Timbuktu, the birthplace of blues

[JSngry]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0305/Timbuktu-the-birthplace-of-blues

[JSngry]

Christian Science Monitor!

I mean, hey. File under "Who? Meets Why?"

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

It's not wrong, but it's just not the TRUTH.

I can play loads of African stuff, including the music of the Touareg and Fulani (Peul) that sounds like blues, but it means something different. Without a message, music is empty.

In any case, no Touareg people were taken to any part of the Americas as slaves because the Touareg are white. Few Songhai or Fulani (from this area) would have been, either, because they were just a bit too far off the beaten track. And because the nationals most traded at Charleston were Mandinke and Bambara, who live rather more to the east in Mali/Guinea/Burkina Faso/Gambia/Senegal/Guinea Bissau/Sierra Leone.

MG

[papsrus]

I can play loads of African stuff, including the music of the Touareg and Fulani (Peul) that sounds like blues, but it means something different. Without a message, music is empty.

I'm reminded for some reason of this thread, which posed an intriguing if somewhat slippery question.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I can play loads of African stuff, including the music of the Touareg and Fulani (Peul) that sounds like blues, but it means something different. Without a message, music is empty.

I'm reminded for some reason of this thread, which posed an intriguing if somewhat slippery question.

Good one, Paps. It is a slippery question, though. I might not ask it now.

The social situation in which music is made determines the language used and the meanings of it. One might say that music is something that society does through the agency of musicians. So the existence, in the twenties to fifties/sixties, of a thriving jazz scene enabled musicians to play before attentive audiences with their peers, or even with master musicians, and learn from both peers/masters and audience how to develop their playing/skills so as to get through to people who didn't have the musical education to appreciate their skills as such. But those same players couldn't develop into Country & Western musicians or Soukous musicians, because those scenes weren't available to them to develop in (had they wished to).

For example, Dexter Johnson, a Nigerian sax player, went to Senegal in the sixties to try to popularise Highlife. But he couldn't - he had to work within the scene that existed in Senegal, which was Latin music, and he started the Star Band, which eventually became the leading band in developing Mbalax, by which time it was known as Youssou Ndour & les Super Etoiles de Dakar (without Dex). In order for such things to happen, the scene has to have a certain weight, or there cannot be enough work for the learning interactions between peer/master musicians and audiences to take place with sufficient frequency. That weight is given by society - in particular, by the existence in society of a lot of paying customers for whatever music it is.

Music is local. We're all human, so there will be similarities between different locals. But perhaps not as many as we like to think. Why is so much music from almost all the parts of Africa with which I'm fairly familiar concerend with politics? (97% in Senegal.) Why is so little western music concerned with politics and so much concerned with ideal love? Well, what's the point, in a polygamous society, of writing songs like "It's you or no one"; "My one and only love"; "Night and day"? But in a monogamous society, these songs (and poems, plays, films, novels etc) reinforce that status quo, so in a way, they ARE political. But they are not understood by western society as such. But they might well be understood by West Africans that way.

MG

[JSngry]

I don't think it's wrong to note that although the meanings of the stories told changed greatly from Africa to the "new world", the basic elements of the "language" was kept intact as much as was possible under the circumstances. Attempts to completely eradicate "cultural memory" failed, although they certainly succeeded more than you'd like to think that basic human decency would allow for. But once recovery from the attempted cultural genocide began, there was still more than a shred or two of "original identity" left in speech and other "signifiers". Of course, that was pre-"blues", but it also pretty much remained at the root of what came to, in one way or another, dominate the popular culture of the he better part of the 20th Century - the aftershocks of the African Diaspora. Personally, I think that although that continues, it's also "winding down" thanks to assimilation, genericification, and all other sorts of ations, but lord have mercy, it sure was front and center for a good long while, wasn't it!

But that's neither her nor there. What's really a trip is looking at a computer at a desk in the middle of a Mega-Corporate Day and all of a suden seeing a link to a story in The Christian Science Monitor about Timbuktu being the "birthplace of the blues". It's one of those uber-WTF? moments that you wish you weren't in position to experience, but there it was anyway.

