European American Stream African American Stream Latin American Stream

1. European American StreamAfrican American StreamLatin American Stream African Influence

2. Elements of African Influence • Call and Response • Repetition – short phrases, appealing • Polyrhythms – overlapping intricate short rhythm patterns • Wide variety of timbres in the voice

3. Styles of American Music influenced by African Americans • Minstrelsy (first form of entertainment considered distinctly American) • Ragtime • Jazz and it’s evolution and sub-genres (smooth jazz, mainstream jazz, etc.) • Gospel • Blues • Country (of European influence but many blues elements • Rhythm & Blues (R&B) • Funk • Rock and Roll • Rap • Hip Hop • Other sub-genres: zydeco, cajun

4. Latin American Stream • Styles with major impact in the US – rhythmic DANCE music • Habanera: Cuban, African influenced variant of the European country dance tradition • Tango: from Argentina, was influenced by Italian, Spanish and gaucho (cowboy) songs, and the rhythms of the habanera. Popularized in 1914 • Rumba: from urban street style of Cuban drumming with African influences (1930’s) • Mambo: Cuban based ballroom dance fad (1940’s) • Cha-cha-cha: Cuban based ballroom dance fad (1950’s) • Samba: Brazilian dance style, rooted in African music. (1940-50’s) • Bossa Nova: means “new trend,” Brazilian, (1960’s) • Mexican styles: conjuntoacordeon(accordion band) and mariachi played in the southwest, northern Mexico and Texas.

5. First Distinctively American Music • Minstrelsy • Today regarded with embarrassment or anger • Outrageously and overtly racist to our modern sensibilities • Further research of the time offers more complexities: • Images are more like caricatures

6. The Minstrel Show • Began in working-class neighborhoods in New York City where interracial interaction was common. • Early years (1808-1840), more an expression of the working-class youth identifying with the marginalization of the blacks. • Later years (1840-1860) became more stereotypical and blacks as caricatures (more racist) • 1840’s – 1880’s: rose to become the predominant genre of popular culture in the United States.

7. Performers • George Washington Dixon • New York debut in 1828 • Popular songs: “Long Tail Blue” and “Coal Black Rose.” Simple melodies in European mold • Thomas Dartmouth Rice • From New York’s Seventh Ward, poor family • Performed the first international American hit song: “Jim Crow” written in 1829 and debuted in NY 1832 • Not an African song, but an Irish folk tune • Played the character of Jim Crow and sang in blackface imitating a dance step called the cakewalk.

8. More on Thomas Dartmouth Rice • Toured Europe with this new American style • Another song hit: “Zip Coon,” 1834 • Verse, chorus ballad • Lyrics about banjo playing, wild dancing • Chorus of nonsense syllables, forerunner to the Disney song “Zip a Dee Doo Dah” in 1947 • More closely related to Irish or Scottish than to African.

9. Virginia Minstrels, 1843 • Group of performers became popular • Toured with lengthy performances • Included white banjo virtuoso Dan Emmett • Classic minstrel show: organized around a sequence of independent sketches and songs featuring characters and a host

10. Formation and Rise of Minstrelsy • Arose from predominantly white urban youth seeking to express independence through taking on black style. • As more mass appeal set in, it became routinized, creating rigid stereotypes. • This pattern: new genre of music arises from marginalized community – moves to mainstream appeal – loses the rebellious energy that gave rise to it in the first place – we will see over and over