Samuel Coleridge-Taylor "Motherless child"

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's The Song of Hiawatha gets a keynote performance at this year's Three Choirs Festival, which gave him his first major commission: the Ballade in A minor for full orchestra, first heard in Gloucester.  It was his op 33, though he was only 23 years old

Like Antonin Dvořák and Frederick Delius, Coleridge-Taylor travelled to America and was fascinated by the "new" world. He was feted by the President Theodore Roosevelt. Although Coleridge-Taylor was an Englishman culturally, in some parts of the US he would have been considered "a coloured man".  While Vaughan Williams and Butterworth were collecting British folk songs, Coleridge-Taylor was listening to the folk songs of alien cultures. Below, one of his Five Negro Melodies op 59 (1905) to the old spiritual: 

Son of Ingagi full download

A  different movie for Halloween! All black production, scripted and conceived by songwriter Spencer Williams (1889-1965). Hence the snappy dialogue, especially in the scenes where Nelson the Attorney (played by Williams himself) tussles with Dr Jackson ("Hello my friend!" "You're not my friend, you're my lawyer!") and processes the old lady's will for 5 dollars.

Because US cinemas were segregated, there was a whole specialist market for black films. Williams was sharp enough to know that black people wanted horror movies like anyone else. And why should explorers in Africa be a white monopoly? Hence too the positive images of black professional people, police chiefs etc. and the aspirational young couple, Robert and Eleanor Lindsay.

And indeed the central character Dr. Jackson (Laura Bowman) who is a doctor of science and has been to Africa. She also happens to have a lab in her dining room where she mixes up a test tube with a formula that will do good for humanity. "Not that humanity's been good to me", she snaps. She wears Victorian clothes and has "never been in a motor vehicle and won't start now" which may date her to be about 80 in 1940. Anyway, she knew Eleanor Lindsay's natural father who was younger than she, but whom she loved and lost. She did medical work in Africa, and brought back treasures from her many travels, such as a gong from Singapore which she uses to summon up another memento, a gigantic ape man who lives in a secret cellar.

He's N'gina, son of Ingagi, whoever he may have been. Possibly he's half man, half gorilla, which makes you wonder why Dr Jackson's so maternal to him?  Dr Jackson's rich, too, and has gold hidden in the house.

The gold brings out the crooks, including Dr Jackson's conman brother Zeno and Lawyer Nelson, who tries to con the couple out of the house Dr Jackson left them when she died.  Then the plot turns to comedy as the dopey Detective Bradshaw is assigned to stay in the house while murders happen and an apeman wanders about about. Hilarious! Bradshaw is a parody of the venal Stepin Fetchit fool who usually represented blacks in white media. Of course he's a crook too, but an opportunist, who hands the sacks of gold to the Jacksons. "Oh", they cry as their house burns down. "There goes our furniture, our clothes!" When they get the sacks of gold, they cry "Furniture! Clothes! New House!"

This film was made quickly and to a budget, so it's certainly not great art. But it's sharper than the average B movie, given its background. Spencer Williams was an all-round talent, who wrote hits like Basin Street Blues and settled in London. Good businessman too, spotting the market for race movies. Director credited is Richard Kahn and producer is Alfred Sack of Sack Studios. Presumable white and Jewish financiers? Williams's racy spirit pervades much of the film. Enjoy the song sequences by The Toppers, a guitar and falsetto-led group. Ironically I think the only white guy actually in the film is N'gina the mixed species from Africa. Men over seven feet tall are treasured whatever their race.

Movies like this contrast with the films Paul Robeson starred in. They had higher production values and bigger budgets, but Robeson was typecast to represent what white people expected blacks to be. At best noble but doomed and never equal. Race films, and the race music recording industry were a form of apartheid but at least with Williams we can glimpse something irreverent and irrepressible.

Paul Robeson in Africa Sanders of the River

This film, Sanders of the River, (Alexander Korda – can be viewed full screen) shows colonialism at work in Africa in the 1930's. Colonialism is when people from far away Know Better and can treat natives like stupid children. Even if the motives are benevolent, it's still demeaning. Colonies may no longer exist, but "colonial" values prevail, especially in an increasingly monocultural world dominated by anglophiles. It's not that people don't mean well, it's just they don't know much or care. Tourists who think foreign countries exist mainly as places to get blind drunk in are just one of many types of "new" colonialists. So, cringeworthy as this film is, it still stands as a warning.

Paul Robeson plays a feckless African who Sanders uses to placate the locals. It's embarrassing to see him being demeaned as a "coon". But Robeson didn't sell out. We can turn that embarrassment on itself, by seeing the film as a document of society as it was, not as it "should" be. If a proud, talented Rutgers man can be humiliated because he was black, we should feel indignant that he should have been forced to do such things. At least he gets top billing, above Leslie Banks as Sanders.

