Ed Bland (1926-2013)
Regina Harris Baiocchi:
I received this paper from Juanita Smith. Please scroll down to read Ed's paper...
Peace,
Regina
This paper is from Ed Bland's talk during the
"Conference on African Pianism" Oct 7-9, 1999, held at the University
of Pittsburgh. Dr.Akin Euba was the conference chairman.
Cultural Feedback: African
and American Export Loop
As
the only African-American composer at this conference and as one of the very
few attendees who has earned a living primarily through the profession of
composing, I think that I might bring a distinctive perspective to this
conference. This view emerges from composing, arranging and producing for the
last 40 years in the recording, motion picture, and television
industries, in addition to composing my concert music.
An
African-American is the result of many factors. Among them are whatever
continuities and discontinuities our ancestors brought with them as they were
exported to the New World, and the eradication of tribal distinctions during
slavery in a primarily European-American context with Native American touches.
In adapting to a situation that was not made to work for them, African-Americans
had to create novel ways of thinking and behaving to transform the situation so
they could not merely survive but flourish here. Later cultural/musical
manifestations of this thinking resulted in Ragtime, the Blues, Jazz, Rock and
Roll, Soul, Gospel, Rhythm and Blues, and Rap and Hip Hop.
For
almost a century, African-Americans have been musically and culturally
"blackening" the rest of America through music, clothing, body
language, dance, sports, and spoken language. Through the exports of the
American entertainment industry, American values and ways get into the brains
of the rest of the world. In so doing, we turn the world into Americans through
entertainment globalization. Through American global marketing genius, we
are "negrifying" the rest of the world.
In this
context, what is the function and purpose of African pianism, whatever that is?
From
the city of Pittsburgh, home of this conference, African pianism spoke in the
guise of African-American jazz pianism. Pittsburgh is the home of famous
jazz pianists, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Errol Garner, Ahmad Jamahl (nee
Fritz Jones), and Dodo Mamorosa (a white, who was one of the first be-bop
pianists). Other Pittsburgh natives include jazz greats, Roy Eldridge,
Billy Eckstein, Billy Strayhorn, Ray Brown, and Art Blakey. Lena Horne, Stanley
and Tommy Turrentine are rumored to have originated from here.
Before
I speak further, I want to introduce myself musically.
Thursday night you heard the pianist
Mark Boozer perform my "Three Chaconnes in Blue." Tonight you will
hear Darryl Hollister perform the same piece. As you all know, the
Chaconne, the basic form of the blues and jazz, is a continuous variation in
which the "theme" is the scheme of harmonies and their harmonic
rhythm. Brahms uses a Baroque version of the Chaconne in the final
movement of his fourth symphony.
At
this point, I would like to play a tape of my piano composition,
"Classical Soul." This is a MIDI version I prepared of the Second and
Third movements of that work.
{TAPE OF 2ND & 3RD MOVEMENTS OF
"CLASSICAL SOUL." PLAYED}
In
the "Three Chaconnes" and "Classical Soul," you will notice
that both are driven by the horizontal demands of the texture, differing from
most jazz because there are at least two or three "real" contrapuntal
voices. The contrapuntal accent patterns between the lines are reminiscent of
those of West African drumming and are the basis of the "swing" found
in both works. Both works are dedicated to the piano wizardry of two great jazz
pianists, "Fats" Waller and Art Tatum.
Earlier
in this conference, Kwasi Ampene of Ghana gave a paper in which he noted the
Africanisms in the piano music of jazz great Thelonius Monk. One of the
observations he made about qualitative differences he found between West
African music and Western Art music is that African music is
"dynamic" and Western Art Music is "contemplative."
Another
quality which I discern in West African drumming and in the better moments of
jazz is the prolongation of the present moment aesthetically. In other words,
an eternalization of a given aesthetic moment. It is that quality that I
hope I realized and maintained in the "Three Chaconnes" and in
"Classical Soul." If I was successful, in so doing then I
consider that my contribution to this conference.
