Henrietta Hock lecture, "Music of the Harlem Renaissance," at the University of Iowa, August 1970

Speaker 1: The following is part one of a lecture by Henrietta Hock delivered at the 1970 Institute of Afro American Culture held on the campus of the University of Iowa. The Institute, held August 9th through the 21st, focused on the Culture of Black America commonly referred to as the Harlem Renaissance. In this recording, Henrietta Hock, instructor of Music at the University of Illinois, speaks on Music of the Harlem Renaissance. Henrietta Hock: In discussing the music of the Harlem Renaissance, or preparing this lecture, I started first to just play music of the '20s and '30s in Harlem and I listened to this myself. A point occurred to me that you really don't appreciate what happened during the time of the Harlem Renaissance unless you know the music that came before, so the first portion of this lecture after I give my introduction will be centered around Afro American music from the earliest sacred and secular types up to the Harlem Renaissance. In each case I will dovetail back and come up again and then go back and come again and finally we will arrive at the Harlem Renaissance. Henrietta Hock: There are four cities which stand out as the most important source points in the origination, growth, flowering of early jazz. These cities are New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, and above all New York where our focal point is today. I never cease to be surprised when I find many jazz historians and music historians and literary critics who are very concerned with trying to make a cause for New Orleans as the only birthplace of the jazz style. This is wrong. It would be closer to the truth to say that New Orleans is the first major center. There was jazz going on in a number of other cities at the time but because of certain conditions New Orleans seemed to flourish more and had a greater influence on the other centers: Chicago, Kansas City, and last, New York. Henrietta Hock: But around the end of World War I, along with the closing of the Storyville District in New Orleans, a very interested thing happened to many of the jazz men. They found that they didn't have very many places to work in New Orleans. There were shipyards. There were military men in New Orleans at the time of the war. Storyville was a... I guess the best way I could describe it is a place where people took care of business. When this was closed down, they were out of work. They had no place to play. Now some jazz men remained but others traveled up the river to Chicago and settled on the south side where the metropolitan area offered better opportunities for employment and various cafes and nightclubs. In the mid '20s, much of jazz was taken out of Chicago by musicians in search of a more sophisticated setting and most musicians found what they were seeking in Harlem. The jazz scene in Kansas City was also brought to a slowdown later in the middle '30s and again New York received much of the talent. Henrietta Hock: Now, it's important to remember that before, during, and after these musical upheavals in New Orleans, Chicago, and Kansas City, jazz musicians showed a tendency to gravitate to New York, which obviously was and is still a center of all show business. Harlem was, so to speak, Kansas City and Chicago on a much wider scale. Kansas City was a focal point for musicians from the southwest, particularly Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, and Chicago attracted many of the great artists, as I have said, from New Orleans. But Harlem was a meeting place or a meeting ground from players all over the country. Henrietta Hock: The jazz music, or the jazz idiom, of the Harlem Renaissance was a synthesis of practically all of the Afro American music which had proceeded it. Now, in this type of jazz in Harlem, you will find elements of the march, band dance beat with a few syncopations of ragtime. You will find syncopated dance rhythms of Afro-Caribbean or Caribbean origins. You will find a rudimentary but quite dynamic harmony rooted in Euro-American traditions of dance music and revival hymnity. There also can be heard the expressive and flexible vocal style of various branches of the American Negro song such as the repetitive call and response, which I think Professor Davis has talked about, some of you have read. Another term for call and response could be leader and chorus. There's also the usually responsorial work song, which had its influence. There's the solitary field, camp, and levee hollers. And then the last two things are the religious spirituals and the secular blues. Henrietta Hock: I'm going to start now with two selections of secular music from around, oh, 1840 to be safe, which show African music in an early stage of Americanization. Let me point