African-American Fife & Drum Music: Mississippi & Jamaica

[guybr3]

if you search for "Banda de Pífanos" from Brazil, you will find somenthing similar.

Great video!

[slybear525]

Thanks for posting this! I enjoy listening to it! You can find very similar sounds in the music of Ghana were flutes and fifes are utilized often with various drums!! the similarity is amazing!

[KevinCool98]

Thumbs up if you came here for your homework!

[rutkd]

I love it!

[Blackstarguitar]

Fife & Drum Music that's my style.

[rantazz23]

i cant believe you people...this is such a traditional african sound...if ur expecting to hear.. i dont even know whatever u white ppl do when u fife n drum...this is something that u dance to and has a spiritual meaning

im soooo happy...because honestly as a jamaican descendant i see no love for africa from black americans and such a huge desire to distinguish themselves as a 'separate culture' its great to know that it still runs in their blood same way!

[brianmusak]

duh ....just cos its a big drum?

[telemanque]

fuego

[blazinlead]

This was cool. Thank you for sharing it.

[ElComadreja777]

Meh.

[elfredo70]

- same music you will find all around the westindies... Haiti, cuba etc

[zaytovan205]

im 17 years old and today ive randomly just gone back in my roots and watching these videos just made me realize how much i love being black its a beautiful thing seeing how far along the black race has come no matter what anyone says .just look at the president.! :)

[ariadarabi]

They're really into their music. That's what makes good musicians.

[mdiabao]

In Brazil Banda de Pífano de Caruaru youtube.com/watch?v=pNrs3I9kkH­w

youtube.com/watch?v=ekNa4lNhch­M&feature=related

youtube.com/watch?v=t0Zizj24fd­c&feature=related

[mdiabao]

In Brazil Banda de Pífano de Caruaru youtube.com/watch?v=pNrs3I9kkH­w

[MrVening]

Awesome

[Mouldytone]

Thanks Hultonclint for the upload. I first saw it a few years ago on a old time music compilation DVD and it makes me feel as wonderful now as it did the first time that I saw it. Music is a huge positive part of my life and this clip is about pure, elemental music. I listen to this and my body wants to move with the melody. Music`s about life and not about theory but I wonder, this music has it`s origins in Africa and so do we all I believe. Some fundamental connection perhaps?

Tony

[hultonclint]

@Mouldytone I enjoy the way it seems like they are trying to stretch the usual capabilities (or, at least, expectations) of the instruments they have chosen to use.

[dragonax]

love it!

[RISINGsonsofHAROLD]

It makes me happy that you an overwight fuck-wit

[RISINGsonsofHAROLD]

Good greif! this really does sound awfull! I clicked on this video expecting to see a ''jazzed'' up version of traditional British fife and drum. This video is an assault to the ears.

The uploader should remove it from the public domain, it's an embarrassment to all concerned

[hultonclint]

@RISINGsonsofHAROLD It makes me very happy that it has 'assaulted' your ears. Sounds like your ears need an assault.

Why on earth would it be like traditional British f 'n' d when it is African descendants in America? These people are not beholden to British music. You should respect them for playing the real music of their people, rather than compromising and playing to others' ideas of 'jazzing up' foreign tunes.

[ihatealllife]

@RISINGsonsofHAROLD Well, if that were the case, the video description would likely have said "British" somewhere in it, yes?

The embarrassment is your poor reading comprehension, your lack of musical taste, and your petulant whining. Go listen to some country music or something sufficiently whitewashed.

[RISINGsonsofHAROLD]

@ihatealllife Not Necessarily. The American tradition of fife and drum (from which this *style sprang) hails from and is therefore very similar to the original British tradition.

Your poor comprehension of the youtube 'comment facility' is also embarrassing. Your castigation of my personal opinion is nothing short of facism and your reference to "whitewashed music" is a deplorable insinuation that anyone who dislikes this anarchic disheveled 'performance' is a racist...

Your a muppet mate!

[RISINGsonsofHAROLD]

@ihatealllife Your poor comprehension of the youtube comment facility is illustrated by your despot assault on those with a differing opinion to your own. What you need to grasp is that the uploader of this video has invited comments. Therefore all opinions are legitimate, from the sycophantic to the disgusted.

Try to respect the fact that your personal opinion is only 'your opinion' and that other people are entitled to voice theirs and try not to be a fascist ketboard warrior.

[ihatealllife]

@RISINGsonsofHAROLD My comprehension is fine. So are my grammar and spelling, for that matter. Yes, the uploader of the video has enabled comments. Yes, that means all opinions can be expressed.

That also includes mine, by definition. =) The same right you have to say what you please here, I have. You feel you should be able to inflict your poorly considered opinions on others and not have to suffer the same in return.

You would be wrong.

