Folk Music of Jamaica

A notable year in the history of Jamaican music was 1907, when Walter Jekyll's Jamaican Song and Story was first published. The Contentsof this book include four parts entitled Annancy Stories, Digging Sings, Ring Tunes, and Dancing Tunes. Each part has an introduction, songs, stories, and melodies.

Part 1: Annancy stories, includes 51 items, such as the story and melody "Leah and Tiger" (item 36, pages 108-9). The heading refers to a legendary figure, Annancy, or Anansi, the Ashanti word for spider. Annancy stories and certain musical characteristics originated in West Africa.

Part 2: Digging sings, includes 37 items, such as " The one shirt I have" (item 58, page 164). The heading refers to the digging of holes for the planting of yams. "Nothing more joyous can be imagined," writes Jekyll, "than a good 'digging-sing' from twenty throats, with the pickers—so they call their pickaxes—falling in regular beat." Digging sings included songs sung during many kinds of labor. A feature of several digging sings is the bobbin. Jekyll explains, "One man starts or 'raises' the tune and the others come in with the 'bobbin,' the short refrain..." In the song Miss Nancy Ray, for example, the bobbin is "Oh hurrah boys!" Bobbins resemble and perhaps stemmed from a common manner of singing of work songs in Africa.

Part 3: Ring tunes, includes 28 items, such as "Ring a diamond" (item 92, page 194). These tunes were sung by boys and girls holding hands to form a ring.

Part 4: Dancing tunes, includes 80 items, such as "Fan me, soldierman" (item 125, page 223) and Me carry me akee a Linstead market" (item 121, pp. 219-220).

During the 1970's, Oxford University Press published six collections of Jamaican folks songs arranged and annotated by Dr. Olive Lewin. Her book, Rock It Come Over: the Folk Music of Jamaica, describes Jekyll's 1907 book as "very well researched," but she gives examples of occasional errors. She concludes that "although Jekyll's interest extended beyond music to Jamaican folklore, it was by his considerable knowledge as a musician that he made the most valuable contribution to this all too neglected field of scholarship."

In her book Forty Folk Songs of Jamaica, Lewin classifies the songs into eleven groups: Bruckins, Jankunnu, Kumina, Maroon, Mento, Nagos, Rasta (Rastafarian), Revival, (Set-Up; Gerreh), Tambo, and Worksongs. Of these, mento is by far the most common. However, much of mento is of relatively recent origin and should be classified as popular music rather than folk. Linkages from folk music to mento are described in Daniel T. Neely's dissertation, Mento, Jamaica's Original Music: Development, Tourism and the Nationalist Frame (New York University, 2007).

Among the best known Jamaican folk songs are Day-O (The Banana Boat Song), Jamaica Farewell (Iron Bar), and Linstead Market. The first two of these were popularized by Harry Belafonte. The third has come a long way since its appearance among Jekyll's 108 Jamaican folk songs. Not only has Linstead Market been arranged for solo voice and piano and for performance by choirs, but also, it was arranged for congregational singing in 1975 and now appears in at least five hymnals.

External Links

Jamaican Song and Story, 1907

Historical Notes on African-American and Jamaican Melodies

References

Leroy M. Backus III, "An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Sources on Jamaican Music," The Black Perspective in Music, vol. 8, no. 1 (Spring 1980), pages 35-53.

Walter Jekyll, Jamaican song and story: Annancy stories, digging sings, ring tunes, and dancing tunes, David Nutt, London, 1907. Reprinted by Dover Publications, ISBN 0486437205( pbk) 9780486437200 (pbk), 2005.

Olive Lewin, Forty Folk Songs of Jamaica, General Secretariat of the Organization of American States, Washington, D. C., 1973.

Olive Lewin, Rock It Come Over: the Folk Music of Jamaica, University of the West Indies Press, Kingston, 2000.

Anand Prahlad, "Jamaica: Musical Traditions," in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African-American Folkore, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 2006, pages 685-687.

Helen H. Roberts, "Possible Survivals of African Song in Jamaica," The Musical Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 3 (July 1926), 340-358.

