Two new arrivals:
Slim Gaillard’s Laughing in Rhythm. Can’t believe I’ve only just bought this. I am so the slowest, uncoolest DJ on the block. I mean, I’ve bought bits and pieces from places like itunes, but still. It’s a bit late. I’d still like the giant Gaillard Proper set, but I just can’t bring myself to buy all that nonsense singing…
Fats Waller and his Rhythm, the Last Years 1940-1943. I now own about 60 million Waller CDs. And I’m not quite sure that’s enough.
This is a cute charleston routine.
That horrible program is over and we’ve just watched our way through the lovely Billy Elliot (not Billy Holliday) and are now beginning with the divine Staying Alive. Directed by Sylvester Stallone, no less. And starring John Travolta. “Do you dance?”
I am trying to watch So You Think You Can Dance, and it’s really hard. It’s really crap.
But there are fleeting glimpses of dancers I know (Trev! Trev! Trev!), and I’m half thinking of writing a paper on it. Maybe doing some interviews with dancers. Maybe something about the way ethnicity and dance and bodily aesthetics are represented in SYTYCD.
But it’s really freaking painful. The worst bit is the way the judges have a small group step forward to be humiliated. It’s all a bit lame. I know it’s all orchestrated for a specific reality TV formula, but it feels far more forced than the American versions. So I’m really not sure I can manage much more of this.
But there are a few lindy hoppers who made it through to the final 100. But man, I’ve been watching for almost an hour and a half. And it’s horrible.
The other really annoying part is the way it’s cut up and stuck back together – lots of short, snappy bits. No where near enough long, long sequences where we just watch the dancers and assess their abilities. Which of course suggests (like we really need it suggested) that the dancing is really only important for brief moments of spectacle and that the real drama is in the judging and backstage stuff.
It’s all a bit painful. I’m also a bit sceptical of comments about including the young aboriginal bloke because he brings ‘diversity’ to the program. Hm. And the woman from El Salvadore telling her (quite terrible) story to a pretty wet soundtrack…. kind of clumsy and chunky and nasty.
[good news: there’s a new series of Good News Week coming. Bad news: it’s on channel 10]
Ok, it’s supposed to be over now, and we’re supposed to be watching Billy Holiday. But it’s not. Oh man.
Helen has asked for specific details about the tuning of Tharpe’s guitar in her comment here. Below is a big fat quote from an article called ‘From Spirituals to Swing: Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Gospel Crossover’ by Gayle Wald (published in ‘American Quarterly’, vol 55, no.3 September 2003), pgs 389-399. This is where I read that note about Tharpe’s tuning – hope it’s useful, Helen.
Wald’s article is mostly about Tharpe’s movement from black gospel music to the white jazz/blues/pop mainstream. Tharpe is taken as an example illustrating wider points about culture and music during this period. It’s a really interesting read.
Although Tharpe arrived in New York already highly credentialed in Pentecostal terms, Sammy Price, Decca’s house pianist and recording supervisor at the time Tharpe recorded “Rock Me,” apparently wasn’t feeling any of this joy. Tharpe, he recalled in his 1990 autobiography, “tuned her guitar funny and sang in the wrong key.” In all likelihood Price was referring to Tharpe’s use of vestapol (sometimes called ‘open D’) tuning popular among blues musicians in the Mississippi Delta region. (Muddy Waters is among the many blues guitarists, for example, who learned vestapol technique in the 1930s, when he was growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi.) As common as it was in the South, however, vestapol tuning could sound distinctly crude and out-of-place in the context of northern jazz bands. By his own account, Price, who later went on to record several hits with Tharpe, refused to play with her until she used a capo, the bar that sits across the fingerboard and changes the pitch of the instrument. “With a capo on the fret,” he explained, “it would be a better key to play along with, a normal jazz key.”
Price’s brief story of the carpo as a normalizing technology is rich with implications for the discussion of what ‘crossing over’ to the realm of popular entertainment might have meant for Tharpe. Resonant of southern black communities and of musicians who honed their craft in churches as well as on back porches – musicians Hammond quite unself-consciously called ‘unlettered’ – Tharpe’s ‘funny’ guitar playing introduced, to Price’s ear, an apparently unassimilable element into the prevailing sounds of urban jazz. It’s also possible that Price was demanding that Tharpe sing at a higher pitch, to conform with popular as well as commercial expectations that high pitch evidences a correspondingly ‘higher’ degree of femininity. In any case, and as Price suggests, Tharpe quite literally had to adjust her guitar and singing techniques to make commercially popular, ‘secular’ records that would earn her an audience beyond the relatively small market of consumers of ‘religious music.’ The ‘makeover’ of Tharpe’s sound also has important gender and class implications less obvious from Price’s comment. In bringing her sound more into line with the sounds of commercial jazz, Tharpe would not only have to change her tuning, but ‘change her tune’ as far as her performance of femininity was concerned.