As
noted before, among Pittsburgh's contributions to African-American Jazz Pianism
was Errol Garner. I was first introduced to his work in 1943 when I
was playing clarinet at a jam session in Chicago. At that time, Garner had
copied some of the solos of Art Tatum such as "Get Happy,"
"Tiger Rag," "Elegy," and others which Tatum had recorded
circa 1938 on Decca. I filed Garner's name away and was pleasantly surprised
several years later to notice that he had developed his own immediately
recognizable voice. In the meantime I was pursuing a performance career
as a jazz clarinetist and saxophonist.
Art
Tatum was the ideal for jazz pianists prior to the advent of be-bop. In
my opinion, Tatum was the most adventuresome of all jazz improvisers. He not
only challenged the harmonic and rhythmic limits of the tunes he was playing,
but he also challenged, played, and toyed with the formal structure of jazz
form. This play was especially evident in his interludes, introductions, and other
interpolations. Tatum was the only jazz artist who made form as much an
element to be improvised on and with, as the elements of harmony, melody, and
rhythm.
Heir
to the "swinging left hand" of the stride piano style, Tatum was the
direct descendant of James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Tatum remains the only
jazz voice out there who hasn't been emulated yet. A few decades ago it
seemed as if Phineas Newborn Jr. out of Memphis would inherit Tatum's
mantle, but unfortunately mental illness and death prevented that. In my
early teens in Chicago, I was lucky enough to hang out with a posse of pianists
(ten years or more my senior) who worshipped Tatum's playing. On the outskirts
of this group of pianists was Nat "King" Cole, who was highly
regarded as a jazz pianist before he reached fame as a vocalist.
Ellington
was the artist closest to Tatum in pushing the envelope of jazz, but
Ellington's essays were primarily harmonic, and coloristic via orchestration,
coupled with very inventive contrapuntal lines. Aside from the current
emulations of Ellington by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra, other emulations existed in the 40s, such as the Dave Matthews Band,
the Hal McIntyre Orchestra (Hal McIntyre was at one time lead alto with the
Glenn Miller band) and, of course, the band of Charlie Barnet.
Other
jazz envelope pushers after World War Two were the pianist Lennie Tristano and
Bob Gratteinger composer of "City Of Glass," and who at one time
arranged for Stan Kenton.
Prolonged
exposure to Tatum and Ellington, coupled with Stravinsky's "Firebird
Suite," "Petrouchka," and especially his "Rite Of
Spring," led me, to composition and evolving my own musical
language. This evolution eventually led me into composing my "Piece
For Chamber Orchestra."
In
order to find my own compositional voice, I had to wade through three
canons: Western Art Music; African-American genres such as Jazz, Blues,
Gospel, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel and Soul; and West African drumming.
Your
next introduction to my music will be a recording of my "Piece For Chamber
Orchestra," conducted by Alvin Brehm, at one time considered the Heifitz
of the double bass and also a composer. The players are the top new music
specialists in New York City from the Group For Contemporary Music and Speculum
Musicae. Again, the point of this work as in the others of mine that you have
heard, is the eternalization of a given aesthetic moment. The establishment and
prolongation of what I call an "eternal now."
{TAPE OF "PIECE FOR CHAMBER
ORCHESTRA" FROM "URBAN CLASSICAL-THE MUSIC OF ED
BLAND" ON CAMBRIA RECORDS CD # 1026, PLAYED.}
Upon
hearing this work, Dr. Gyimah Labi of Ghana, a composer and ethnomusicologist,
asked me where I had traveled in Africa to learn so much about the rhythms of
traditional West African drumming. I replied that I had never been to Africa
and that whatever I learned about West African drumming was from listening to
early Folkways records.
Gunther
Schuller, the American composer, called this work "an amazing tour de
force in terms of relentless energy and build up of tension....a fascinating
and strong piece."