Kolakoski Sequence

In mathematics, the Kolakoski sequence is an infinite list that begins with

1,2,2,1,1,2,1,2,2,1,2,2,1,1,2,1,1,2,2,1,2,1,1,2,1,2,2,1,1,...

This is an example of a self-generating sequence. To see it generate itself,

(1) write 1; interpret it as the number of 1's to write before switching to 2;

(2) write 2; interpret it as the number of 2's to write before switching back to 1;

(4) so far: 1,2,2; interpret the new 2 as the number of 1's to write;

(5) so far: 1,2,2,1,1; interpret the new 1,1 as the number of 2's and then 1's to write;

(6) so far: 1,2,2,1,1,2,1. Continue generating forever.

Does is seem that about half the numbers are 1's? Strange as it may seem, this problem remains unsolved at the time of this writing in August, 2008. This and other simply stated unsolved problems are presented at Integer Sequences and Arrays, and attempts to solve them are referenced at MathWorld and sequence A000002 at Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences.

William George Kolakoski (Sept. 17, 1944 - July 26, 1997), introduced the sequence that now bears his name as elementary problem 5304, American Mathematical Monthly 72 (1965), 674. This was his only mathematical publication, submitted during his student years at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University), where he received the Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in painting in 1967.

The selfness of the Kolakoski sequence, together with its pairing of simplicity and complexity, match Kolakoski's life-experience. In the words of one of his classmates, Pittsburgh-based writer Mike Vargo:

I see Bill's mathematical interests as being a piece with his philosophical and psychological interest. Bill was EXTREMELY obsessed with fundamentals and essentials... As you may know, Bill was a chronic schizophrenic, prone to florid delusional episodes if he didn't take his meds. And that, I think, is a key point, for reasons I'll now try to explain.

Here was this extremely active and facile mind...yet there was this thing living within him that was always threatening to take over... So, given this paradoxical situation, one subject which preoccupied Bill was the question of free will. This was the central question of his existence. He wanted to think he was free, yet he knew all too well the power of an "invisible hand," and this drove him to determinism. Back and forth he went...it seems to me that, given this quandary, it was very natural for him to try to create a self-generating number sequence. This particular form of mathematical exercise seems a natural byproduct of a mind preoccupied with the question of free will.

You "invent" the sequence yourself, thus exercising free will — and yet — it was already "there" waiting for you, wasn't it, so actually you just discovered it...and once you set it in motion, it goes on self-generating in marvelous order, turning into a profoundly pleasing manifestation of determinism.

[From a letter from Mike Vargo to Clark Kimberling, Feb. 6, 2001.]

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The term "Creole music" applies to two genres from south Louisiana: (1) Creole folk music, and (2) black Creole music. Creole folk music dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisana composers [Louis Moreau Gottschalk], Basil Barès, [Camille Nickerson], and [Moses Hogan]. On the other hand, black Creole music is preserved primarily in the form of recordings rather than sheet music. Along with Cajun music, black Creole music played a role in early development of la-la, zydeco, and swamp pop.

Creole Folk Music

One possible definition of Creole folk music is this: melodies, sometimes including dance-related instrumental accompaniments, sung in French patois by Creole people of French and African descent; however, this depends on a definition of Creole people, which is notoriously problematic. A simpler definition, in view of the relatively few Creole folk melodies that have survived, is this: music represented as Creole folk music in certain compilations, such as those listed here (with full citations in the References):

Date	Code	Compilation
1867	SS	Slave Songs of the United States (final 7 songs)
1902	CS	Creole Songs from New Orleans in the Negro-Dialect
1915	AA	Afro-American Folksongs
1921	CF	Six Creole Folk-Songs
1921	BB	Bayou Ballads: Twelve Folk-Songs from Louisiana
1939	LF	Louisiana French Folk Songs (Chapter 6: "Creole Folk Songs")
1946	DS	Creole Songs of the Deep South

In the following table several melodies appear in more than one compilation; in each case, the title, spelling, etc., are as found in the earliest compilation.

