 We're moving on now from literature music, perhaps from reading to dancing, things we're heading into Friday afternoon. The next paper in the session is exploring how African American music developed as an original art form, whilst retaining its integral style and performance features. This paper is given to us today by Josephine Beaton who has concentrated much research in varied outlets on early African American jazz and blues short story. Josephine is the retired east end secondary school head teacher and is also a trustee of the Nubian community trust, anafric and caribbean community organisation who deliver cultural and educational outputs and services. Josephine is currently heavily involved in the trust project to raise a statue in honour of the Windrush and Commonwealth nurses. If you're ready to go Josephine I will hand over to you. Thank you. Thank you. Am I on sound? Yes you are we can hear and see you yeah. Great thank you. I want to start with a simple comment about music which is relevant to our subject. Different cultures produce musics that differ in instrumentation, vocal styles, the purposes of the music and the varied styles of song and dance that belong with that music. When different cultures meet they will often each learn something new from the other and copy or adapt this new feature into their own. The fascinating thing about the musical culture of African American music is that certain of its original characteristics have persisted despite the history, the changes in fashion of musical performance and it's spread across the world. Jazz remains the only original art form to have emerged from the USA. African American music begins long before we have recordings or film to show us how it was. Nevertheless we have some surprisingly early documentary evidence. In 1842 Charles Dickens saw a dance performance in a basement hall with a platform and a bar situated in a very rundown area of New York and an African American venue both management and performers. Dickens was struck by the novel aspects of the dance and took notes and the slide you can see is the gentleman we're talking about. William Henry Lane was a free man known professionally as Master Juba and still a teenager at the time. Dickens very precise description suggests what would in later times be termed an eccentric dance. Accompanied by energetic violin and tambourine he did single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross cut, snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front which is what you see in the illustration, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine. This clearly refers to tap dancing. The grand ending was a leap from the floor onto the bar counter, up to the bar counter. In his day, Lane was commonly acclaimed as the best contemporary exponent of popular dance against all pommers, including white dancers. In 1947 an American dance historian wrote, the repertoire of any current tap dancer contains elements which were established theatrically by him. An English academic study of 2008 states, in Lane's dancing the Irish jig was assimilated into African American vernacular dance and was not only considerably embellished but forged into a new form that had a profound impact. So Juba didn't copy but adapted to his own style, rhythmic, percussive, athletic, varied tempo and full body movement as compared with the Irish jig where the upper body is kept upright. Reaching Richmond, Virginia Dickens made a point of observing the effects of the institution of slavery which he strongly opposed and made a visit to a tobacco factory where the workmen were enslaved. They were working quietly. He wrote, after two o'clock in the day they're allowed to sing a certain number at a time. Some 20 sang a hymn in parts and sung it by no means ill pursuing their work meanwhile. These men have taken up the part singing of the European hymn which one assumes was a welcome accompaniment to their work but also suggests they sang what they were allowed to sing. When considering African American musical characteristics it is well to remember the constraints they faced from their earliest days in America. Hym singing was a non-threatening activity for the shareholders. Playing drums might be a dangerous signal. The spirituals for which the enslaved were noted continued those harmonies and the words were Bible derived but as we know those Bible references were often about escape and ambiguous. Swing low sweet chariot coming for to carry me home. Is this looking forward to heaven? And continuing I looked over Jordan and what did I see? A signal to cross the river to freedom? We know that such songs were used as signals for the underground railway as the recent film about Harriet Tubman illustrated. So the spiritual was repurposed but it also used a form which allowed for call and response and that has a further function. It brings the community together when a reverend leader can give the line and the congregation can all respond in this case with coming for