[Dixielandjazz] Banjo History -"hello!"

[Fred Spencer]

Dear Dan,
Steve is correct in saying that the bagpipes were known to the Romans. In fact they go much further back than that, according to "The Oxford Companion to Music" (ed 10), which also says that "there is definite record that bagpipers were attached to the courts of many of the English monarchs for the three centuries...[after] the accession of Edward II (1307)". English colonisation didn't really begin until some centuries  later. I think it is unlikely that Africa had much, if anything, to do with introducing the pipes to "perfidious Albion" (not pig French, but Napoleonic "perfide Angleterre"). 
As for Gottschalk, there is an illlustration of the cover page to "The Banjo" in Fred Starr's book, "Bamboula", accompanied by a discussion of its two variants, opus 15 and opus 82. Some DJML membrs may know S. Frederick Starr, who was President of Oberlin College and clarinetist with the Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble.
Two jazzmen are reported to have played the bagpipes - Albert Ayler (Feather/ Gitler's "Biographical Encylopedia of Jazz") and Stephan Micus (Berendt's "Jazz Book"). Any others? And, please,. no jokes about the amorous octopus! Cheers.
Fred

  Back to ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: D and R Hardie 
  To: Fred Spencer 
  Cc: Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com 
  Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 7:19 PM
  Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Banjo History -"hello!"


  Dear Fred, 
  Early French writers typically rendered the pronunciation of the name of slave instrument as bonjou or bonjour. 
  When I put this through one computer translator the instrument came back as 'the hello'. (Hello, it's a pun). The banjo and the bagpipe
  are alike only in sharing the drone facility. There is some argument as to the origins of the noble Scottish (Irish) instrument.
  Some authorities think Scottish (Irish) Music came from Africa through the 'perfidious Angleterre' ( pig French for England) in the middle ages, but I'll leave that to the experts to argue. Many African instruments in the countries that exported slaves used drone strings but the banja as it was known in early America did not. The drone string appears to be an American addition coming with the five string Banjo in the nineteenth century. I think that is a reversion to what I called a Noble African tradition though I would not stake my life on it.
  The Gottschalk piece to which I referred was "The Banjo - Fantasie Grotesque Opus 15".I have not been able to track down the Heinrich composition so cannot comment on it. 

  Note the Australian for Bon Jour is G 'day mate.
  regards Dan Hardie

  Check out the website
  http://members.ozemail.com.au/~darnhard/EarlyJazzHistory.html






  On Sunday, January 11, 2004, at 08:06 AM, Fred Spencer wrote:


    Dear Dan et al.,
    You wrote "The banjo or banjar or banza (or bonjour if you were French)".
    It is hard to understand how the French "bonjour" became a synonym for a
    banjo when it literally means "good" (bon) "day" (jour) in French, and is
    the customary greeting in France.
    What is the connection between the banjo's fifth (drone) string in
    "carrying on an ancient African tradition shared with the bagpipe."
    According to "TheOxford Companion to Musical Instruments", the bagpipe is of
    European origin, with an extension only to the African Mediterranean
    littoral, not to the regions from which slaves were exported.
    Karen Linn, in her book "That Half-Barbaric Twang," says that the American
    violinist, Anthony Philip Heinrich (1781-1861), wrote a piano piece entitled
    "The Banjo...twenty years before" Gottschalk's composition. There is a
    discussion of Gottschalk's "The Banjo(more accurately, the Banjo I and the
    Banjo II, since he produced two quite different variants of the piece") in
    the jazz clarinetist/ scholar, Fred Starr's book, "Bamboula.The Life and
    Times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk" (Oxford University Press, 1997).
    Regards.
    Fred.
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: "D and R Hardie" <darnhard at ozemail.com.au>
    To: <DWSI at aol.com>
    Cc: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
    Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 6:36 PM
    Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Banjo History -"something substantial"



      Hi Dan and Hal et al.
      At the risk of introducing a too substantial thread.
      The Banjo or banjar or banza (or bonjour if you were French) appears
      to have been an African instrument introduced to America by the
      slaves. The first banjos we know of had bodies made of gourds with
      three or four strings. The modern banjo was perfected by a white
      minstrel performer in the 1840's. The drone string was introduced
      with the 5 string banjo, carrying on an ancient African tradition
      shared with the bagpipe. The banjo was introduced to Scotch-Irish
      Appalachian music around 1860 where it shared popularity with the
      fiddle and after 1880 the guitar.
      Early black jazz bands (1897-1917) did not use the banjo but the
      Spanish guitar. White bands were using it by around 1915, perhaps
      earlier, and it was introduced to black bands in the recorded era after
      1917.
      New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and Anton Dvorak, do
      appear to have introduced themes from Creole slave music into their
      works, particularly La Calinda and La Bamboula, dances performed in New
      Orleans Congo Square. (Brahms was no fool it appears)
      Gottschalk's piano piece The Banjo (ca 1855) appears to be the
      earliest composition to reflect the sound of the instrument then
      commonly played by Minstrel performers, though it is clear the earlier
      African type instrument was played in the Congo Square when he was a
      boy, in the 1840's.
      regards
      Dan Hardie

      Blatant commercial insert.
      More on this thread in my forthcoming book The Ancestry of Jazz

      Check out the website:
      http://members.ozemail.com.au/~darnhard/EarlyJazzHistory.html


      On Saturday, January 10, 2004, at 12:46 AM, DWSI at aol.com wrote:


        John:

        At the risk of sounding too academic on this site (a rare risk taken I
        notice), I recall reading that the banjo is, in fact, the only truly
        American-original instrument. And it gets stranger. The first banjo
        (Carolinas origin where
        the Scots first settled) was a five string. The tenor four string came
        much
        later. The fifth string was supposed to mimic the drone of a bagpipe.
        Is that
        weird or what?

        Dan (piano fingers) Spink
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