Title	Compilations	First words
Ah, Mélanie	DS	Ah, Mélanie tu veu m'é mer, non, non totor, pas aujourdui.
Ah, Suzette, Chère	BB
Aurore Bradaire (Aurore Pradère)	AA, SS, CF, DS	Aurore Bradaire, belle ti fille,
Beau Matin Mo Contre Manette	LF
Belle Layotte	SS, CF, DS	Mo déjà roulé tout la côte Pancor ouar pareil belle Layotte.
Calinda	SS	Michié Préval li donnin granbal, Li fait naig payé pou sauté inpé.
Caroline	SS, AA, CF, DS	Aine, dé, trois, Caroline, ça ça yé comme ça ma chére,
Cher', Mo L'aime Toi	DS	Cher', mo l'aime toi, Cher', mo l'aime toi, oui,
Clémentine	BB
Compèr Lapin	DS	Aie! Yaya compèr lapin, c'é tit' bête qui connin sauté.
Criole Candjo	AA	In zou' in zène Criole Candjo
Dan' Gran' Chimin	DS	Quan' mo té dan' gran' chimin, mo contré mou vié papa,
Dansez Codaine	BB
Dialogue d'Amour	CF
En Avan', Grénadié	CS, BB, DS	En avan' Grénadié, Ça qui mou ri n'a pas ration.
Gardé Piti Milat' La (= Misieu Bainjo)	CS, CF, BB	Gardé piti Milat' la' piti banjo la' com' li insolent
Gué-Gué Solingaie	BB
La Maison Denise	DS	You' zen' connin tit' la maison, qui proch' coté l'église
Lolotte	SS, AA, DS	Pauve piti Lolotte a mouin,
Michié Préval	BB
Milatrés' Cou'ri Dan' Bal	DS	Milatrés' cou'ri dan' bal (twice), cocodril' porté fanal -
Mouché Mazireau	CS	Mouché Mazireau dan' son vié bireau li Semblé
Musieu Bainjo (Mister Banjo)	SS, AA, DS	Voyez cemulet là, Musieu Bainjo, Comme il est insolent.
Neg' Pa' Capab' Marché	CS	Neg' pa' capab' marché san maïs danś poche cé pou' volé poule.
Ou Som Souroucou	CS	Ou Som Souroucou, qui ça ou gagnien, ganien pou' do l'eau.
Po' Pitie Mamzé Zizi	CS, BB, DS	Po' pitie Mamzé Zizi (thrice), li gagnien bobo à son cheu'.
Quan' Mo Té Dan' Gran' Chimain	CS	Quan' mo té dan' gran' chimain mo contré niou vié papa
Quand Mo-Té Jeune	CF, DS	Quan' mo té jeune, mo té jonglé missié
Quan' Patate La Cuite	CS	Quan' patate la cuite. N'a va mangé
Papa Va Á La Riviére	CS	Manman va á la riviére, papa va péché de' crab'
Rémon	SS, AA, DS	Mo parle Rémon, Rémon, Li parle Simon, Simon,
Salangadou	CS, DS	Salangadou (4 times), 'cou té piti fille la yé
Suzanne, Suzanne, Jolie Femme	BB
É Tan' Patat' la Cuit'	BB, DS	É tan' patat' la cuit', nanan nanli, nanan nanli.
Tan' Siro' É Dou'	DS	Tan' siro' é dou, Madeleine, tan' siro' é dou
Une Deusse Troisse (= Caroline)	CS	Une deusse troisse Adeline Ça Ça yé com' Ça me ché
Valsez, Valsez	DS	Valsez, Valsez pren' gar' vou tombé, va cassé bou di nez.
Vous T'é in Morico!	BB
Z'Amours Marianne	BB
Zélime, To Quitte' La Plaine	CS, DS	Zélime, to quitte' la plaine di pi qu'mo pli' miré toué;

Cultural Setting and Congo Square

In America's Music (2nd edition, p. 302-3), [[1]] Gilbert Chase describes the cultural setting in which Creole folk music developed. In 1803 the United Stated purchased the Louisiana Territory, including New Orleans, from France, and in 1809 and 1810, "more than ten thousand refugees from the West Indies arrived in New Orleans, most originally from [French-speaking Haiti]. Of these, about three thousand were free Negroes." At the time of Louis Moreau Gottschalk's birth in 1829, 'Caribbean' was "perhaps the best word to describe the musical atmosphere of New Orleans."