Some
of these qualities are an outgrowth of my writing and arranging work in Jazz,
Soul, R&B, and Gospel which is the basis for so much Pop music especially
in the singing of the first "blue eyed soul singer" Johnny Ray.
A Radical Change In the Economics of the
Record Business
American
pop music, which is African-American based or derived, could be viewed as today's
global folk music, regardless of whether it is manifested as Ragtime, Blues,
Jazz, Gospel, Soul, Rock and Roll, or Rap.
In the U.S., the economic growth of the
record business is based on the purchases of young whites.
In
the early 50s, as innovations were made by black artists recording on such
labels as Chess/Checker in Chicago and Atlantic in New York, young whites
started to purchase those records. While sitting in the offices of Chess
records in those early days of my beginning adventures in the record business,
after finishing my studies at the University of Chicago, I remember a phone
call that Phil Chess got from McKee Fitzhugh, one of the Black DJs in Chicago
who played Chess' R&B recordings on his radio show. Fitzhugh commented on
how white record buyers were coming to his record store in the black ghetto to
purchase Chess records.
Among
the artists that the Chess brothers were recording at that time in addition to
the Doowop groups such as The Moonglows, were Bo Diddley, Howling Wolf,
and Muddy Waters.
Leonard
Chess challenged me to write a blues song. He seemed to think that it would be
difficult for me to do what with my college background. I wrote three blues
songs and presented the lead sheets to the Chess brothers. At the bottom of
each sheet I had the standard copyright notice. Leonard Chess said to me,
"We don't do business with people who have copyright on their music."
Records
of early Rock and Roll on Chess, Checker, Atlantic, and King records, led to
"cover records" (which were sanitized versions of by black
artists' songs re-made by white artists). These cover records were marketed by
the major record companies. These records were sanitized by removing as
much of the irony, satire, play, and sexual references as possible. Elvis
Presley was an early example of this phenomena. Many of these early Rock
records were exported to England and became the models and inspiration for the
songs of the Beatles and Rolling Stones which were exported back to the US in
the first British invasion of 1964.
The
rise of many American white blues bands such as the Paul Butterfield Blues
Band, the Siegel/Schwall Blues Band, and the Blues Project, paralleled the
invasion of British talent. Interestingly enough, I would hire some
members of these white blues bands for my recording sessions as they had a
better feel for the black musical idioms than did the middle-class black studio
musicians.
Now
a few decades later, with the advent of Rap and Hip Hop, the monetary balance
of power in the record industry has shifted.
Rap
is not a musical movement but a poetic one, a 20th-century rebirth of
opera. In many ways Rap is reminiscent of the birth of Opera by the
Florentine Camerata. Those Renaissance nobles, who were poets, wanted
their poems in the forefront with the music that accompanied them very simple,
tamed, muted, and in the rear.
Likewise
the rappers revolted against their elders' interest in Bebop, Coltrane and
Miles Davis, because of their perception that the music was too complex,
abstract and indirect. The rappers wanted verbal concreteness and power, which
they achieved through their poems, accompanied by a primitive sampled musical
background. This sampled background served as a counterpoint to the rhythms of
their poetic meters. Poetic texts that extolled misogyny, street crime
and drugs, were, and still are favored over subtler, more clever poems.
Rappers
that I've taught music to and worked with in South Los Angeles consider rapping
to be of African derivation.
The
import of Rap for the economics of the record industry is
revolutionary. This is the first time that covers of works or
covers of black styles are not desired by young white record buyers.
Except for one white artist, Eminem (Slim Shady), all attempts by the record
industry over the last 20 years to import white artists into the genre have
failed. Why? The young whites reject them. The young whites want the raw
ghetto experience as revealed by black artists such as Puffy Combs, Tupac
Shakur, Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg, etc.
