dahomey showcased the Visit our website at: unvw.berkey.comwww.berkey.com Will Marion com poser-conductor Cook, an* poser-lyricist Alex Rogers, scriptwriter and comedi stage manager, Jesse Shipp, THE CHORALOMUL WORKS Of I ans Bert Williams and George Walker. was performed more than one thousan* times to biracial national and internationa JACKSON BERKEY audiences between 1902 and 1905. The of In features tw all "NEWISSUE" plot Dahomey They'reall''NEWISSUE" to re cunning detectives who attempt until you Wve seen them! cover a lost heirloom for profit. Thei involves a coloniza quest coincidentally tion society's desire to settle in Dahome; SDG PRESS for the music The historical context www.hcrki'.t.com an scripts, versions, performance style, (954) 563-1844 has been exhau: Telephone recordings investigated FAX(954) 563-9006 Riis in an tively by introductory essay. 170 N.E. 33rd St. Ft Lauderdale, FL 33334 This show has more extant music tha 41 AUGUST 1997 PAGE This content downloaded from 131.96.28.172 on Mon, 23 Nov 2015 14:47:35 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Jazz and the Cultural Transformation of America in the 1920S
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s Courtney Patterson Carney Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Carney, Courtney Patterson, "Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 176. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/176 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. JAZZ AND THE CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA IN THE 1920S A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Courtney Patterson Carney B.A., Baylor University, 1996 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1998 December 2003 For Big ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The real truth about it is no one gets it right The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try1 Over the course of the last few years I have been in contact with a long list of people, many of whom have had some impact on this dissertation. At the University of Chicago, Deborah Gillaspie and Ray Gadke helped immensely by guiding me through the Chicago Jazz Archive.
    [Show full text]
  • Aida Overton Walker Performs a Black Feminist Resistance
    Restructuring Respectability, Gender, and Power: Aida Overton Walker Performs a Black Feminist Resistance VERONICA JACKSON From the beginning of her onstage career in 1897—just thirty-two years after the end of slavery—to her premature death in 1914, Aida Overton Walker was a vaudeville performer engaged in a campaign to restructure and re-present how African Americans, particularly black women in popular theater, were perceived by both black and white society.1 A de facto third principal of the famous minstrel and vaudeville team known as Williams and Walker (the partnership of Bert Williams and George Walker), Overton Walker was vital to the theatrical performance company’s success. Not only was she married to George; she was the company’s leading lady, principal choreographer, and creative director. Moreover and most importantly, Overton Walker fervently articulated her brand of racial uplift while simultaneously executing the right to choose the theater as a profession at a time when black women were expected to embody “respectable” positions inside the home as housewives and mothers or, if outside the home, only as dressmakers, stenographers, or domestics (see Figure 1).2 Overton Walker answered a call from within to pursue a more lucrative and “broadminded” avocation—one completely outside the realms of servitude or domesticity. She urged other black women to follow their “artistic yearnings” and choose the stage as a profession.3 Her actions as quests for gender equality and racial respectability—or as they are referred to in this article, feminism and racial uplift—are understudied, and are presented here as forms of transnational black resistance to the status quo.
    [Show full text]
  • The CAKE-WALK: Visibility, Staging a Presence
    A B D The CAKE-WALK: Visibility, Staging a Presence The African American composer and violinist Will Marion Cook had already studied at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik with Joseph Joachim, the famous violinist and associate of Brahms, when following his introductory American concert, a critic labeled him “America’s finest Negro violinist.” Furious at the limits implied by the critic, Cook abandoned the violin and set his sights on pursuing musical composition. Partnering with the famed poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar he set out to write a Negro musical. The work, eventually titled “Clorindy-The Origins of the Cake Walk,” became the first all- black musical production on Broadway in 1898. However, Cook’s mother thought it a disgrace, that her son, with all his European training, was now composing a “nigger” musical. To disguise his family’s association with this early work, Cook composed under the name Will Marion, but like his mother, kept Negro respectability high on his agenda. Cook, along with other African American theater talents of the day, sought to present themselves in contemporary ways, bringing into prominence black women, and performing coupled with them in fashionable dress, with mainstream concerns and a self- possessed dignity. Together, in a concerted effort, they worked to move beyond the southern rooted and enslaved characterizations that had come to define and limit the black presence on the American stage. A. When You Ain’t Got No Money, Well You Needn’t Come ‘Round, 1899 Publisher: M. Witmark & Sons, 49-51 West 28th Street Art Supplement: Chicago INTER-OCEAN B.