[seeline]

It's not wrong, but it's just not the TRUTH.

I can play loads of African stuff, including the music of the Touareg and Fulani (Peul) that sounds like blues, but it means something different. Without a message, music is empty.

In any case, no Touareg people were taken to any part of the Americas as slaves because the Touareg are white. Few Songhai or Fulani (from this area) would have been, either, because they were just a bit too far off the beaten track. And because the nationals most traded at Charleston were Mandinke and Bambara, who live rather more to the east in Mali/Guinea/Burkina Faso/Gambia/Senegal/Guinea Bissau/Sierra Leone.

MG

Well, Charleston was hardly the only active slave port in the English-speaking part of the Western Hemisphere, but other than that, I very much agree. (On the music, etc.)

Just because someone uses a pentatonic scale or tuning does not mean that they're playing "blues" by default. The "blues came from Mali" and "desert blues" etc. etc. etc. slogans are just that - promotional stuff.

Was/is there influence from W. Africa on various kinds of African american music? Sure! (Would be crazy to deny it.)

did instruments cross the Atlantic? Definitely.

But this wholesale re-appropriation of African cultures to suit the purposes of reductionists over here just annoys the hell out of me. for one, people who do it seem to ignore the fact that W. Africa (and everywhere else in the world) have had 400+ years of cultural development since the slave trade started.

And they also ignore the fact that people from many, many parts of Africa were thrown together, here in what's now the US plus all the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Some cultures won out (cf. the predominance of Yoruba and Congo-based religions in Brazil, Cuba and - now - here in the US. There were many W. African Muslim slaves in the Western hemisphere, but the practice of the religion largely died off - check Sylviane A. Diouf's book on this, Servants of Allah, for starters...)

And then there's the fact that HMV was selling records of all kinds of music throughout Africa... which is how so many African musicians of a certain age (most of them gone now) came to be influenced by Cuban music. (Just one of many, many examples.)

I think a lot of the people who write screeds like the one Jim linked to are assuming that African countries and cultures exist in some kind of vacuum, isolated from the rest of the world.

There are lots of problems with these big, generalist proclamations.

I think sources like www.afropop.org have lots more reliable material in their archives, easily available to anyone who chooses to visit the site.

Edited to add: MG, I'm not sure there re. the Tuareg being "white." Lots of them are very dark-skinned. They are Berber, though.

Few Songhai or Fulani (from this area) would have been, either, because they were just a bit too far off the beaten track.

But... they're on the old caravan routes. And slaves were taken north, to the Maghreb., after all. (Again, though, many were Bambara.)

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[seeline]

I don't think it's wrong to note that although the meanings of the stories told changed greatly from Africa to the "new world", the basic elements of the "language" was kept intact as much as was possible under the circumstances. Attempts to completely eradicate "cultural memory" failed, although they certainly succeeded more than you'd like to think that basic human decency would allow for. But once recovery from the attempted cultural genocide began, there was still more than a shred or two of "original identity" left in speech and other "signifiers". Of course, that was pre-"blues", but it also pretty much remained at the root of what came to, in one way or another, dominate the popular culture of the he better part of the 20th Century - the aftershocks of the African Diaspora. Personally, I think that although that continues, it's also "winding down" thanks to assimilation, genericification, and all other sorts of ations, but lord have mercy, it sure was front and center for a good long while, wasn't it!

But that's neither her nor there. What's really a trip is looking at a computer at a desk in the middle of a Mega-Corporate Day and all of a suden seeing a link to a story in The Christian Science Monitor about Timbuktu being the "birthplace of the blues". It's one of those uber-WTF? moments that you wish you weren't in position to experience, but there it was anyway.

I think the point about "language" staying intact - as if Africans and people of African descent lived in a vacuum here - is also very erroneous, and on a par with assuming that Africa is some kind of museum (lacking living, changing cultures).

Not saying that to bug you, JS, just speaking in general.

Now if we can all hold off from using the phrase "blues griot" (or "jazz griot"), I'll be very happy indeed.