Central to Creole musical activities was Place Congo (in English: [Congo Square]). The much quoted 1886 article by [George Washington Cable] offers this description:

The booming of African drums and blast of huge wooden horns called to the gathering... . The drums were very long, hollowed, often from a single piece of wood, open at one end and having a sheep or goat skin stretched across the other... . The smaller drum was often made from a joint or two of very large bamboo...and this is said to be the origin of its name; for it was called the Bamboula.

Cable then describes a variety of instruments used at Congo Square, including gourds, triangles, jew's-harps, jawbones, and "the grand instrument at last," the four-stringed banjo. The bamboula, or "bamboo-drum", accompanied the bamboula dance and bamboula songs. Chase writes, "For Cable, the bamboula represented 'a frightful triumph of body over the mind,' and 'Only the music deserved to survive, and does survive...'"

Among other Creole dances mentioned by Chase (p. 312) are the babouilee, the cata (or chacta), the counjaille (or counjai), the voudou, the calinda, and the congo. "Perhaps the most widespread of all was the calinda..." The melody "Michié Préval," for example, was sung to the calinda. In Spanish, the name of this dance is calenda.

Songs Sung at Good Hope Plantation, St. Charles Parish

Songs numbered 130-136 in Slave Songs of the United States, according to a note on page 113,

were obtained from a lady who heard them sung, before the war, on the "Good Hope" plantation, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana... Four of these songs, Nos. 130, 131, 132, and 133, were sung to a simple dance, a sort of minuet, called the Coonjai; the name and the dance are probably both of African origin. When the Coonjai is danced, the music is furnished by an orchestra of singers, the leader of whom—a man selected both for the quality of his voice and for his skill in improvising—sustains the solo part, while the others afford him an opportunity, as they shout in chorus, for inventing some neat verse to compliment some lovely danseuse, or celebrate the deeds of some plantation hero. The dancers themselves never sing...and the usual musical accompaniment, besides that of the singers, is that furnished by a skilful performer on the barrel-head-drum, the jaw-bone and key, or some other rude instrument.

...It will be noticed that all these songs are "seculars" [not spirituals]; and that while the words of most of them are of very litle account, the music is as peculiar, as interesting, and, in the case of two or three of them, as difficult to write down, or to sing correctly, as any [of the 129 songs] that have preceded them.

The words "obtained from a lady who heard them sung" suggest that the songs were written down by someone, perhaps the lady herself, but certainly someone adept at music notation who was able to understand and write down the patois. It seems likely that she or he was a guest or a member of the La Branche family, who resided at the plantation until 1859, shortly after which the plantation was devastated by flood. This family included United States chargé d'affaires to Texas and two speakers of the Louisiana House of Representatives, Alcée Louis La Branche.

We may never know the identity of the person who wrote down the seven Creole folk songs as sung at Good Hope Plantation, but it is noteworthy that Good Hope (town), Good Hope Floodwall, Good Hope Oil and Gas Field, Bayou La Branche, and, especially, La Branche Wetlands are today well known names in St. Charles Parish, where the seven songs were once sung.

Gottschalk's Use of Creole Melodies

Louis Moreau Gottschalk, widely acknowledged as America's foremost concert artist of the ninetenth century, was born in New Orleans in 1829. Perone's bio-bibliography lists hundreds of Gottschalk's compositions. Among them are three solo piano works based on Creole melodies:

Bamboula, danse des nègres, based on "Musieu Bainjo" and "Tan Patate-là Tcuite"

La Savane, ballad crèole, based on "Lolotte"

Le Bananier, chanson nègre, based on "En Avant, Grenadiers," which like other Creole folk melodies, was also a popular French song

In America's Music (revised third edition, page 290), Chase writes:

Le Bananier was one of the three pieces based on Creole tunes that had a tremendous success in Europe and that I have called the "Louisiana Trilogy." [The other two are Bamboula and La Savane.] All three were composed between 1844 and 1846, when Gottschalk was still a teenager... . The pieces that created the greatest sensation was Bamboula.