    [Show full text]
  • The Life and Solo Vocal Works of Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972) Alethea N
    Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 The Life and Solo Vocal Works of Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972) Alethea N. Kilgore Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC THE LIFE AND SOLO VOCAL WORKS OF MARGARET ALLISON BONDS (1913-1972) By ALETHEA N. KILGORE A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Alethea N. Kilgore All Rights Reserved Alethea N. Kilgore defended this treatise on September 20, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were: Wanda Brister Rachwal Professor Directing Treatise Matthew Shaftel University Representative Timothy Hoekman Committee Member Marcía Porter Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the treatise has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii This treatise is dedicated to the music and memory of Margaret Allison Bonds. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to acknowledge the faculty of the Florida State University College of Music, including the committee members who presided over this treatise: Dr. Wanda Brister Rachwal, Dr. Timothy Hoekman, Dr. Marcía Porter, and Dr. Matthew Shaftel. I would also like to thank Dr. Louise Toppin, Director of the Vocal Department of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for assisting me in this research by providing manuscripts of Bonds’s solo vocal works. She graciously invited me to serve as a lecturer and performer at A Symposium of Celebration: Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972) and the Women of Chicago on March 2-3, 2013.
    [Show full text]
  • Liner Notes, Visit Our Web Site
    BLACK MANHATTAN, VOLUME 2 THE PARAGON RAGTIME ORCHESTRA RICK BENJAMIN, DIRECTOR 80731-2 1. Shuffle Along Overture (1921) (Eubie Blake–Will H. Vodery) 6:30 Introducing “Opening Chorus,” “Love Will Find a Way,” “Honeysuckle Time,” “If You’ve Never Been Vamped by a Brown-Skin,” “Gypsy Blues,” “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” “I’m Craving for That Kind of Love,” and “Bandanna Days” 2. Nobody (1905) (Bert A. Williams) 4:54 Edward Pleasant, baritone 3. That’s Got ’Em—Rag (1919) (Wilbur C. Sweatman) 2:26 4. Honey Lamb (ballad, 1914) (Al. Johns) 3:26 Anita Johnson, soprano 5. Brazilian Dreams (tango-intermezzo, 1914) (Will H. Dixon) 3:59 6. Down in Honky Tonky Town (one-step, 1916) (Chris Smith) 2:04 7. Returned: A Negro Ballad (1902) (Will Marion Cook) 6:23 Anita Johnson, soprano; Rick Benjamin, piano 8. The Bell Hop Rag (1914) (Frederick M. Bryan) 3:28 9. Black Patti Waltzes (1896) (Will Accooe) 6:16 10. Goodnight Angeline (1919) (James Reese Europe) 3:08 Robert Mack, tenor 11. The Castle Walk (one-step, 1914) (James Reese Europe–Ford T. Dabney) 2:46 12. Aunt Hagar’s Children Blues (1921) (W.C. Handy) 2:39 Linda Thompson Williams, blues singer 13. Valse Angelique (1913) (J. Tim Brymn) 3:56 14. At the Ball, That’s All (1913) (J. Leubrie Hill) 2:37 Edward Pleasant, baritone 15. When the Moon Shines (from the 1904 revival of In Dahomey) (James J. Vaughan) 3:53 Anita Johnson, soprano 16. Oh! You Devil (rag, 1909) (Ford T. Dabney) 3:35 17.
    [Show full text]
  • Finding Aid to the Historymakers ® Video Oral History with Mercer Cook
    Finding Aid to The HistoryMakers ® Video Oral History with Mercer Cook Overview of the Collection Repository: The HistoryMakers®1900 S. Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60616 [email protected] www.thehistorymakers.com Creator: Cook, Mercer, 1930-2018 Title: The HistoryMakers® Video Oral History Interview with Mercer Cook, Dates: December 16, 2003 Bulk Dates: 2003 Physical 4 Betacame SP videocasettes (1:44:15). Description: Abstract: State deputy attorney Mercer Cook (1930 - ) has served as Assistant State’s Attorney and Deputy State’s Attorney for Cook County, after which he went into private practice. Cook was interviewed by The HistoryMakers® on December 16, 2003, in Chicago, Illinois. This collection is comprised of the original video footage of the interview. Identification: A2003_300 Language: The interview and records are in English. Biographical Note by The HistoryMakers® Mercer Cook, born May 31, 1930 in Washington, D.C., is an accomplished attorney in public and private practice with an interesting family story. His great grandfather John Hartwell Cook graduated from Oberlin College during the Civil War and was reportedly the first Dean of Howard University Law School. His grandfather, classically trained composer Will Marion (Mercer) Cook (1869-1945) collaborated on Broadway musicals with Paul Laurence Dunbar and Bert Williams. His father, (Will) Mercer Cook (1903-1987) was a noted scholar and translator from Howard University who served as United States Ambassador to Senegal and Nigeria. Cook grew up in Atlanta, attending Oglethorpe Elementary School. He graduated from Dunbar High School in Washington D.C. in 1947. Cook earned a B.A. from Amherst College in 1951. He spent some time in Europe before returning to finish his J.D.