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Not language, but "language", the subconscious, subliminal aspects of inflection & rhythm. I don't think there's anything "erroneous" about that. If, let's say, me and a bunch of other people from Plano, Tx was kidnapped and carried away to, say, Bosnia, and forced to not speak English and to basically live like chattel and be treated with all the considerations thereof, I have no doubt that once the haze began to clear, there would still be residual "North Central Texas-isms" in my psyche that would carry over to my style of communications, things that I would also pass on to my progeny, as consciously as possible, and altho subconsciously, just through whatever would be left of my.our "cultural memory". Or soes such a thing not exist?

For every other culture, there's a big "celebration" of traits that have carried over from "the old world". Except for African-Americans, where every time, it seems, any attempt is made to to point out such connections, there's always some overly-eager "objective" white cat ready to jump up and deny even the plausibility of such a thing. Not saying that to bug you, seeline, just speaking in general.

And yet, as they say, black don't crack...just speaking in general.

Now if we can all hold off from using the phrase "blues griot" (or "jazz griot"), I'll be very happy indeed.

I've never used that word in my life, not do I intend to!

The Christian Science Monitor, on the other hand, hey, they're liable to do anything!

Edited March 7, 2010 by JSngry

[seeline]

But that presupposes that the subjects people address in lyrics are the same.

Griot songs in W. Africa have no equivalent here. Nobody here is singing about the Mali or Songhai Empires, unless they're African immigrants.

Nobody here sings about Sunjata (or Sundiata, or any number of other spellings), the legendary founder of the Mali Empire.

They just don't - unless they're griots from W. Africa who have either moved to this country or are on tour here.

ditto for what Tuareg musicians sing about (check for Tinawiren, who've gained a lof of popularity in the US despite the fact that they sing in their own Berber dialect).

But people who are singing ritual music for santeria ceremonies *are* singing pretty much what's sung for the spirits and deities (orishas) over in Nigeria and parts of Benin.

It's a whole different ballgame.

*

About "blues/jazz griot," someone at The Other Place took great exception to my pointing out that our use of the word "griot" has very little to do with what African griots actually do, and who they are. That person also claimed that the blues is African music - as in, it came from Africa, not that it was developed here in the US. (My responses had a great deal to do with my being given the boot...)

At any rate, I'm a bit touchy about the misuse of the term.

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Never mind.

[seeline]

Not language, but "language", the subconscious, subliminal aspects of inflection & rhythm. I don't think there's anything "erroneous" about that. If, let's say, me and a bunch of other people from Plano, Tx was kidnapped and carried away to, say, Bosnia, and forced to not speak English and to basically live like chattel and be treated with all the considerations thereof, I have no doubt that once the haze began to clear, there would still be residual "North Central Texas-isms" in my psyche that would carry over to my style of communications, things that I would also pass on to my progeny, as consciously as possible, and altho subconsciously, just through whatever would be left of my.our "cultural memory". Or soes such a thing not exist?

For every other culture, there's a big "celebration" of traits that have carried over from "the old world". Except for African-Americans, where every time, it seems, any attempt is made to to point out such connections, there's always some overly-eager "objective" white cat ready to jump up and deny even the plausibility of such a thing. Not saying that to bug you, seeline, just speaking in general.

And yet, as they say, black don't crack...just speaking in general.

Now if we can all hold off from using the phrase "blues griot" (or "jazz griot"), I'll be very happy indeed.

I've never used that word in my life, not do I intend to!

The Christian Science Monitor, on the other hand, hey, they're liable to do anything!

Well, it's not the CSM, it's Vieux Farka Toure and his late father Ali Farka Toure who are making that claim... There *is* some validity to what Vieux is saying; I'd never deny that. But both men have used the "blues came from Africa" line to sell their music outside of W. Africa. They'd never be able to put that one over with the folks in either Timbuktu or Bamako!

I know I sound like a cynic, but some of their reasoning is a little circular. (imo, at least.)

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[AllenLowe]

sounds like Randy Weston's little speech last year at the Monk reading about how the slaves came over singing the blues -

(though there is an early, 1893 version of Pete Kelley's Blues from an old cylinder; Sabu and the Swahili's, with Henry Mancini conducting) -

Edited March 7, 2010 by AllenLowe

[seeline]

Never mind.