The ‘Hammond’ referred to in the article is John Hammond, an important figure in the promotion and management of a number of big jazz musicians. Gunther Schuller’s book ‘The Swing Era’ reads almost as a history of Hammond’s career. I think it’s important to note that this one white man was important for his influence on the developing jazz and swing music industry. His selection and then promotion of specific artists shaped the recording industry, popular tastes and the white mainstream’s understanding of and access to black music during this period. As the race records and black-run radio stations were forced out of the industry by white competitors and blatantly racist media regulation, black artists had less and less control of their own representation in mass media, and black musical culture was mediated by white corporate and cultural interests.
All of this makes for fabulous, fascinating reading. It is, though, all about America. I’m not sure how much (if any of it) can be translated to the Australian context. But that would make for interesting research in itself, particularly when you keep in mind that jazz in Australia is necessarily the product of cultural transmission – black music filtered through mainstream American recording and sheet music industries to white mainstream audiences and musicians and white Australian musicians and audiences. Sure, there were musicians making jazz in Australia (people like Graeme Bell of course), but I’ve been thinking about ‘authenticity’ and jazz in such a transplanted context… particularly as I’ve read recently somewhere (goddess knows where – I’d have to retrace my steps) that music tends to reflect the vocal patterns and intonations and rhythms of the culture in which it develops. So, we could draw from this the conclusion that we Australians would play jazz with an Australian accent. It wouldn’t sound like American – or black American – jazz. I’m hesitant to make comments about the relative value of localised jazz, but it’s an issue hanging in the background there…
But back to Hammond. John Hammond of course organised the concert ‘From Spirituals to swing’ at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1938 (you can see the artists here, in a recording of the concert) . This concert featured a bunch of super big artists (Jimmy Rusher, Joe Turner, Mitchell’s Christian Singers, Albert Ammons, Sidney Bechet, Count Basie, Benny Goodman). It’s goal was a combination of musical ‘education’ for the white mainstream and – indubitably, considering Hammond’s impressive business sense – promotion of black music to new white audiences/consumers.
I’m interested in this concert and in Tharpe’s cross-promotion to the mainstream as an example of cultural transmission – I’m fascinated by the way music and dance move between cultures. I’m also really interested in the uses of power in this process. Is it appropration? Stealing? Poaching? To quote (ad nauseum), Hazzard Gordon, we have to ask “who has the power to steal from whom?” when we’re looking at this process.
I”ve been writing about the way different cultures not only ‘take’ dance steps or songs from other cultures or traditions, but also the way they then adapt these ‘found’ texts to suit their own cultural/social needs, values, etc.
I’ve argued all through my work that we can see the social heirarchy of the US in the reworking of dances and songs. What did they need to do to make these texts palatable for white audiences? With Tharpe it was ‘retuning’ her guitar and voice. With lindy hop, it was ‘desexualising’ and ‘tidying’ up the basic steps. Or at least presenting a different type of sexual performance.
Some interesting references
There’s a really great page discussing race records that includes audio files, images and written text here on the NPR site.
There’s also a pbs (US) site attached to the Ken Burns Jazz doco discussing race records.
For a (very nice) academic discussion, see David Suisman’s article called ‘Co-workers in the kingdom of culture: Black Swan Records and the political economy of African American music’ (The Journal of American History vol 90, no.4, March 2004, p 1295-1324) which discusses the ‘race records’ of the period and the racialised nature of the American recording industry.
You can also walk through this article via the JAH’s fantastic site (complete with images, sound files and other wonderful things). This is one site that really ROCKS.
Derek W. Vaillant has written a really interesting article about black radio in Chicago in the 20s and 30s which discusses these issues in greater detail (‘Sounds of Whiteness: Local radio, racial formation and public culture in Chicago 1921-1935’, American Quarterly vol 54 no. 1, March 2002 p25-66).
Katrina Hazzard Gordon has written quite a bit about African American dance culture. Here are a couple of references:
Hazzard-Gordon, Katrina. “African-American Vernacular Dance: Core Culture and Meaning Operatives.” Journal of Black Studies 15.4 (1985): 427-45.
—. Jookin’: The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
Read more about John Hammond, look at photos and listen to music here on this Jerry Jazz Musician page.
Wald, Gayle. “From Spirituals to Swing: Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Gospel Crossover” American Quarterly vol 55, no.3 (September 2003): 389-399.
If Drinkle could do anything with a troupe, anything at all, it would be this:
Mz Tartan has posted a post about conferences that applies quite nicely to lindy exchanges. So I will now infringe her intellectual copy rights with some select copying and pasting.
Despite the extreme anxiety of previous MLXs, this year wasn’t actually all that bad. The above are really just par for the course, and what I think of as ‘inevitable screw ups’. The issue becomes not whether or not they happen, but how you deal with them when they do happen. The difference between a conference and an exchange, though, is that a couple of hundred dancers are there to have fun, and it takes quite a bit to dissuade them of their intent. Conference attendees, however, have a few more issues going on, and can be far less forgiving.
I only had one freak out during MLX, and that was on the Thursday of the weekend. My good friends and hostees took me for cake and I got over myself and it.