The
feeling among the most powerful in the record industry is that Rock is
middle-aged. There are no Beatles or Rolling Stones in the offing. The
consumers money is being spent on Rap and Hip Hop. This puts blacks in a strong
economic position in terms of setting up their own record companies and
publishing companies that economically dwarf the considerable economic
achievements of Motown.
The
financial clout of the Rap company Death Row Records was phenomenal before its
president was put back in jail. Some of the Rap stars and entrepreneurs
have backgrounds in gang life, prison and the drug trade. Regardless of what
one thinks of that life-style, it is a good training ground for survival and
success in the jungle of the business world.
The
Rap entrepreneurs have figured out how to produce, market, distribute, and
license their works. This puts them in a strong position vis-a-vis the
majors labels and is the first time that the economic power has shifted
this way in this field. Black American musicians have complained for decades
that whites have stolen and co-opted their music and made fortunes from it
while they have, with rare exception, only crumbs to show for their
endeavors. Finally, because of the young whites' response to Rap,
American blacks can totally exploit and own their work if they so desire.
African American Music as Avant-Garde
Music
Since
Ragtime, the avant garde in American pop music has been African-American music,
for the most part. In all fairness, it must be admitted that both pop and
Art music are subject to the ever demanding and evolving standards of artistic
excellence. The conceit of Art music is that the only advanced and higher
order artistic thinking takes place under its rubric.
But
who can deny the high compositional thinking of West African drumming, or, for
that matter, some of the best Jazz? Ellington's best work compositionally
were his miniatures 1939-42 such as "Giddybug Gallop," "Conga
Brava," "Harlem Airshaft," and "In A Mellotone."
But he was a miniaturist. Chopin was essentially a miniaturist also, but
more asymmetrical in his formal thinking.
The
formal rhythmic organization of West African percussive polyphony at the very
least rivals much of the structural complexity of Bach, Western Art music, and
the so-called Netherlands School, which was achieved by other means.
Too
often the so-called high status of Art music seems more anchored in class
superiority and elitism than in any inherent artistic superiority.
Part
of the baggage of Art music is its necessity to have prior verbal knowledge
about the work before enjoying it. Part of the contempt in which pop music is
held by Art Music apologists seems to reside in the fact that pop music needs
no prior verbal education in order for the listener to enjoy it.
At
any historical cross-section, most music lovers would admit that much that parades as music of any
kind is dull, deadly, dying, and not of much intrinsic interest, be it Art
music, Jazz, Pop, Folk etc.
Why not approach each piece of music in
terms of its use/enjoyment quotient, be it Ellington's "Giddybug
Gallop," Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue," the last movement of the
"Hammerklavier Sonata," or Tatum's "Get Happy?"
Why American Whites Embrace Black Music
A
considerable number of young, decent, sensitive American whites are not proud
of the Western way of life. Who could be proud of the bloodiest century
in human history, most of it shed by Western countries? Who could be
proud of the ending of the pretense about American Democracy and its
replacement with the Cold War and the National Security State from 1945 to the
present? Who could be proud of the worldwide elimination of the so-called
primitive cultures under the guise of Western enlightenment and commercial
progress? Who could be proud of a tradition that could entertain the
elimination of life from this planet as its right and duty if need be by World
War Three?
One
doesn't need the work of the German cultural historian Oswald Spengler (The
Decline Of the West) to realize that the inherited way of life of the West is
dying, if not already dead.
A
tradition dies when the youth of that tradition look elsewhere for values and
life models. For too many young whites, their inherited world doesn't
work for them anymore, in much the same way that America hasn't worked for
African-Americans in the four hundred years they've been here.
Young
whites have turned to African-American models because they sense that the
American black has created ways of prevailing in a situation that was never
meant to work for them. Perhaps those ways might work for young whites
also. I believe that American white youth's interest in black cultural
products since Ragtime is a function of the decline in the viability of the
Western way of life.