No worries.

And hey, i really like Vieux Farka's music, so there you go.

And... I think what both Vieux and AFT were right about is that there are some pronounced similarities between certain things about certain styles of music from their country 9and neighboring countries) and certain things here.

But to say that they're exactly the same - well, there's the rub.

I think both AFT and Vieux believe(d) in what they're saying, and that's all well and good, but AFT used to say things like "John Lee Hooker has nothing to teach me," which is where you more or less have to start lifting your feet, imo.

I wish we could trace everything in US music history in painstaking detail, but that's not possible. I would *love* to see this particular conundrum solved!

And I'm sure many other kinds of song lyrics (other that what I mentioned above) are similar - life is life, after all, and there are major themes that we all write and sing and talk about, everywhere on the planet.

But our ways of expressing those things can vary lots, even within groups of people who live in close proximity to each other.

just my thoughts, nothing written in stone in any way at all!

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Jesusfuckingchrist, why is it so goddamned difficult to accept that under the circumstances that most African-Americans faced for the first 250 or so years of their existence as African-"Americans" that, since assimilation was aggressively discouraged & "nuturing", where it existed at all, came from within self and community, that some "African-isms" (and if every time a phrase like that is used it ends up being challenged on some "oh, that's insulting becuase Africa is such a DIVERSE continent" condescension, then fine, but FUCK THAT, can we stipulate to that with a gigantic DUH! and them MOVE ON?) would be more likely to survive than not? The only alternatives would be to evolve into some new creature with no memory/identity whatsoever, or to assimilate completely in Master's Perfect Image. No dount, there was that, but why does the "legacy of slavery" that Good White Folk like to go on and on about seem to never entail maybe holding on to some characteristics of the "mother land"? It's like the Good White Folk like to bemoan how we took these Africans and made them into Total Non-Africans With No Identity Of Their Own. The "damaging legacy of slavery".

Well, Good White Folk, maybe we weren't as successful in that regard as we like to think. Maybe we're just too goddamned VAIN to consider the possibility that we tried every which way to get that African OUT of that African and yeah, we tried pretty hard, we did, and we got a good way there, but holy shit, SOME of it still hung in there after all. Maybe we AIN"T the Holy Badasses we fancy ourselves as. Maybe there's SOME shit that we just couldn't get to, no matter how hard we tried.

But no, couldn't be. Weren't never no African in African-Americans. By the time it got to the birth of the "blues", all we had was tabula rasa colored folks on which to skeet all our melting pot American jizz of everything but Africanisms. And that's what the "blues" is, right? RIGHT!

That probably ain't what Vieux Farka Toure and his late father Ali Farka Toure are talking about. Don't know, don't care. It's an age of tourism and it's the Christian Science Monitor. Proceed accordingly. But that is what I'm talking about.

Lest there be any confusion.

[medjuck]

Just because someone uses a pentatonic scale or tuning does not mean that they're playing "blues" by default. The "blues came from Mali" and "desert blues" etc. etc. etc. slogans are just that - promotional stuff.

Well according to Bobby McFerrin the whole world is hard wired to use the pentatonic scale:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ bobby_mcferrin_hacks_your_brain_with_music.html

[seeline]

Jesusfuckingchrist, why is it so goddamned difficult to accept that under the circumstances that most African-Americans faced for the first 250 or so years of their existence as African-"Americans" that, since assimilation was aggressively discouraged & "nuturing", where it existed at all, came from within self and community, that some "African-isms" (and if every time a phrase like that is used it ends up being challenged on some "oh, that's insulting becuase Africa is such a DIVERSE continent" condescension, then fine, but FUCK THAT, can we stipulate to that with a gigantic DUH! and them MOVE ON?) would be more likely to survive than not? The only alternatives would be to evolve into some new creature with no memory/identity whatsoever, or to assimilate completely in Master's Perfect Image. No dount, there was that, but why does the "legacy of slavery" that Good White Folk like to go on and on about seem to never entail maybe holding on to some characteristics of the "mother land"? It's like the Good White Folk like to bemoan how we took these Africans and made them into Total Non-Africans With No Identity Of Their Own. The "damaging legacy of slavery".