He's magnificent, anyway, and what a powerful booming voice - pity he didn't do Russian basso roles. Besides, he's a serious hunk. Look at his muscles, revealed by a leopard skin loincloth - complete with tail - and when he wiggles his behind! The songs are pastiche, but there's a lot of interesting "archive footage" asd the movie was shot in part on location in the Congo. The chiefs and members of the "Acholi, Sesi, Tefik [sic= Efik], Juruba {sic = Yoruba], Mendi and Kroo" nations of East and West Africa participated as extras. hence the vivid dance scenes and processions. It's surprising how well they take to acting. Whether the routines were staged or original, it doesn't really matter, this is history captured as it was 70 years ago. There are wonderful scenes of the bush and the river, too, hippos swimming, giraffes, plains full of animals. So the movie has lasting value despite the plot.

Besides Robeson, there's another black star, Tony Wane, who plays the rebel chief Mofolaba. Who was he ? His accent's pukka Oxbridge and his presence is charismatic. Had he been white he'd have had a big career. There's also a very faint gay subtext (white guys).

Anyway enjoy the movie if you're snowed in and there's nothing on over the holidays. Lots more on this site about Africa, multiculture and black music. And more movies.
TOMORROW : stagings of Winterreise ! ballet, theatre and others !

The Tuskegee airmen

On 20th January, the whole world celebrated when Barack Obama was sworn in as President. It’s a historic moment : whatever may happen in the next 4 or 8 years, its significance cannot dim.

Many years ago, in my father’s final illness, he was admitted to a nursing home, sharing a room with a tall old gentleman. The old man could no longer speak, but had dignity and presence, a real "officer type", his back held straight even though he needed full time help. My father was still able to talk a bit at this stage and whispered in admiration: “Tuskegee airman !”

The Tuskegee airmen were a group of black Americans who volunteered for the US Air Force in WW2. Since the military was rife with racism, they fought two battles, abroad and at home with the Air Force administration. Yet they didn’t buckle and served with honour. Read the book “322^nd Fighter Group” by Chris Bucholtz. Here’s a link to the abstracthttp://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&id=9WYFAQJbybkC&dq=tuskegee+airmen&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=5jsUmCt3pX&sig=yFWev1tDg7KNMa3OzBI4sNctysQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA6,M1

or go to books.google and search on “Tuskegee airmen bucholtz” the one with a picture. There‘s more, too, spread all over the net. Booklist :

http://www.tuskegeeairmen.org/uploads/booklist.pdf

The old airman had a wonderful wife, who came every day and stayed til the evening, looking after him and my father, too, out of the goodness of her heart. Even in her late 70’s she was still a beauty – they must have been a stunning couple. After the airman’s death, and my father’s, I decided to track down the old man’s story. It was even more remarkable than heroism in battle.

In 1945, there’d been a “mutiny” at Freeman Field airbase in Indiana. After serious harassment, the black officers stood up for their rights to enter the Officers’ Mess but were arrested and court martialled. It was a small enough protest but led to the desegregation of US forces, and contributed to the civil rights movement. So today Barack Obama sits in the White House, his place earned by the struggle of thousands before him. Read Lt Col James C Warren’s book, Tuskegee Airmen’s Mutiny at Freeman Field. http://www.tuskegee.com/ Amazon carries it now, but I bought my copy direct from Lt Col Warren who was so helpful and friendly to me, a total stranger.As I was writing this up, I discovered that Lt Col Warren is still around, and was invited to the Inauguration! So there is some good in this world. For more on the "Obama Effect" and black pride, read the other posts on this blog under "Africa" and "Ghana". ! Read the post "Ghana goes gay for Obama" - great music clips and a bit of background why it means so much to all of us, Ghanaian or not.

Quasthoff and Paul Robeson

Not long ago, Thomas Quasthoff started a recital with a ramble about why he was singing Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death in German. Since that cycle is standard repertoire for bass baritone someone had better tell all the other guys who've been singing it in Russian for years! Specifically, TQ singled out Robert Holl who had sung it and the even more demanding Shostakovich Michelangelo songs the previous week. Holl doesn't speak Russian as far as I know, but he was apparently extremely good (as one would expect from a singer of his stature). So why the fuss ? So much for TQ's theory. Here is a clip of TQ singing in English.

And then a clip of Paul Robeson singing the same song. It's so deeply felt. "Ol' Man River...what does he care if the land ain't free...." This is visceral, powerful. It's much deeper than what's just in the words, a whole lot more than a cute tune.

"Let me go way from the Missisippi, let me go way from white man boss". That's what the song means : "Ol' Man River, he must know something but he don't say nothing". Robeson is the real article. Singing has a lot less to do with language than with conviction.



For more on Paul Robeson's remarkable achievements and troubled, persecuted life, see Roger Thomas's review of Martin Bauml Duberman's magnificent and definitive 804 page biography: Paul Robeson. First published in 1989, this was reissued as a paperback in 2007. See http://www.alcala.demon.co.uk/robeson.pdf