to carry me home. Can I have the next slide and I'm going to try and find the camera. You can see it's okay. You come. Perfect. Thank you. Right. This is Paul Robeson. This music, the spiritual, already loved in Britain for its musicality and in the repertoire of many later 19th century choral groups here was given a further boost in the 20th century by the moving based baritone voice of Paul Robeson noted also as an actor and who chose to record spirituals along with other songs of his own culture such as Shortman Bread. They frequently featured on Radio's Housewives' Choice running from 1946 to 1967. When people choose to migrate as many from Britain have done, they will cherish and maintain their childhood ways long after their homeland has moved on and the earlier generations liked to keep in touch with family at home. For people forcibly removed from their homes and even their immediate family as Africans were, to keep their own ways and traditions as a community has to be an imperative for survival and to keep oneself whole. Their strong musical traditions were a way they could do this. We can trace some of the constant characteristics of African American performance throughout the turns of history and it seems that most of the performance characteristics were cemented in America. Post emancipation performers came here the earliest in 1866 when Hague's Georgia Minstrel Troop brought 26 liberated people to show their skills. It seems that Brits in the 19th century began to be concerned with authenticity. Are these performers genuine African Americans doing their own stuff? This is definitely a compliment. But at present, we only have hard evidence for the rising popularity of African American musical performers as we move into the 20th century. Next slide. In 192, Belle Davis brought her pickin-in-is to London, a popular stage act. We know how she sang purely because the group was recorded in London and never in the USA. The honeysuckle and the bee, a period piece, is one of the earliest known records of African American rhythmic practice. Belle sings the introduction straight. Then making a heart-stopping transition, she launches into what the bee sang to the honeysuckle in her own culture. A relaxed swaying movement, hard to describe, though the word should probably be swing in the general sense, as in the later Duke Ellington piece, don't mean a thing if it don't have that swing, or better still, fat swallow. When asked to explain swing, he replied, if you got to us, you ain't got it. A breakthrough came in 193 when, in Dahomey, the first full-length musical written and played by African Americans and Freshman Broadway came to London. No doubt about authenticity here. They were black and it was different. Next slide. Surprisingly, the cake-warp dance was included by public command. Demand, sorry, confirms that in London at least, this old-fashioned dance, the African satirical look at the stiff white ballroom dancing of the south, was already known, whilst research done on acts touring Britain in 1910 counted 26 featuring casts entirely or partially of African descent. Next slide. Also in 193, Scott Joplin had his something doing issued on a piano roll, the composer himself playing it, and now we've arrived at that name for syncopated music, ragtime. His rags and others have continued to be popular with pianists up till today, but African Americans also wrote or orchestrated rags for small groups. Next slide. Pete Hampton and Laura Bowman, members of the Indahomey group, met there and became life partners. He danced, sang and played harmonica and banjo. She sang and played banjo. Touring Europe with various shows, they lived in Stockholm. Between 193 and 1911, he made over 150 recordings, some with Laura singing, though no record with her banjo playing has yet been recovered. Clearly immensely popular, and Hampton is seen as a pioneer of the blues harmonica style in view of features such as train noises, rediscovered in Europe with the popularity of sanitarium Brownie McGee playing harmonica and acoustic guitar in the late 50s and 60s, favourites with the folk music audience. In 1910, the versatile quintet performed at James Wies Europe's Clef Club in Harlem, patronised by rich white people. The bill included the white ballroom dancers and teachers Irene and Vernon Castle. Their work was often set to ragtime and jazz rhythms appropriate to their modern dances such as the foxtrot, and when in 1913 there was a tour Europe, they chose three members of the quintet, now the versatile three to tour with them. At the end of the tour, the three players teamed up with a friend already in London, and so, as the versatile four, they became the resident band of the very upmarket Murray's club in Soho. The club closed in the summer and the group would then work for music halls and other venues across the country, reaching a varied audience. Next slide. Their members were Tony Tok on banjo and vocals, Charles Wenzel Milms on piano and vocals, Charlie Wesley Johnson