Well, Good White Folk, maybe we weren't as successful in that regard as we like to think. Maybe we're just too goddamned VAIN to consider the possibility that we tried every which way to get that African OUT of that African and yeah, we tried pretty hard, we did, and we got a good way there, but holy shit, SOME of it still hung in there after all. Maybe we AIN"T the Holy Badasses we fancy ourselves as. Maybe there's SOME shit that we just couldn't get to, no matter how hard we tried.

But no, couldn't be. Weren't never no African in African-Americans. By the time it got to the birth of the "blues", all we had was tabula rasa colored folks on which to skeet all our melting pot American jizz of everything but Africanisms. And that's what the "blues" is, right? RIGHT!

That probably ain't what Vieux Farka Toure and his late father Ali Farka Toure are talking about. Don't know, don't care. It's an age of tourism and it's the Christian Science Monitor. Proceed accordingly. But that is what I'm talking about.

Lest there be any confusion.

???

No, they're talking about pentatonic scales (also guitar tunings) in a number of different kinds of music from northern Mali and "this sounds like that, so it must be the same thing."

We exported the steel-stringed guitar to Africa... It's now a griot instrument in Mali, although many griots still play the ngoni lute, which *is*n one of the ancestors of the modern banjo.

Jim, I don't get why you're ranting. I agree with a lot of what both Vieux and his father have to say, but not with everything. There *is* a big difference between here and W. Africa; take a trip and you'll see for yourself. I think it's pretty hard for many African Americans when they run up against various African cultures (either there or here), because there are so many cultural differences.

Just sayin', after having been an ESL tutor, talked to more than a few people who've experienced the differences, and also having a dedicated interest in W. African music (especially percussion music from Mali and parts of Guinea).

I think you're not getting the points I'm attempting to make, so I'll let it drop, OK?

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[John L]

Jesusfuckingchrist, why is it so goddamned difficult to accept that under the circumstances that most African-Americans faced for the first 250 or so years of their existence as African-"Americans" that, since assimilation was aggressively discouraged & "nuturing", where it existed at all, came from within self and community, that some "African-isms" (and if every time a phrase like that is used it ends up being challenged on some "oh, that's insulting becuase Africa is such a DIVERSE continent" condescension, then fine, but FUCK THAT, can we stipulate to that with a gigantic DUH! and them MOVE ON?) would be more likely to survive than not?

I don't see that anybody is denying that here Jim. The question is maybe more of a semantic one. While it is absolutely clear that African retentions are fundamental to the blues, people get still uptight with the idea that the blues itself "originated" in Africa. That is perhaps not without reason, as the extreme Afrocentric view would have you believe that influences from the New World had nothing to do with the formation of the blues. That is just as incorrect as denying the importance of African retentions.

[JSngry]

I'm getting all your points and not arguing against them, your points are not at all relevant to mine, so yeah, let it drop.

Of course.

As per the Last Poets, White Man DO Got A God Complex.

[seeline]

Look, I've been involved in music history stuff for a long time... and i wish it was a simple connect-the-dots kind of thing with Africa and here.

But it just isn't. Too much time has gone by, people have developed their own cultures and music here *and* there. Take jazz, for example - developed in the US, not Africa. And to this day, relatively few Africans play jazz (outside of southern Africa in general and in S. Africa itself). It's never made the dent in W. Africa that Cuban music did, or that calypso did, or that James Brown did.

I think black American achievements in all fields are, first and foremost, American. That (obviously) includes black American music, like the blues.

It's equally true of music from Cuba and Brazil, although in both cases, slavery lasted longer than here, and also in both cases, African people continued to arrive in those countries long after the US and the British Empire outlawed the slave trade.

I'm a big fan of Julie Dash's film Daughters of the Dust, which is set in the Georgia Sea Islands at the beginning of the 20th century and is largely about the old ways (all the very direct Africanisms) dying out as younger generations become more and more assimilated.