out that it's difficult to determine what the earliest sample, the earliest type, of Black music or African music sounded like when Black people were forced to come to this country because nobody really cared about collecting anything or commenting on anything until about 1840, so we have to start there. After these two instrumental selections of the early style, I'll continue with a work song and that will be followed by a Levee Camp Holler, then I'll go on with an early blues form and arrive at the Harlem Renaissance at the time that famous Bessie Smith sang her classical blues style. Henrietta Hock: The first example, [Ori], shows some of the African features that were carried over into America. You have a strong emphasis and preoccupation with rhythm. You have the use of percussion instruments for strong rhythmic accompaniment. You have a tendency to adhere to a clear tempo and meter, that is there's always something going on that you have to tap your foot by. Some people wonder why, when we hear our music, you can't sit there without the head going or the foot tapping. It's because the music itself is deeply concerned with dance and with meter and with rhythm. And there is no vagueness. It's very clear. The tempo and the meter are very clear. Henrietta Hock: This excerpt, actually, no doubt illustrated the love of instruments and instrumental music, though the instruments themselves are different: that is, the bass drum, the snare, and the fife. These instruments are different from the ones in Africa. I had mentioned that you have three instruments: two drums, one bass, one snare, and a fife. Now somebody should wonder, "Why are they using a fife?" The answer to this is drums were illegal as far as slaves were concerned in this country. Drums in Africa not only serve as music or for dance; drums are used for communication. So the oppressors were not dumb as we all know and it didn't take them too long to find out that if you let people... those people, as they probably said... have their drums, they can send a few messages. Henrietta Hock: So drums were forbidden. But in this one particular example, Black people, in their usual shrewdness, got away from it. They got away with doing this by saying the fife and the drum is a very patriotic symbol of the Revolutionary War. So what they did was stick a fife in there and by that have the use of their drums and justify it as some kind of patriotic gesture. But the fife probably would never have been inserted unless it had been a cop out to get what they wanted done for the music. I'll play the record. Unknown Artist: ♪ (recording of unknown song (instrumental with fife and drums)) ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: The second song, Jim and John, is very similar to the first one, [Ori], except there's a vocal part and I wanted you to hear how they do the same thing with a voice [inaudible]. The text I'm not able to... I'm not able to figure out what the text means. There's no brochure in the record jacket and I don't think you'll be able to hear what it means either. Ed Young: ♪ (recording of Ed Young, song: Jim and John ) [inaudible] ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: Can you hear in the back? We come next to the work song 18 Hammers. The text is, "18 hammers standing in a line. Well, they rings like silver, shine like gold." This text and the manner of performance shows the call/response pattern. Notice the use of rhythm in the song as a work aid. In other words, the up beat of the measure, chorus of the bar, corresponds to the upswing of the hammer, and the down beat of the measure corresponds to the blow of the hammer on the steel. So you have... In other words, this is the up beat. It lifts. It's a heavy hammer. And then down on the first beat. I think you will hear this [inaudible]. Johnny Lee Moor...: ♪ (recording of Johnny Lee Moore with 12 Mississippi Convicts, song: 18 Hammers) Well, there's 18 hammers standing in a line, Well, there's 18 hammers standing in a line. Well, they ring like silver and they shine like gold, Well, they ring like silver and they shine like gold. There ain't no hammer that'll ring like mine, No, there ain't no hammer that'll ring like mine. Well, you cut your corner boys like I cut mine, Well, you cut your corner boys like I cut mine. ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: We're getting closer to the blues now and we're going to prepare the scene for the blues by examining the holler. I don't know if anybody knows how to spell it or doesn't, because I do. When I first saw it... those are two Ls there. The text is, "Oh, she ain't nothing but a downtown money wench and I think I'm going to have to let her go," and this is repeated. "Oh, she ain't nothing but a downtown money wench and I think I'm going to have to let her go." These are the two A patterns of poetry. Now, I don't know what the last word is in this last line. I can't hear it and nobody else could and I don't have text. But it goes on, "I'm going to knock her down and stomp her. Beat her with my..." But it must be something that rhymes with go because that last word of the B section usually rhymes with... Speaker 3: [crosstalk]. How about a hoe? Henrietta Hock: What? Speaker 3: Talking about a hoe. Henrietta Hock: Okay. We'll say it's hoe. Fine. Nobody will know the difference. The text is two lines which are the same and a contrasting third line which rhymes with the two. The origin of the blues is generally associated with many social songs used by Black people at dances and parties, but the predecessor of the blues, more than any other kind of secular music, is the holler. The holler is a fragmentary bit of yodel half song, half moaned, half yelled. This kind of music was usually performed standing in the field or around the levee or approaching one's house at night or one's sweetheart's home or maybe gathered around in the evening with a few friends singing about the troubles of life and trying to get some comfort out of this. Henrietta Hock: Now, this AAB form is the same textual form of the blues. This selection is unaccompanied and the metrical scheme is very erratic. He just kind of folds from one bar into the other. It just sort of overflows. When the blues form gets crystallized this does not happen. It's a very clear-cut, precise form. Henrietta Hock: I want to call your attention to one other point. Speaking of African traits, here we see the interest in improvisation and the tendency to use a variety of tone colors in the vocal technique. You must admit that when you hear this song it's certainly not like... those of you who ever took voice... the comment that your voice teacher would say, "Sing from the mast, from the diaphragm, the pear-shaped tone." It's an entirely different way of singing and it takes a lot of skill to do some of this. I've tried and I must say I was trained in the other stuff and sometime I get a little bit... I don't have enough gut in what I'm doing. I think this is frequently a problem in trying to imitate style. Here is the Levee Camp Holler. Johnny Lee Moor...: ♪ (recording of Johnny Lee Moore, song: Levee Camp Holler) Well, she ain't nothing but a downtown money waster, I'm gonna have to let her go. Oh, she ain't nothing, oh, she ain't nothing but a downtown money waster, Boy I'm gonna have to let her go. Gonna knock her down this time, beat her with my bone. Walking down the levee with my head hangin' low. Thinkin' 'bout my easy rider boy, she don't live here no more, Lord. Boy she can't stay here no more... ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: That's the last word I can't hear. Henrietta Hock: The text of the next song, which is a blues form in its early stage... Well, to say the least bit it's interesting. I do have notes for this but the compiler of the record album talked about a certain sexual something in this song. Preoccupation, I don't know. If you read the text it really is quite subtle. I'll read the first three lines and I'm sure you'll get it, but it took me awhile. "I was over in Aberdeen on my way to New Orleans. I was over in Aberdeen on my way to New Orleans. Those Aberdeen women want to buy me a gallon of gasoline." Why? That's what you have to ask yourself. Why? Henrietta Hock: No. No no. No. Just the reverse. If you going in the text it's just the reverse. Henrietta Hock: Let me say another thing now before I show you blue form. The early blues, or the blues in general differ radically from the spirituals. The spirituals are usually choral and communal. The blues are solo and individual. These are two very important points. The spirituals were usually created and performed without instrumental accompaniment, but the guitar, piano, and orchestral accompaniment of the blues is an integral part of the form. People who made up the spirituals saw or thought of everything that happened in nature as an epic: that is, some dispensation from God or a message from Him. The blues singer, on the other hand, however, translated every happening into his own intimate inconvenience. Henrietta Hock: In this one example, blues form is still here in its early musical erratic stage, the rhythm stopping and starting unsteadily, the guitar accompaniment made up of disconnected phrases and notes, but we do see a new form evolving with great emotional impact. I said before that the text [inaudible] AAB, but there's a [inaudible] in the harmony that is just an essential and that is... Well, let me just put it on the thing. You have here a series of chords which to you may seem quite random. You have a 1-4, a 4-4, one side, sometimes four, and then another one, then a 