    [Show full text]
  • American National Biography Online
    American National Biography Online https://www-anb-org.libproxy.temple.edu/articles/18/18-01253-... Click Print on your browser to print the article. Close this window to return to the ANB Online. Williams, Bert (12 Nov. 1874-4 Mar. 1922), and George Walker (1873-6 Jan. 1911), stage entertainers, were born, respectively, Egbert Austin Williams in Nassau, the Bahamas, and George Williams Walker in Lawrence, Kansas. Williams was the son of Frederick Williams, Jr., a waiter, and Julia Monceur. Walker was the son of "Nash" Walker, a policeman; his mother's name is unknown. Williams moved with his family to Riverside, California, in 1885 and attended Riverside High School. Walker began performing "darkey" material for traveling medicine shows during his boyhood and left Kansas with Dr. Waite's medicine show. In 1893 the two met in San Francisco, where they first worked together in Martin and Selig's Minstrels. To compete in the crowded field of mostly white blackface performers, "Walker and Williams," as they were originally known, subtitled their act "The Two Real Coons." Walker developed a fast-talking, city hustler persona, straight man to Williams's slow-witted, woeful bumbler. Williams, who was light-skinned, used blackface makeup on stage, noting that "it was not until I was able to see myself as another person that my sense of humor developed." An unlikely engagement in the unsuccessful Victor Herbert operetta The Gold Bug brought Williams and Walker to New York in 1896, but the duo won critical acclaim and rose quickly through the ranks of vaudeville, eventually playing Koster and Bial's famed New York theater.
    [Show full text]
  • The Music of James Reese Europe for Vernon and Irene Castle
    University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 1-1-2013 The uM sic of James Reese Europe For Vernon and Irene Castle Ralph G. Barrett University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Music Performance Commons Recommended Citation Barrett, R. G.(2013). The Music of James Reese Europe For Vernon and Irene Castle. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/2308 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE MUSIC OF JAMES REESE EUROPE FOR VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE by Ralph G. Barrett Bachelor of Science in Education Millersville University, 1978 Master of Music Northwestern University, 1996 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement For the Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting School of Music University of South Carolina 2013 Accepted by: Scott Weiss, Major Professor Chairman, Examining Committee Reginald Bain, Committee Member Andrew Gowan, Committee Member Rebecca Phillips, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies ABSTRACT James Reese Europe (1881-1919) was one of the leading African American musicians of the first two decades of the twentieth century. He was renowned as a conductor of theater and dance orchestras, a composer of syncopated dance music and popular song, and an advocate for improved opportunities and remuneration for African American professional musicians in New York. From late 1913 until mid- 1915, Europe was musical director for the popular exhibition dance team of Vernon (1887-1918) and Irene (1893-1969) Castle.