[AEngleSaex]

@ihatealllife The video uploader invited comments. Unless the author of a comment poses a question they have not invited attacks on their personal opinions, no matter how different they may be from our own.

[RISINGsonsofHAROLD]

@ihatealllife Could you please explain why my opinion is "poorly considered"? I make a living in the music industry. I play professionally and in community bands.

If this music satisfies your musical standards then that is your look out. But don't imagine you are in a position to define good or bad music and certainly not to educate other peoples musical tastes.

[rantazz23]

@RISINGsonsofHAROLD YOU came in here already prejudging based on the 'fife and drum' part of the title...u saw african americans and then thought 'jazz' ...you clicked on the video expecting a different sound and then experienced something else..it upset you...why? probably cuz it's different...the fact that you think it's awful doesnt really mean anything...the music is not made for you..has NO relation to your culture, so you YOURSELF should not be considered a judge of this music.

[ihatealllife]

@RISINGsonsofHAROLD Also, do please try to understand the meaning of words when you use them. This may seem hard, I know, because there are so many words to keep track of.

Curiously, you referred to me as a "fascist" not once, but twice. I can only assume you heard this word bandied about by Sean Hannity or on the History channel somewhere, and it seemed important and a bad thing to call someone. However, you've used the word entirely out of context. I don't support fascism in any form.

[AEngleSaex]

@ihatealllife The main principle of fascism is not to allow any opposing oppinion to your own. A principle you do seem to have demonstrated in your previous comments!

Music as with any art form is a subject of personal preferance and taste. In other words it is not for you to decide who's personal taste is inferior.

[saxonenglish]

@ihatealllife Yes he called you a fascist and a despot. Which describes precisely how you behaved. You feel it's your place to repremand those who don't adore the same unrefined clamerous shyte purveyed in this video.

Your attempts to patronise someone who is 'owning' you, make you look even more foolish.

[manfred898]

@RISINGsonsofHAROLD

Little Englander :)

[AEngleSaex]

@manfred898 Thats it manfred, hit em where it hurts! Bet that cut him to the bone.............pfffft!

[RISINGsonsofHAROLD]

@manfred898 Ouch!

[sweeterthananything]

@RISINGsonsofHAROLD This is like saying the earliest acoustic blues recordings are an embarrassment to Andalusian guitar. Shame on you and your RACIST expectations of being entertained to your requirements by black people making music for themselves. They didn't do it for you.

[screwyou]

Africans, English, Irish, Jews, and others came together in America and invented music the world had never seen and will never forget.

Screw you haters.

[slobjob13]

Reminds me of the PG tips advert... Except less likable...

The drummers are playing different settings and the Fife owner is taking the piss... If anyone replies saying its "free style" i will laugh at and pitty you...

[AEngleSaex]

Every 12th of July here in Ulster, bands leave down their fifes and drums at the assebly field to take a well earned break. While the musicians are away at various tea or beer tents, you will often see exhuberent toddlers and youngsters taking the oppourtunity to offend the ears of those whithin ear-shot by inceasantly banging and blowing on the abandoned drums and fifes. If your struggling to imagine how awful it sounds.........Click replay on this video because it captures it perfectly!

[7jem331]

@AEngleSaex Some may even argue that the roots of this form of fife and drum played by African Americans in the deep south has its roots amonst their ethnic kin in West Africa (Considering the beat and dance is exactly the same) And not from a bunch of bigots in bowler hats marching through Catholic areas trying to incite a riot.

[manfred898]

@AEngleSaex

Haha, your insular and ignorant attitudes towards music reflect an Ulster Orange mans insular and ignorant attitudes towards most other things :) Next 12th, can you let the kids play on the official parades, instead of the usual lot, if they sound as good as this then they'd surely better the dirge we normally get to hear :)

[RISINGsonsofHAROLD]

@manfred898 Wow! how enlightened you are! sweeping prejudice statements about gender, nationality and heritage all in one sentence!

[AEngleSaex]

@manfred898 Bit like your insular and ignorant attitude towards Ulster and it's loyal orders ;)

[manfred898]

@AEngleSaex

Oh, I've a wealth of experience, believe me :) A spade should be called a spade.

[shontel1ful]

luuuv it

[fortunefire]

This footage was included in the Ken Burns jazz documentary. Thanks for uploading. Happy as!

[ThePintsizeslasher]

This is so weird. I came across this video looking for fife and drum marches that are incredibly popular in Northern Ireland, especially with Protestants; although they are much larger actual marches, but informal drumming with giant Lambegs is common. Somehow, white/European military traditions took root with blacks in the South.

[AEngleSaex]

@ThePintsizeslasher I hope your joking because otherwise you have a severe learning difficulty!

Somehow a 1950's recording provides evidence of a 500+ year old european tradition deriving from african americans and Jamaicans !!!

Don't you think it far more likely that slaves heard the european fife and drum and attempted to emulate the music of their masters?

