Lecture 1 July 4, 2012
• Popular Music in the United States: o Lies in the African-American Population o West African music was brought into America and was thrown into a mixing pot that the slave population count themselves as Americans. o Blues is the beginning of Jazz, Rock and R&B
• Congo Square –Passage from book: History of Jazz o An eligible black man sits with a large cylinder drum using his fingers and edge of his hand he jams repeatedly on the drum head which is around 14 diameters and probably made from animal skin. ____________________ with rapid sharp strokes. A second drummer holding his instrument between his knees joins in, playing with the same ______ attack. A third black man seated on the ground _________ instrument the body of which is rashly fashioned from the calabash. Another calabash which has been made into a drum and a woman beats at it with two short sticks. One voice then another voice, then other voices join in a dance of scene contradictions __________ give and take ___________ one handed performance spontaneous yet on closer inspection ritualize and precise is a dance of massive proportions, a dense crowded _________ performed in circular groups perhaps five or six hundred individuals moving in time to the pulsations of the music some swaying gently and others aggressively stumping their feet. A number of women in the group begin chanting. This scene could be Africa, in fact it is 19th century in New Orleans scattered first handed accounts provide us with analyzing details of these slay dances that took place in the open area then known as Congo Square. Today Luis Armstrong Park stands on roughly the same ground and there perhaps are no intriguing documents in the history of African-American use it. Benjamin ¬¬¬_____ the architect witnessed one of these collective dances on February 21, 1819 and not only that _____ event