I find that the very most important thing about coordinating a dozen or so events over one weekend for a few hundred visitors is to remain calm. Freaking doesn’t help. I also have a rule: “no shouting”. Unless you’re shouting with delight. Shouting at people is never productive, and definitely not when the shouter is feeling angry/upset/etc. Remain cool. If you do feel a good shout/cussing out is in order, take it out the back so as to avoid broken furniture, exorbitant bar tabs and embarrassing guest DJs.
I have another solid rule: say thank you to anyone who has in any way been helpful, kind, accommodating, interested or otherwise a force for good rather than a force for inertia*. It doesn’t hurt to say thank you three or four times, but it does hurt if you don’t say it at all. Saying thank you makes you feel good, too, and so it’s a win-win deal for everyone involved.
And another rule (which is related to the previous): volunteers are the most valuable creatures at your event. DJs are generally a bit precious and high maintenance (with exceptions!), rock star dancers are a pain in the freaking arse (organise exchanges for beginners – they’re far less annoying) and fellow organisers can drive you nuts. But volunteers are gold. Love them, respect them, buy them drinks, thank them, squeeze them and underwork them. They will come back next year and figure out how to work the vacuum cleaner all on their own again.
*yes, I know.
So November is over. It was ok.
…and now I’m desperately trying to get my sleep pattern back to normal for the conference this week. I managed to have a relatively stress-free MLX (in fact, incredibly so), and slept at least 8 hours every night. From 8am til 4pm most days, but still, 8 fat hours of solid, dreamless sleep. Unheard of.
I’ve also met another dancer doing a phd on dance stuff, but she lives in Perth, so we’re squeezing in a natter-fest tomorrow before she flies out. She’s into sociology and anthropology and I’m not sure she’s up there with the hardcore sister action. But we’ll see. It’ll be neat just to sit and have a nice, nerdy chat.
I’m planning to meet up with the Adelaidean dancers during the conference visit this week (Wednesday). So I’ll be able to say I’ve danced in every scene in Australia. Except Launceston. That should be nice.
My paper is pretty much done – just some tidying up to do. It’s a combination of bits from these three posts, but obviously with far less detail, seeing as how I only get 20 minutes. 20 minutes kills me, especially when I want to play some music and clips of dancers to actually make clear what I’m talking about. It’s ridiculous to talk about dancing without showing any, particularly when you’re talking about gender performance in dance. In fact, it’s so ridiculous I should just show 6 clips and provide an exercise sheet to stimulate group discussion, a la tutorials past.
I’ve also noted I’m in kind of a dud session, parallel with papers I’d really like to see, and which everyone else would really like to see as well. Not a big deal, really, and just desserts for someone who fucked the programming around at the last minute (I’d missed out on another grant and cancelled on the organisers, then been offered one by someone else, so squeezed back into the program – people who pull that shit deserve to get dud sessions). But it’s parallel with an old buddy’s paper and in a session of licorice allsorts, so we’ll have trouble asking each other questions. It is in the last session of a day, but this time it’s not the last session of the last day, so I guess it’s ok.
I don’t mean this to sound like a big old bitch – I really am very lucky to be going at all, and I don’t want you to think otherwise. But the part of me that’s trying to get a job keeps saying ‘how will you pimp your fine self out if there’s no one in the audience?’ But really, it only takes one. And there’ll be plenty of afternoon teas for me to pimp myself about. I’m cringing, writing that stuff. I hate the thought of such aggressive self aggrandising, but at the end of the day, in such a competitive job market, I have to be a bit pushy.
So I’m going to experiment with performing pushiness, and pretend like I’m one of those blokes who, obliviously, introduces himself to all the Names at conferences. It’s the sort of thing chicks tend to be reluctant to do. And as a consequence, those pushy blokes get remembered, simply because the chicks have been to shy to step up.
But I’m going to focus on Names that mean something to me – you know, the Old Girls network. The ladies who do. The sorts of women academics who I admire and want to work with and be like. They’re the ladies who’ll call me on bullshit pushiness and demand some sort of fer real talk. No bullshit (unless it’s a story about my career as a stunt woman and there are Tasmanians in the room), all kick arse Sister. No pathetic arse-kissing. No sycophancy…. like I’d have the patience for that. And for sure I’d forget that it’s not cool to swear in polite company. Must remember that for the job interview, actually. Swearing = not cool.
But we’ll see. No doubt I’ll forget all these plans and end up talking shit and eating all the chocolate biscuits with the homies from UQ. Awesome.
Galaxy asked me the other day if I’d written a ‘why dance is important to cultural studies’ paper, and I haven’t. I’m not sure I really, hugely care – if you don’t dance you don’t understand why it’s important. Words won’t help convince you – you have to feel it to understand why it’s good stuff. But I do have a short list of reasons which include things like ‘class’ and ‘not needing literacy’ and ‘ethnicity’ and ‘faster than words’ and ‘freakin’ great fun!’ I’ll have a think, though. Perhaps it’ll be a paper I write when I actually have a job or a book or more than half a dozen papers. Right now I think I’d get more from a paper called ‘Why cultural studies needs dogpossum’ which is so effective it gets me lots of jobs. But I’ll work on it.
this will mean nothing to non dancers.