Julie Dash is black, so it's not as if she's commenting from outside the continuum in the way some of us (you, me) are, as white folks.

*

Also - very, very important point: African religions - and most African musical instruments - were suppressed here in the US in a way that just didn't happen in Brazil, Cuba and many other Caribbean and Latin American countries. People were able to hold a dual allegiance, with the saints standing in for the gods "from home." That didn't happen much outside of Catholic countries (and, of course, New Orleans).

The US and Canada are very different cultural matrices, and what developed out of the blending of many cultures here is profoundly different than what happened in other parts of the W. hemisphere.

I'm not making any of this up; and I don't think I'm trying to make a distinction here because I'm white. (Though if anyone wants to believe that, they can.)

I think that's true of The Magnificent Goldberg as well, although I wouldn't want to presume to speak for him.

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Jesusfuckingchrist, why is it so goddamned difficult to accept that under the circumstances that most African-Americans faced for the first 250 or so years of their existence as African-"Americans" that, since assimilation was aggressively discouraged & "nuturing", where it existed at all, came from within self and community, that some "African-isms" (and if every time a phrase like that is used it ends up being challenged on some "oh, that's insulting becuase Africa is such a DIVERSE continent" condescension, then fine, but FUCK THAT, can we stipulate to that with a gigantic DUH! and them MOVE ON?) would be more likely to survive than not?

I don't see that anybody is denying that here Jim. The question is maybe more of a semantic one. While it is absolutely clear that African retentions are fundamental to the blues, people get still uptight with the idea that the blues itself "originated" in Africa. That is perhaps not without reason, as the extreme Afrocentric view would have you believe that influences from the New World had nothing to do with the formation of the blues. That is just as incorrect as denying the importance of African retentions.

And yet, whenever those African retentions are mentioned, there's always some smartass white folk who pops up and seeks to either minimize or talk a lot of "musicology" that says, well, yeah, maybe, but you now, we can't be sure, and all that bullshit, like, yeah, we'll allow them just as long as nobody tried to make too specific a thing out of it... Makes me wanna holler, throw up both my hands...

The "blues" are, I would hope obviously, an African-American music, no America, no "blues". Duh. Everybody's comfortable with that. It's the African part that fucks people up, it seems, even at the subconscious level. And as long as that discomfort exists, even at the subconscious level, then there will be "advocates" for the other side who will go to the same lengths to confirm what is objectively only part of the recipe, just as there are those who go out of their way to deflect away the obvious. That's what happens when you argue over who owns history.

As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much all bullshit, because what happened happened, and if my hunch is right, what's happening now, and therefore what is likely to happen, ain't waiting around for it to happen any differently than it already did. Them that are are named Marsailis, etc., and they are not relevant to the living, only to the undead.

To sum up, Africanisms in blues - sure, ok, of course, just don't look for them, becuase even if you find them, they're not relevant and/or provable.

God DAMN you gotta love that!

We are the fucking world!

Edited March 7, 2010 by JSngry

[seeline]

you're just bsing now - who said those scales and tunings *didn't* come from Africa? Not me.

i'm not even sure what your point is... I think we actually agree on most everything, and that, as has been suggested above, this is more about semantics than anything else.

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Sure!

you're just bsing now - who said those scales and tunings *didn't* come from Africa? Not me.

Nor me, because I don't have a clue where they come from!

But this ain't about "scales and tunings", which, since we agree on almost everything, I'm sure is already understood.

[seeline]

Heard this? Bridgewater went to Mali and recorded with Malian musicians.

The album hasn't gotten nearly the acclaim that it ought to.

Here's a track from the album - with vocalist Ami Sacko and her husband Bassekou Kouyate and his group, Ngoni ba. (The last are currently touring with Béla Fleck.)

It's a killer disc!

Video from one of her tours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUCOU9vteCA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYX-BqpWBY0&feature=fvw - not to be too pedantic about it, but whoever subtitled the video "mbalax" is wrong. The Mag. Goldberg can explain that far better than I ever could.

Edited March 7, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Yep. Pleasantly surprised! I think it's about as good a Dee Dee Bridgewater side as we're going to see in our lifetime.