Chase apparently overlooked a fourth Creole melody used by Gottschalk. In her 1902 compilation, Gottschalk's sister arranged "Po' Pitie Mamzé Zizi," and included a footnote: "L. M. Gottschalk used this melody for his piece entitled 'Mancenillier', [full name Le Mancenillier, sérénade]."

Regarding "Misieu Bainjo," used in Gottschalk's Bamboula, the editors of Slave Songs write "...the attempt of some enterprising negro to write a French song; he is certainly to be congratulated on his success." The song has been published in more than a dozen collections prior to 1963, listed by the Archive of Folk Culture, Library of Congress.

The Louisiana Lady

During the 1930s and 1940s, Camille Nickerson (1888-1982) performed Creole folk music professionally as "The Louisiana Lady." During an interview with Doris E. McGinty, Professor Nickerson told of her first performance at a parish in New Iberia. "I was dressed in Creole costume and sang for about an hour and a half, and was very well received. Now this was a white audience; such a thing was unheard of in Louisiana, especially in the rural section such as this was. The enthusiasm of the audience showed me what an impact the Creole song could have."

Black Creole Music

"Black Creole music," often reduced to "Creole music," designates a genre found in connection with Cajun music, zydeco, and swamp pop. The beginnings of this genre are associated with accordionist Amédé Ardoin (1896-1941), who, in the early 1930s, made influential recordings with Cajun fiddler Dennis McGee.

Subsequent developments, in which black Creole and Cajun styles became increasingly inseparable, are covered at Contemporary Louisiana Cajun, Creole and Zydeco Musicians. Among the many pages, under the auspices of Louisiana State University Eunice, are tributes to black Creole musicians Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin (1915-2007) and Boozoo Chavis (1930-2001).

External Links

Afro-American Folksongs - online book. Chapters IX, X, XI concentrate on Louisiana Creole music, dance, and patois, with comparisons to those of Martinique.

Contemporary Louisiana Cajun, Creole and Zydeco Musicians, from Louisiana State University Eunice.

Creole Songs Cable Sang, George Washington Cable's article in The Century Magazine, February 1886.

Historical Notes for African-American and Jamaican Melodies

Slave Songs of the United States. The Creole folk songs, numbered 130-136, can be viewed here as melodies with Creole lyrics.

Zydeco in The Handbook of Texas.

References

William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, compilers, Slave Songs of the United States, A. Simpson & Co., New York, 1867.

Shane K. Bernard, Swamp Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and Blues, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi, 1996. (Mentions black Creole music, but not Creole folk songs.)

Florence E. Borders, "Researching Creole and Cajun Musics in New Orleans," Black Music Research Journal, vol. 8, no. 1 (1988) 15-31.

George W. Cable, "The Dance in Place Congo," Century Magazine vol. 31, Feb., 1886, pp. 517-532.

Gilbert Chase, America's Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present, revised second edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1966.

Gilbert Chase, America's Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present, revised third, University of Illinois Press, 1987.

Maud Cuney-Hare, arranger, Six Creole Folk-Songs, Fischer, New York, 1921.

Henry Edward Krehbiel, Afro-American Folksongs, G. Schirmer, New York, 1915.

Doris E. McGinty and Camille Nickerson, "The Louisiana Lady," The Black Perspective in Music, vo. 7, no. 1 (Spring, 1979) 81-94.

Mina Monroe, Bayou Ballads: Twelve Folk-Songs from Louisiana, G. Schirmer, New York, 1921.

Camille Nickerson, Africo-Creole Music in Louisiana; a thesis on the plantation songs created by the Creole negroes of Louisiana, Oberlin College, 1932.

James E. Perone, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 2002.

Clara Gottschalk Peterson, arranger, Creole Songs from New Orleans in the Negro-Dialect, L. Grunewald, New Orleans, 1902.

Dorothy Scarborough, On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs, Harvard University Press, 1925.

S. Frederick Starr, Bamboula! The Life and Times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Ching Veillon, Creole Music Man: Bois Sec Ardoin, Xlibris, 2003.

Henri Wehrmann, Creole Songs of the Deep South, New Orleans, 1946.

Irène Thérèse Whitfield, compiler, "Creole Folk Songs," Chapter 6 in Louisiana French Folk Songs, Louisiana State University Press, 1939.