[Dixielandjazz] Horn Parts and Rags

Sat Jul 22 12:32:42 PDT 2006

Ron, I tend to agree with you overall. There have been a couple of recent
essays on blackface and the whole phenomena but I haven't been able to
dredge up where they appeared. I'll keep trying. Here is all I found so far
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1919122 and
http://www.musicals101.com/blackface.htm. The 2nd is pretty good.

These things were certainly racist. On the other hand, they were certainly
acceptable by the standards of the day. Lots (and lots) of things that we
recognize as deplorable (in the very nicest of terms) were acceptable. We
will look back at some of the things done in this era (with prisoners for
instance and even the prison system itself) in 50 or 100 years and wonder
how such things were ever allowed to take place. 

The question today is does the item in question happen in a racist manner?
If you perform "Shine" or "Darktown strutters ball" is it as an up tempo pop
song or as a racist statement. I do theater and was directing "Ain't
Misbehavin" with a group of friends. (I am white. They weren't. We had
worked together on any number of productions over a period of several years
as community theater groups are apt to do.) It all went very well other than
"Black and blue." I had trouble staging it and working with interpretations,
which they thought was funny at first. Then they had trouble singing it. We
had to work though it and did.

If you look back at theater and stage work in general everything was based
on ethnic humor all through into the 30's.  Gershwin's show "Of Thee I Sing"
which won a Pulitzer, is all ethnic stereotypes. As late as the early 50's
Fred Allen visited Allan's Alley on radio every week that was all ethnic
and/or racial stereotypes -- to say nothing of Amos and Andy. Were they any
worse than Lum and Abner, if you lived in the Ozarks or the mountains of
Eastern Kentucky/West Virginia?

We seldom see blackface today (other than Ted Danson and Whopee Goldberg's
bit at the Friars club a few years ago). We don't condone that type of
racism, but as always, it's the thought that should be questioned. Not the
act.

Anyone wants to yell back on this, go for it. I won't feel bad either way.

Smiles,

Mart

Martin D. McKay, Designated Listener

-----Original Message-----
From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of Ron L'Herault
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2006 2:59 PM
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Subject: RE: [Dixielandjazz] Horn Parts and Rags

Blacking up was not shameful in and of itself.  Much of it was theatrical
and that is all.  Think of clown make up, vivid white, big red lips.  Are
they racially motivated (anti-Caucasian)?  In theater/movies, parts were
played.  Masks were donned.  Make-up and disguises applied.  Jolson, Cantor,
and others were minstrels, actors, comedians, not necessarily racists.  We
see it in a racist light.   "Darktown Strutters Ball" is about a guy wanting
to dance with his girl.   It could have been in Germantown or Frenchtown
too.

Ron L

-----Original Message-----
From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of Hal Vickery
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2006 1:21 AM
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Subject: RE: [Dixielandjazz] Horn Parts and Rags

You don't have to look too far back to see some pretty (at least to modern
eyes) disgusting things.  For example, "Coon songs" (and they weren't
referring to those furry animals with rings on their tails) were found in
record catalogs as late as the 1920s.  Some of them were pretty disgusting.
I found out about the UCSB cylinder restoration project on this list, and
among the titles I found from the first decade of the 20th Century was a
"Coon Song" by "Collins and Harlan" on the Edison label called N***** Loves
His Possum.  

I watched a 1934 James Cagney movie the other day in which Cagney goes AWOL
from his ship by blackening his face.  Irving Berlin put on a blackface
minstrel show in "This Is the Army" during World War II.  Al Jolson put on
blackface (as did Larry Parks) for "The Jolson Story" in the late '40s.

"Darktown Strutters Ball" isn't about the lights being out.  The original
lyrics to the verse of "Old Man River" (1927) began, "N*****s all work on
the Mississippi."  I remember we had old music of that in chorus that had
those original lyrics.  (God only knows how long they were in the school's
music library.)  Oh, and the part of Queenie in Show Boat was played by
"Aunt Jemima," aka Tess Gardella, who was definitely not an African
American.

Oh, the musical my school put on my senior year was Show Boat.  The cast was
all white, meaning a lot of kids had a lot of make up on, especially the
stevedores.  (And who can forget that Armstrong record "Dusky Stevedore"?
Or for that matter "Shine," which wasn't talking about the reflection off
his shoes.)

There is a lot of pretty shameful stuff if you look back at the history of
American entertainment.

Hal Vickery

-----Original Message-----
From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of
r.r.wheeler at att.net
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 11:59 PM
To: Steve Barbone; DJML
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Horn Parts and Rags

Steve and all,

Great listening on those cuts.  That should settle once and for all the
'horns on rags' question.  Quite a revelation looking at the 25 titles on
that CD as well.  The word 'darkie' appears in two titles, 'kinky' on
another and cut 24 is the "N----- Blues" by the Victor Military Band.  Yeah,
*that* 'N' word.

It has cut 19 as "The Memphis Blues, Or Mister Crump" by Prince's Band.  I
thought 'Mr. Crump' was the original title of "The St. Louis Blues".  W. C.
Handy originally wrote the tune as a campaign ditty for a local politician
by that name.

Best from Central Georgia,

Ron Wheeler

-------------- Original message from Steve Barbone
<barbonestreet at earthlink.net>: -------------- 

> Mike & Listmates: 
> 
> To hear Maple Leaf Rag as the US Marine Band, with horns, did it visit: 
> 
>
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000666Z5/103-0999372-2689420?v=glance&n=5

> 174
> 
> Paste all of the URL into your browser if it doesn't work with a click. 
> There are also several other rags done by horns in big Military bands 
> on that album.
> 
> Cheers,
> Steve
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
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