[hultonclint]

@AEngleSaex He/she says "took root with," meaning that the the people in the Southern U.S. adopted the tradition.

Most certainly the ensemble is from Europe. However, the Black Southerners clearly are not emulating the European style of play, but rather using the ensemble to articulate their own aesthetic. In other context, they could play 'proper' when required. They choose not to, which makes your other 'toddlers' comment kind of tacky.

[saxonenglish]

@hultonclint "articulate their own aesthetic" lol. This is precisely the type of 'media encouraged' brain-washed sycophantic drivel that prompted me to reply. More than articulating their own aesthetic; I think you'l find they are behaving in accordance to their nature. As are Europeans when we play fife and drum. It's clear that the performance in this video is devoid of any skill, refinement, subtlety or dicipline..........

"Oh look the Emperor has no clothes on"

[hultonclint]

@saxonenglish 14 88, brother...it's so clear

[slobjob13]

@hultonclint take your Nazi bullshit elsewhere you fuckin racist pig. WTF has fife and drum got to do with you Nazi gay crap anyway ? You can't hear the name Germany get mentioned with out wanking over Hitler...

[hultonclint]

@slobjob13 Obviously I was replying with sarcasm to the guy who was saying that this allegedly worthless and invalid music was "in their nature" etc. It was straight up racist rhetoric. Sorry if it was too close to home. Your channel is replete with fascist rhetoric and Nazi bedfellows. It's my video page, and I'm quite sure I can say what I want in response to the ethnocentric Anglophiles having the boot party all over it.

[slobjob13]

@hultonclint, Excuses excuses, tut tut tut you lying little closet Nazi... 

[AEngleSaex]

@hultonclint Emphasis on 'attempted' to emulate!

Anyway my intention was not to mock the performers but rather to point out to other youtube users that 30'000 years of european flute playing history and 500+ years of regimented tradition didn't begin in the american south!

As for my 'toddlers' comment i stand by it. If you gave three drums, a flagelot and a tray of sugary drinks to a kinder garden class they would inevitably produce a sound amost indistinguishable from that in this video.

[hultonclint]

@AEngleSaex But nobody said European fife and drum originated in American South. And it is completely obvious that these musician's aren't playing or trying to play English music--they have just adopted the instruments, in the same way that Europeans adopted them from, say, the Turks, etc.

Every culture's music sounds different; aesthetic comparison across cultures is pointless, even more so when you know nothing about the foreign music.

[AEngleSaex]

@hultonclint "they have just adopted the instruments, in the same way that Europeans adopted them from, say, the Turks, etc" This is decending into the realms of the ridiculous. What possible evidence could you have to make a statement like that? Europeans have been making and playing flutes from long before the nation or notion of Turkey ever existed.

[7jem331]

@AEngleSaex I think you will find that there has been a reed instrument found in almost all parts of the world (Not just Europe, shocking it must be for you to hear this but its true) Its found in Mesopotamia, in West Africa. West African musicians perform the same music and dance as these performers do in the video.

Its also obviously found in Europe. Oh and the Turkic race is one of the oldest on the planet.

[AEngleSaex]

@7jem331 Reed instruments?? What are you talking about? Flutes are 'wind' not reed. The international scientific community accepts that human musical melodic tradition began in europe over 35'000 years ago

.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/scienc­e/25flute.html

You are far too ignorant on this subject to comment!

[7jem331]

@AEngleSaex And leave those who know to discuss African culture and love this music for what it is, thankfully having no links to that sess pool of hate.

[AEngleSaex]

@hultonclint /watch?v=B_ihF6keN8s

Found in Germany, not only the worlds oldest flute but also beleived to be the worlds oldest instrument.

[7jem331]

@AEngleSaex Ah you can always count on someone from that religious blood bath known as Northern Ireland to treat us all to yet another example of stupidity and ignornace from that part of the world.

Fife and drum is common in North and West Africa (From Morocco to Senegal) amongst many ethnic groups and last I checked they had no ethnic connections with a bunch of bigoted loyalists.

[AEngleSaex]

@7jem331 You've just jumped in two feet first and made a muppet of yourself.

Fife and drum may well 'now' feature in cultures and traditions around the globe. However my point was that these traditons all undoubtedly (scientific archeological evience) stem from europeans.

.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/dec­/17/highereducation.arts

Now fuck off you petulant bungler

[7jem331]

@AEngleSaex Wow foul language over the internet. What an itelectual giant you must be and not some bigoted loon living in a bigoted world of hate. So an article from the Guardian outweighs what Africans have been doing for centuries does it? So Senegal has some connection with Northern Ireland orangemen does it? Traditional African drum and dance is similar to the brats of bigoted Combat 18 linked loyalists is it?