drums and cello, and Goss Haston, mandolin. They first recorded in London in February 1916, including Down Home Rag, composed by an African American associated with the Harlem Clef Club, and this has been said to have a credible claim as the first jazz record. They remained in Britain for around 10 years. Their music popular and a favorite with the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII. Yes, Murray's club was that upmarket. Records were made by the American Dixieland Jazz Band of New Orleans in 1917, the first to use the term jazz rather than rag. This white band was good, as well it might be in the heart of the south, where giants of early New Orleans jazz, King Oliver, who earned that moniker, Louis Armstrong, Sydney Beshe, and Jelly Roll Morton, incidentally part Heitean ancestry, were developing their styles and instrumental techniques. Next slide. Post war in July 1919, a blast from the past. The Southern Syncopated Orchestra, the SSO, arrived in London led by Will Marion Cook, composer for Indahomy, with an orchestra of 36, a very wide repertoire of ragtime spirituals, jazz, like classical show tunes, and traditional plantation songs, the full range of African American performance of the era. Instruments included banjos, vocalists included quartets and solo singers, and the scores were written. Personnel included Sidney Beshe of New Orleans, immediately noted as something wonderful, and whose intense jazz style and timbre could carry power or pathos equally. Known for clarinet, whilst in London he saw and bought a second hand soprano sax, a difficult instrument to play, and he made it his own. He later settled in Paris, where no parks and a cultural center are named after him. Billy Holiday's vocal rendering of strange fruit, a poem recording lynching, which was at its height in the 1920s in America, is heart-rending and was intended to be. Music as a weapon. Beshe's performance of the music, without words, is equally moving. Next slide. Arthur Briggs is of particular interest in the SSO, a fine trumpeter who rightly claimed British nationality for this trip with the SSO, because he was born in Grenada in 1901, but had joined the 369th US infantry band. He was too young to travel to Europe during the First World War, but finally made it with the SSO. He sometimes claimed to be American, indicating the prestige that US performers enjoyed, and was not contradicted because of the quality of his playing, virtuoso, and with a clear tone. For some years, he worked in the USA and in Europe, finally settling for Europe in 1931. He played with other artists of high quality, including Coleman Hawkins. In turned in France in World War II, though now an American citizen and America not yet in the war, he was rescued by one Tom Waltham, a jazz musician in the British inter-nease camp at Sandini, who petitioned the German authorities to have Briggs moved there, presumably by saying he was British. Jazz was forbidden in the camp, and the interned jazz musicians included many of African heritage, so they turned to classical music and gave concerts. Waltham directed Arthur Briggs' case on orchestre. German officers enjoyed the concerts, one commenting that he had not thought that Negroes would be capable of such playing of European music. Briggs stayed in France to play, and in the 1960s settled in Chanteer, teaching music. African American music has spread in many ways. Returning from that digression to the SSL, the show was a huge success, performed in other major cities with uniformly good reviews. Audiences were entranced and commented on the swaying of the performers, the way they exuded joy in what they did, with big smiles and their spontaneity. It ran until December, longer than expected, so that some performers had to leave for another contract or other obligations. At first replacements could be found among other African Americans already here, but finding other authentic people of African descent was an issue. Trained musicians were to be found from amongst Caribbean and African citizens, as we just saw, sometimes trained in military or police bands and also vocalists, including some merchant seamen. Some married British women and stayed. The point of interest is that they were able to adapt quite quickly and pick up the American style, and for some it proved a good training ground for their future careers. Some of the musicians took on small group work in clubs from the outset, resulting in an invitation from the Prince of Wales to play at Buckingham Palace. Natalie Spencer, a white replacement pianist, gave her account of how Will Marion Cook maintained improvisation and individuality in an orchestra, all new to her. When a new piece was rehearsed, the score was played as written until familiar. But then, she says, first conceptions are improved upon individually. That is the real secret of the fullness and liveness of the syncopated orchestra's playing. Later, in rehearsal or during a performance, someone might improvise a small