Young
whites' interest in hearing Bach, Beethoven, Brahms or Mozart has sharply
diminished. If you have any doubts, look at the financial sheets of all
classical record companies. At best, the youth will listen to Glass or
Reich, but above all, they want to hear African-American products. Young whites
have turned to black Americans for models and have been doing so all this
century.
I
have noticed that in addition to the mention of Glass, Reich and Cage during
these conference sessions there has been considerable interest in applying the
ideas of Perle, Babbitt, and Forte in 12-tone theory, serialism, and set theory
to African pianism.
I personally hope that something useful
is found in pursuit of those ideas.
Another
approach I would also like to suggest is that you examine some of the
work of Charles Seeger, whom some of you may not know. The American
musicologist Charles Seeger examined the attempts to describe musical
compositional phenomena in mathematical terms in the Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences 1933 "Music and Musicology," in which he notes that there is
no law of contradiction in music. As you all know, the law of
contradiction is central in the evolution of math and science.
Another
article by Seeger on the same subject matter appears in the Journal of The
American Musicological Society (1960, Xlll, pps 224-261) "On the
Moods Of A Musical Logic."
For
another view of the same subject matter, see David Schiff's article in
the Times Literary Supplement, July 2, 1999 (pages 18-19 of the Arts section)
on the application of set theory to music.
Seeger
was a seminal figure not only in historical and systematic musicology but in
and ethnomusicology. He was also the teacher of the composer Henry
Cowell, husband of the great American composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, and
father of the famous folk singers, the Seeger Brothers. If I'm not
mistaken the American composer Lou Harrison studied with Cowell.
Seeger
wrote an article entitled "Dissonant Counterpoint" in "Modern
Music" published by the League of Composers in 1930. This article
served as one starting point for Cowell's book "New Musical
Resources." Some scholars consider Seeger's article as the forerunner of
serialism theories.
The
musicological scholarship that accompanies the development of musical work is
very needed and important. However, such thinking is ultimately
quantitative, whereas artistic thinking is qualitative.
Art
is thinking in qualities. Africa has been superb at qualitative thinking.
Think of its history in both the visual arts and West African drumming.
In
today's global village, the challenge to all of us is the creation of a working
balance between the two ways of thinking. Between quantitative and
qualitative thinking. This is the human challenge and the challenge of
and to the global village and African pianism. Can that challenge be met?
At
one time, Africa exported slaves to the New World, perhaps with the African
pianism movement it can export musical artifacts at least as significant in
their own right as what their New World African descendants have exported to
the rest of the world.
Closing Comments
I
would like to close with a few comments about some of the music and
presentations I heard at the conference. But before I do, I must extend a
heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Mark Boozer and Darryl Hollister, the two
pianists who were brave and artistic enough to perform my very wicked
"Three Chaconnes In Blue."
Akin
Euba's "Scene's From a Traditional Life," performed admirably by Mark
Boozer, had some real moments of rhythmic interest and dynamic structuring.
Kwabena
Nketia, who gave the opening presentation at the conference, was represented by
some very delicate and fetching piano pieces.
Denzil
Weale, a South African, who I understand was one of the few non-academics at
the conference, showed us what music is about in his very communicative lecture
and his communicative "Twosome" and "Suite Sounds Of The Good
Ol' South." His was the only work by an African that had a command
of the African-American musical syntax.
I'm
pretty familiar with the work of Gyimah Labi, and have always felt that sooner
or later he will emerge with a singular and powerful voice from that continent.
What I heard of his at the conference only reinforced that feeling.
As
you contemplate my observations and integrate them into your own reactions to
this conference on African pianism, I would like to exit with a final musical
statement from my latest CD.
This work "swings". It is also an electronic construct, that could
not be performed by players with acoustical timpani because of performance
difficulties. Even if it could be performed by live players the result
would be aural mud.
{PLAY
"DIGITAL SAFARI" FROM DANCING THROUGH THE WALLS ON DELOS RECORDS
INTERNATIONAL-CD # 4030.}
ED BLAND
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