    [Show full text]
  • EGBERT AUSTIN WILLIAMS the Complicated History of the Minstrel Show WHO IS “BERT” WILLIAMS? • Born November 12, 1874 in Nassau, Bahama to a Mixed Race Family
    EGBERT AUSTIN WILLIAMS The Complicated History of the Minstrel Show WHO IS “BERT” WILLIAMS? • Born November 12, 1874 in Nassau, Bahama to a mixed race family • Father > Frederick Williams, Jr. > Sailor / Waiter • Mother > Julia Monceur > Daughter of a Clergyman from island of Antigua • 1st 11 years he lived in great poverty but little discrimination • 1885 family emigrated to Florida then Southern California in the fast growing town of Riverside, where he first faced widespread discrimination • “I have never been able to discover that there was anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But, I have found it inconvenient – in America” • An excellent student with a passion for books, in 1892, Egbert gained entrance to the University of San Francisco • He 1st joined a minstrel show that traveled among the lumber camps to earn $$ for college • Decades after the Civil War minstrel shows represented the only performing opportunities of any kind open to blacks. ALWAYS IN SEARCH OF WORK • A talent for writing songs & doing impressions, he worked on local stages • Met George Walker, another young talented performer and created an act • Over next 2 years, refined act and performed in San Francisco, Chicago, NY • Continued work in the minstrel tradition, created by Whites wearing blackface as a vehicle for demeaning humor aimed at African Americans • Calling themselves “The Two Real Coons,” Bert’s role was the not-too-bright black man continually getting himself into trouble • BUT, their stories came from the heart & their humor consisted of actions
    [Show full text]
  • Interview with Ambassador Mercer Cook
    Library of Congress Interview with Ambassador Mercer Cook The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Ralph J. Bunch Legacy: Minority Officers AMBASSADOR MERCER COOK Interviewed by: Ruth Stutts Njiiri Initial interview date: June 24, 1981 Copyright 2008 ADST Q: This is an interview with Ambassador Mercer Cook as part of the Phelps-Stokes Fund's oral history project on former Black Chiefs of Mission, funded by the Ford Foundation. Ambassador Cook served in Niger from 1961 to 1964, in Senegal from 1964 to 1966, and in The Gambia from 1965 to 1966. Ambassador Cook, what were the events which led to your entry into the diplomatic service? COOK: That's a long story, Ms. Njiiri, and you'll have to give me a little latitude, first of all, because at my age, memories are not always as bright, so crystal clear. When one reaches the age of seventy-eight, I think he has, well, he expects, to, to be forgetful. I will try to freshen them up as best I can. But as I say, this goes back a long way, this business of the Foreign Service. I finished college in 1925, and I believe that Foreign Service was a field that I would have chosen had it been open to us at that time. But there was then only one post available; that was Liberia. One of my classmates in high school had joined the Foreign Service Interview with Ambassador Mercer Cook http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001533 Library of Congress — his name was Bill George — and they kept him in Liberia until, for so long, that it shortened his career and it shortened his life.
    [Show full text]
  • Chronology and Itinerary of the Career of Will Marion Cook: Materials for a Biography Peter M
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications: School of Music Music, School of 10-17-2017 Chronology and Itinerary of the Career of Will Marion Cook: Materials for a Biography Peter M. Lefferts University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/musicfacpub Part of the African American Studies Commons, American Popular Culture Commons, and the Music Commons Lefferts, Peter M., "Chronology and Itinerary of the Career of Will Marion Cook: Materials for a Biography" (2017). Faculty Publications: School of Music. 66. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/musicfacpub/66 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Music, School of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications: School of Music by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 1 10/17/2017 Chronology and Itinerary of the Career of Will Marion Cook: Materials for a Biography Peter M. Lefferts University of Nebraska-Lincoln This document is one in a series---"Chronology and Itinerary of the Career of"---devoted to a small number of African American musicians active ca. 1900-1950. The documents are fallout from my work on a pair of essays, "US Army Black Regimental Bands and The Appointments of Their First Black Bandmasters" (2013) and "Black US Army Bands and Their Bandmasters in World War I" (2012; rev. version, 2016). In all cases I have put into some kind of order a number of biographical research notes, principally drawing upon newspaper and genealogy databases.
    [Show full text]
  • Black Manhattan Notes by Rick Benjamin
    Black Manhattan Notes by Rick Benjamin In the years following the Civil War, New York City was the destination of thousands of African-Americans who, newly freed and in search of economic and political opportunities, migrated there from the South. These “first generation” arrivals in the great metropolis did not have an easy time; white society only allowed them a narrow range of occupations. For women, this usually meant domestic or laundry work, and for men, manual labor or service jobs as porters or waiters. But these toils were taken up with a hopeful eye toward the future: “No work was too dirty or too hard for them to do . .” Tom Fletcher recalled from first-hand experience, “in order to keep a roof over their heads and to provide some education for their children . .” But their struggles began to pay dividends as the nineteenth century drew to a close. Thanks to the opportunities resulting from this hard work, many of their children were able to become “. not only doctors and lawyers but also teachers and even poets and songwriters. .” The first African-American New Yorkers to transcend manual labor were men from the sporting world—jockeys, prizefighters, and, to a lesser extent, baseball players. With their modest prosperity, by the 1880s many were able to take up residence on the West Side of Manhattan. There they formed the nucleus around which an entire self-sufficient, urban African-American community would grow and thrive. Restaurants, cafés, hotels, grocers, tailors, and a wide range of entertainment establishments sprang up to cater exclusively to them.
    [Show full text]