variation. If Cook smiled, he was happy with it. No baton, only his right hand moving slightly. But a pleased and growing smile said, that's right. Lifted eyebrows and a pocket mouth meant softly. Both hands in his pockets and a vigorous nod said, all out loud as you can. Modified versions of the original orchestra with new conductors and still a varied offer continued into 1921, with shows in Paris and Vienna, for example. The aftermath of the SSO had equally important consequences. Some individuals and a plethora of small groups spread the African American style further afield through the 1920s. The Hammersmith Palada Dance opened in November 1919, where anyone could go to dance as long as they could buy the ticket and were suitably dressed. Evening dressed in a title not required. The castle's plan to promote modern social dancing had succeeded and had also created in demand for syncopating jazz bands. One minute, Josephine. Please try to interrupt you. One minute, thank you. Right. Three African Americans, former SSO players, were Ellis Jackson, multi-instrumentalist, Milford Warren, horns player and Al Young drums and vocal both in 1919. All three had their own acts as musicians and vaudeville performers in the US and Britain. They recorded for Victor Vordzanger, and it's not surprising that he had a hot band on record. Ellis Jackson was playing at Moody's Club, where else? In America, jazz was seeing great developments. Louis Armstrong, who honed his small group skills in Chicago, was joking Oliver as an example when he played in his band, started to lead his own hot small groups playing trumpet solos with an unmatched sense of swing timing, complexity and amazing technical skill. I am going to cut, obviously. He came to London in 1932 to escape the Chicago mobs and was surprised to find fans waiting to meet him on arrival. In 1933, Duke Ellington's orchestra debuted at the London Palladium and he received an ovation when he walked on stage and then a stream of others. Next slide. Calaway and his Cotton Club Orchestra appeared at the Paramount Theatre and was seen by my father in Manchester. Builders, my father was a student there. Builders, the first and only appearance in a provincial theatre. He was hip, sang, conducted the best hot-jaws band of the time, had a very original way of dancing seen on film. People were very... There was a great demand for this music, not only now for dancers, but for large audiences. Thank you. Sorry I overrun. No, that was perfect. Thank you. I'm sorry I interrupted you to warn you about the time. Thank you very much, Josephine. That was fantastic. Some really lovely photos as well. People can feel free to post questions in the chat, but I just wanted to ask you quickly because you mentioned Bell Davis quite early on and I wondered if it's possible to listen to her music that you mentioned. Is it on archive anywhere? Yes, because she was recorded here. The example I gave, the Holy Circle and the Bee, was recorded in London. If it had been left to the Americans, we would have no idea what she said, sounded like. There are many researchers in this country and in Germany and France who have worked hard to trace old records. They have worked with the Pete Hampton records. He recorded so many and was obviously so popular that they have been able to recover a lot of his records. They've got most of his records, but we're still not managed to get one showing his lady on the banjo, but it's ongoing research. Whereabouts would you think you might be lucky and find one? It's going to be in someone's personal collection, presumably. Originally, people found them in junk shops. When I was first in London in the 70s, there were lots of junk shops that were selling 78s and there's still a few, but probably the best stuff has been taken from them by that time. The other place where you can see them is when people are selling them online. Then, although you can't necessarily hear them, you can say, here's another Pete Hampton. Wonderful. Fraser has just posted in the chat to the panellists. I wonder if you mind putting it in all attendees, Fraser. He's put a YouTube link, which I presume is what we've been talking about. Is anyone else got any questions I'd like to ask? Josephine, well, we've got her here. OK, well, it leaves, that's left up to me to say a million thank yous again, Josephine, for that wonderful paper. That was really interesting, fabulous stuff. We should have had a soundtrack playing in the background really, but we didn't get round to that this time. Maybe next time. Yes, it would be nice. I also like the fact that these people, the earlier people, like Will Marion Cook, their parents or their grandparents may have been slaves. And what they produced when they were free. Something else, and they've given something to the world, which has given many people a lot of pleasure and also a fine art. Absolutely, yeah. Wonderful. Thank you again very much on behalf of everyone attending today, Josephine. That was great. Thank you.