Fuck off yourself back to your little bigoted pond called Ireland

[slobjob13]

@7jem331 Id just like to point out theat Ireland is a country and a land mass not a "pond" or a water body of any sort... But i do love your self righteous air... You can't by that stuff... You call him a resident of "a bigoted world of hate" and then comdemn an entire country to being a "bigoted pond"! Sometimes i'd kill to be as unaware and ignorant as you... It just seems so, well, silly and care free... Bliss!

'Bout time you quit fuckin' yourself and joined the real world kido.

[7jem331]

@AEngleSaex "The international scientific commuity accepts...." You just couldnt make this stuff up.

Yes prior to 35,000 years ago outside of Europe a melodic tradition didnt exists.

Do you also have protocols of zion as bedtime reading as well? Oh of course you do. Along with how to persecute a Catholic and other bedtime classics for children.

[slobjob13]

@7jem331 Do you actually realise that it is the IRA that have continued the Hate Campaign in N.Ireland, while the Loyalists are idle? Nah, course not... You're to busy suckin' African fife owner's cocks to no what the fuck's going on....

[7jem331]

@slobjob13 Just adding a bit of homophobia to you racism are you? Typical bigoted low life that you are.

[slobjob13]

@7jem331 LOL YOUR HOMOSEXUAL!!! How did i guess it! No mate i don't have a phobia of gay people, infact, i think it's really funny...

Lot's of name calling but no argument, hmmm, you wouldn't be a lefty by any chance would you ??? LOL.

If you think im low life, im glad. Its just as important to be disliked by the wrong people as liked by the right people.

You didn't come across this vid by searching "Black pipe" did you ??? LMBO!!!

Catch you later cock breath.

[AEngleSaex]

@slobjob13 LMFOA

[7jem331]

@slobjob13 Wow more homophobia to add to your racism. Mummy and daddy must be so proud of you. Clearly you must be about 10 with the "Your gay" Comments.

[slobjob13]

@7jem331, Dry your eyes you cock slut.

[7jem331]

@slobjob13 Wow more gay references. Considering your obsession with mens penis are you sure there isnt something you want to tell mummy and daddy about?

[KudzuRunner]

@AEngleSaex: If your intention wasn't to mock the performers, then why compare them to children? (You've misspelled "kindergarten," BTW. So much for Anglo-Saxonism triumphant.) Nowhere in this video is the claim made that the music featured here "began" in the American South. Afrodiasporic musics, especially those tracing some roots to Senegambia, adapt and meld traditions--Euro, Arab, and African. The children you invoke wouldn't have the faintest idea how to syncopate like this. D+

[boyratchet]

@AEngleSaex I find it amazing that you can not find the groove or melody in this music. It's a shame.

[ThePintsizeslasher]

@AEngleSaex

What hultonclint said. Learn2read or troll elsewhere. I like both this and the organized marches in Ulster.

But because they don't play to your liking they must sucks. I'd say these folks are better though: /watch?v=jR9lPrQG-rg

[Pudersepp]

Can someone give hints about the fife players dance? I have seen similar elements in many black traditional music videos. Such as the video here on Youtube about Fela Kuti ("Fela in performance"). Where could I see more of this dance? Why are the dancers going down to the ground like that?

[keremyeah]

playing the shit out of that goddamn flute.

[crystalcity74]

That is Napoleon Strickland from Como Mississippi

[xenos60]

That was awesome.

[Deposetheboyking]

I remember hearing about this kind of music on NPR years ago and thought the whole idea of it was just incredibly historic (and listenable). It's hard to find this, except for stuff by military bands, etc which is just not the same. Thank you for posting.

[hultonclint]

@Deposetheboyking right on!

[fifthworld]

Magical and powerful -- thanks for posting this, hultonclint!!

[SDPickups]

Sharde Thomas is the last living person in the US playing this kind of music.....

[cccarl]

thanks

[Alejounoloco]

Its all primal, all instrumental, all heart, an a whole lotta soul. T

his is da kinda music dat don't need no lyrics, it speeks, it talks, it walks. ;)

[noodlam]

Now THAT is roots right from Africa baby. Birth of Rock.

[arkaburger]

Search either Othar Turner or Napoleon Strickland.

[Bonacker]

amazing! i read about this stuff, but never saw it. did you ever hear the re-created fife and drum in the martin scorsese movie "gangs of new york"? incredibly similar.

[hultonclint]

yeah, I heard that. Presumably Scorcese was making this "Blues" documentary with Otha Turner and Gangs of NY about the same time, so... It's interesting the way he decided to use the music in the film, as it it were what he imagined some "primal" music would sound like back then that was a mix of various culture strains

[TheSpiritualShow]

duda, tell me where to look for in itunes or cd for good fife and drums like this to get, tks - i just bought my first fife and am crazy about this kind of music crazy crazy

[holeinthesky]

You need to get acquainted with Otha Turner.

[summerease]

Not or lowly! Badabing!