5-7. Any time I have things in parentheses that means that they are [inaudible] and not used, but you can say that the form is a standard. Henrietta Hock: Now the question comes up, why, if the two A parts of the text are the same, why would they change the harmony? Well, I think this is a bit of creativity on the part of a musician, which is an attempt to bury the second A setting. Since he can't do it by means of text or poetry, he does it by means of harmony. Henrietta Hock: Would you get the light? Just a minute. I can't find [inaudible]. Bukka White: ♪ (recording of Bukka White, song: Aberdeen Mississippi Blues) I was over in Aberdeen, On my way to New Orlean, I was over in Aberdeen, On my way to New Orlean, Them Aberdeen women told me, Will buy my gasoline. Hey, two little women, That I ain't ever seen, They has two little women, That I ain't never seen, These two little women, Just from New Orlean. Ooh, sittin'... ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: Now let's take something that's more familiar and more pleasant, I think. The recordings here aren't terribly well preserved. Let's move onto to Bessie Smith and see what she does blue form in the... during the time of the Renaissance. I think you'll be able to follow what she does much better than what you have heard before. This is her famous Standing in the Rain Blues that sold many thousands of copies. Here we find blues form in its classical and mature form. Can I have the lights, please? This is a 12 bar blues form. See the similarities of what I pointed out before? But notice that one of the chords in parentheses is no longer closed but becomes standardized and is generally used always in this position. These Xs each stand for four beats in a measure. That is, this is measure one, this is measure two, three, four, and so on. Each one of these measures has four beats in it. That's important when I play the record. Bessi Smith: ♪ (recording of Bessie Smith, song: Standing in the Rain Blues) Standin' in the rain and ain't a drop fell on me, Standin' in the rain and ain't a drop fell on me. My clothes is all wet but my flesh is as dry as can be. It can rain all day, I ain't got no place to go, It can rain all day, I ain't got no place to go... ♪♪ Speaker 5: Don't turn it off. Come on, now. Henrietta Hock: Okay. They want Bessie again. Bessie Smith: ♪ (recording of Bessie Smith, song: Standing in the Rain Blues) Standin' in the rain and ain't a drop fell on me, Standin' in the rain and ain't a drop fell on me. My clothes is all wet but my flesh is as dry as can be. It can rain all day, I ain't got no place to go, It can rain all day, I ain't got no place to go. If it rains five days that won't give me no blues, If it rains five days that won't give me no blues. I've got my raincoat and hat, umbrella, boots and shoes... ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: We will hear Bessie again. I'm moving on to the present time. I'm going to keep playing something for you... B.B., That is... and let you hear how his blues form is the same form as hers, the difference being that she has a blues form that has merged with the jazz style of the Harlem Renaissance. B.B. King has a blues form that's more separate but at the same time is all wrapped up in the whole modern rock soul thing. And you can you hear the difference, but the same form is there. Now I'll show you in just a minute. B.B. King: ♪ (recording of B. B. King, song: Get Off My Back Woman) Yeah, you get off of my back, baby, Can`t you tell you`re choking me. Oh I ain`t no pony, baby, Can`t you tell you`re choking me. Yeah, you just get off of my back, baby, Can`t you see you`re hurting me... ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: Let's go back again now. Take up [inaudible]. Speaker 6: Can I actually put this [crosstalk]? Henrietta Hock: Yes. B.B. King. Speaker 6: [inaudible] four beats major. So [inaudible]. Henrietta Hock: Well, what he... He had a different emphasis on each song. But what he did was one, two, three four, one, two. He went... That's the [crosstalk]. That's what he did [inaudible]. There's some others where he will stress the third beat, forth beat, but then... I don't think it's... Oh, go ahead. Getting excited. Speaker 6: [inaudible]. Henrietta Hock: Yeah. (singing) Standing in the rain, not a drop fell on me. Dum, da da... Speaker 7: Is the difference essential the difference between rock and classical? Henrietta Hock: The difference is that B.B. And with what Bessie is doing is the difference in time. B.B. Is doing the... putting the blues form into the style of today too: I mean, making it compatible. Bessie is making it compatible with what was in style then, and that's another reason why they sound so different besides the fact that Bessie's record [inaudible] because it was recorded in, I