Introduction to Jazz Essay, Music History (MUSC1HAH1) Blues People, ISBN: 9780688184742
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Course
Music History (MUSC1HAH1)
Institution
University Of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)
Book
Blues People
Amiri Baraka (previously known as LeRoi Jones) gives a thorough introduction to jazz through his book, "Blues People." The essay summarises Baraka's message on jazz and blues in American social, musical, economic, and cultural history. The journey of Western Classical music to Jazz music is a trans...
Jazz Assignment (MUSC1HAH1)
Tatum Thomas (219 001 981)
Salim Washington
, Amiri Baraka’s book, Blues People: Negro Music in White America, reveals African American
life’s social context through their music. From the late 1800s onward, African Americans
navigate their music path from blues to jazz with all the permutations between and afterward.
The connection between music and the society it pivots on should not be overlooked or limited in
its perspective.
In 1619, the first West African people were sold to the New World (North America) to be a part
of human chattel enslavement. Upon arrival, there were barriers of language, culture, spiritual
practices, and skin color that polarized black and white people in America. This slave mentality
of white Americans dehumanized and alienated Africans. Therefore, African slaves created work
songs and spirituals, also considered the primordial form of blues music. Throughout the two
centuries of slavery, black agrarian labourers developed a tiny bit of freedom and emotive
release through their slave songs. These work songs in North America’s southern parts consisted
of shouts, chants, narratives, and laments (Baraka: 1963, p.62). The guttural outcries and the call-
and-response vocal technique waved a hand to their past West African cultural roots and also the
future’s “scat-singing of the beboppers” (Baraka: 1963, p.65). Due to their limited dialect, they
developed a variegated English, to meet white Americans halfway. They were illiterate and did
not write down their music but repeated and improvised their acapella style songs. Lyrical
themes were centralized on the hardship of being a slave and the nature of their work. The music
diminished boredom and augmented productivity as they sustained a regular rhythm throughout.
However, their music was not limited to decorated droning but had an experiential, historical
account in their lyrics and incorporated their spiritual revelations.
When white American colonists introduced Christianity to the African slave population, the
heroic biblical characters offered a sense of freedom and hope for the slaves. As a result, slaves
developed ‘spirituals’ during church and work hours. Regarding their music structure, Baraka
identifies its usage of the early English ballad (known as “ballits” to the slaves) structure, which
would be eight, ten, or sixteen bars long (1963, p.62). The two significant elements would be the
singing style of African call-and-response (repetition of the first two lines of the song) and the
shouts (follows the three-line structure of blues.) Repeated phrases drew the string from blues
into jazz, where it is known as the riff. The lyrics and melody often sounded intensely slow and
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