don't know, 1928 or something. Speaker 8: [inaudible]. Henrietta Hock: No. That's not a difference in form. The difference in the blues of the two periods... the one... There was a time in the Renaissance were steadier. I don't think that [inaudible] be it the first, the third, the fourth, the second, but today we have all kinds of weird documentations going on. Any questions before we go to church? Would you... Right above your head is a switch. It's like a light switch. Looks like a light switch. Yes, thank you. Henrietta Hock: Again, we go back to sounds that are African that are being put into the mainstream of America. [inaudible]. This song goes back to about the same time as [Ori] and Jim and John. This song is Blow Gabriel and it's one of the earliest examples of spirituals that we can find either in score form or on a recording. Here you see the leader and chorus alternate rapidly as in African song. Here, the religion and the dance are one, as in African music. The text relates Gabriel's calling the wicked to the judgment bar, and by the way, you'll hear jerdgment bar so I want to clue you in on that. It's the same thing as River Jerdan for the River Jordan. It's the way we said it and Jordan's the way other people said it. So when they come in with the jerdgment bar, be prepared for it. Some people say judgment on the records, others say judgment. Henrietta Hock: On the Georgia Sea Islands, this type of religious song is still called the shout and this term actually can be traced back to a west African term denoting a religious dance. That term is... since I don't really know any West African languages I'll write it on the board. Speaker 8: Is that a U? Henrietta Hock: Pardon? Speaker 8: Is that a U? Henrietta Hock: S-A-U-T, right. Henrietta Hock: The manner of performance is revealing. You have a ring of dancers moving around the church in counterclockwise direction, clapping and stomping while the old men rap out drum rhythms on the floor with their canes. Unknown Artist: ♪ (recording of unknown artists, song: Blow Gabriel) Blow Gabriel (Judgement)/ Blow That trumpet (Judgement bar), Calm and easy (Judgement), Tell everybody (Judgement bar), My God say (Judgement), That they got to meet (Judgement bar)... ♪♪ Unknown Artist: See, it's building up. It's very similar to that moaning minister thing that Dr. Davis talked about. The peak is getting higher. The sisters are beginning to get happy. Henrietta Hock: Notice the various different rhythms there? There's one with the stamping of the feet. There's another one with one person who's clapping right on the beat and there's another one. Then I heard some of them who do what we now call the soul clap, but really that went quite a ways back. That kind of thing. It's not really something that Malcolm, with all respect, or other leaders made up. Henrietta Hock: Next let's turn to Trouble So Hard, which represents the old and simple type of Negro spiritual consisting entirely of alternating lines for the leader and the chorus, but notice the singer... there is only one singer in this version... performs both the lead and the chorus parts. She's sitting... This is Vera Hall who performed sitting in her kitchen for [inaudible]. Vera Hall: ♪ (recording of Vera Hall, song: Trouble So Hard) Ooh Lordy, troubles so hard, Ooh Lordy, troubles so hard. Don't nobody know my troubles but God, Don't nobody know my troubles but God. Went down the hill, Other day, My soul got happy, And stayed all day. Ooh Lordy, troubles so hard, Ooh Lordy, troubles so hard. Don't nobody know my troubles but God, Don't nobody know my troubles but God, Ooh Lordy, troubles so hard, Ooh Lordy, troubles so hard... ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: This is the chorus again. The leader now. Henrietta Hock: I don't think I have to comment on the vocal style, which is very similar to what you have even in the blues. That's still a different way of singing from what was going on in the other parts of the country. Henrietta Hock: The next song... Is There Anybody Here That Loves My Jesus? It's a weird rhythm. It's a representative of the type of spiritual which was rearranged by collectors at Fisk and Hampton and Howard and Tuskegee and other places and written in 19th century harmonic European styles. These European settings of spirituals were quite popular during the Harlem Renaissance and that's why I'm even taking the time to speak about them. They produced dozens of copies of sheet music and collections and people used to go around and buy them because they thought this was really a big symbol or a big key to the new Negro, because they were the new Negro. But if you listen to this you'll hear that the spiritual was not like what most of us heard when we went to school and sang in choirs or many of choruses that have this beautiful soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, and sounds like something Bach wrote with kind of a Black melody on top. That wasn't the way it was done at all. But I'm not knocking these people. Actually, I was taught by one of them and I respect them, but I wanted to give you the truth. Henrietta Hock: I want to also mention that this spiritual... Is There Anybody Here That Loves My Jesus? Is also representative of the type of spiritual which preceded the Gospel songs that were developing in the Pentecostal church during the last part of the Harlem Renaissance. My point is this, after I play this one record. You have two things going on in the Renaissance. You have these, quote, Negro spirituals in European style and you have the beginning of the Gospel style. I'm going to make some comments on what I think about all of the music of the Harlem Renaissance and I'm not sure sometimes that people aren't correct when they say that a lot of the music, jazz included, was a bit stiff and a bit muted. Henrietta Hock: I hate to use a lot of rhetoric, but bourgeois... still a great preoccupation with Africa but notice the names of some clubs like the rooms in the Renaissance Casino, like the Arabic Room. As long as it's white, then it can still be African, but sub-Saharan African, or Africa below the Sahara, was still kind of a fancy thing. It really wasn't, I think, respected in a natural form as much as it should have been. I'll play the spirituals the way they really sounded before we were freed. That's the end of [inaudible]. Fifth Jubilee S...: ♪ (recording of unknown artists, song: Is There Anybody Here That Loves My Jesus?) (Is there anybody here) That loves my Jesus? (Is there anybody here) That loves my Lord, yeah. (Is there anybody here) That loves my Jesus? (I want to know) If you love my Lord, yeah...♪♪ Henrietta Hock: Notice the harmony here. It's not four parts. Somebody is droning. (singing) You can hear that going on in the background: sitting on one note and just keeping it there whereas a four part harmony moves up and down. Henrietta Hock: This record was made by The Fisk Jubilee Singers. I thought since Howard's and Hampton and Talladega and Tuskegee were always mentioned and sometimes Fisk never got recognized [inaudible]. The record is Rockin' Jerusalem. It shows you one of these redressed spirituals and I think you're in for a shock. Fisk Jubilee Si...: ♪ (recording of Fisk Jubilee Singers, song: Rockin' Jerusalem) Oh Mary, o Martha, Oh Mary, o Martha, Oh Mary, gon' ring them bells. I hear arch angels rockin' in Jerusalem, Hear arch angels ringin' them bells. Hear arch angels rockin' in Jerusalem, Hear arch angels ringin' them bells. Church gettin' higher (rockin' in Jerusalem) Church gettin' higher (ringin' them bells) Church gettin' higher (rockin' in Jerusalem) Church gettin' higher (ringing' them bells). Oh Mary, o Martha, Oh Mary's gonna ring them bells. Oh Mary, o Martha, Oh Mary's gonna ring them bells... ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: [inaudible] call to response again. Henrietta Hock: Now ignore the electronic organ because it really wasn't around then but it's about the only example I could find. This is what began to develop in your sanctified churches. You know, the barbecue pit, store front churches. They changed the tabernacle. This is what was going on. Unknown Artist: ♪ (recording of unknown artists, song: What you think about Jesus?) What you think about Jesus? He’s alright! What you think about Jesus? He’s alright! What you think about Jesus? He’s alright! He’s alright, alright, alright... ♪♪ Henrietta Hock: You can see instruments being introduced into the texture now a lot. Pace has really picked up. Actually, the Gospel during the Harlem Renaissance was in many ways I think more natural than what was going on even with Bessie, as beautiful as she was. They weren't afraid of a little rhythm, and I'm going to tell you a story after the break, which I think should come now, about Mamie Smith, who was another blues singer and how they tried to get her to tone down her sound and tone down the musicians she was playing with and they winked at each other and turned to the recording horn and gave it everything they had and really didn't care at all whether people wanted them to be subdued or not. They did what they had to do. Henrietta Hock: Do you have any questions now? Would you like to take a break? I think that would be advisable. Speaker 1: That was Henrietta Hock, instructor of Music at the University of Illinois with part one of a lecture on Music of the Harlem Renaissance. This presentation was delivered at the 1970 Institute of Afro American Culture held on the campus of the University of Iowa, August 9th through the 21st, and was recorded by the broadcasting service of the University of Iowa.