Afro Caribbean Music If African music is said to have roots in almost all music, then undoubtedly a branch extends directly into the heart of the Caribbean Islands. All the islands have a spice of African influence, but due to length constraints, we’ve chosen to confine our discussion to Afro-Caribbean music in Jamaica and Cuba. History and Musical Cultural Context: Jamaica: From the early 1400’s to the middle 1600’s Jamaica was island under Spanish control. That was until 1655 when the British took control. After a brief period of experimenting with indentured European labor, the British turned to large scale importation of Africans to be used as slaves on the sugar plantations.
From its simple and primitive origins, not only has the Blues affected culture throughout the Deep South, but Southern culture has had a strong influence on the creation of the Blues and its musicians. The Blues’ unique sound came from the slave songs, such as the work songs and field hollers of the enslaved African Americans (PBS). Nearly every song on the radio today has its roots in the Delta Blues. Although the Blues is definitely from the Mississippi Delta, the date and exact location of the place of origin will forever remain unknown. However, Dockery Farms claims to be the place where the Blues began.
Jazz is America’s classical music that evolved from the blending of African and European cultures. The artists are in an improvised jazz ensemble, and they are equal partners in the developing musical selections. Jazz music originated in New Orleans. In the late 1700s-1840 there was a common meeting place for most slaves called, Congo Square. Slaves were permitted to dance, sing, and play drums on Sundays.
Reggae music originated from Jamaica in the early 1960's. In the streets and ghettos of Kingston, shortly after independence from Britain in 1962, reggae started to evolve from Mento, which was a local form of Jamaican music in the 30's to what it has become today. Originated in Jamaica, reggae music is recognized by rhythmic accents on the offbeat, usually played by piano, guitar, or sometimes both. Changing American popular music, the genre began to be played in the 1960s producing a new and different sound. Reggae's origins are in traditional African and Caribbean music, American rhythm and blues, and in Jamaican ska and rock steady (Scaruffi, Piero).
Charles Berry Roots of Rock The roots from Rock 'n' Roll music all began with African griots, slaves. Songs called "work songs" were performed by the slaves while they were working to pass time in the Delta of Mississippi. Later, music became what is known as the "Delta Blues". A man by the name of Robert Johnson was one of the greatest of the Delta Blues musicians. He lived to be 27 years old and was believed to be poisoned.
The emergence of jazz formed as social state of affairs between the black and white populations in late 19th century. The white wanted to keep the black slavery under control while the African-Americans propelled to develop and maintain their own culture and traditions. Jazz, as a unique genre of music, represented their traditions and experiences and passed down through generations. These included ragtime, an upbeat primarily piano-based style, and the blues, rooted in the work songs of the Southern plantation and sharecropping tradition. The difference between these two styles involves artists, major composition and influence.
Ra Shawn Averitte February 4 2013 P.E. 179 Zumba During the 1920-50s there was a Cuban music craze around the world including in the US, especially in New York where there were many Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants. Cuban music such as son (pronounced "sown"), guaracha, mambo, bolero and chachacha were very popular. Each of these music styles had (and still has) its own dance In New York musicians began mixing the music with jazz and it was called "Latin jazz" for many, many years. Or in many cases the musicians would put the name of the ryhthm of each inidvidual song on the record.
The articles “The Buena Vista Social Club” by Tanya Katerí Hernandez and “Globalisation and the Tango” by Chris Goertzen and María Susana Azzi have both discussed the issue of the globalisation of Latin American music and how it is portrayed in foreign countries. Cuban son music emerged in the country during the 1910s and by 1930 had gained worldwide success. This style of music, a blend of Spanish canción, Spanish guitar and African rhythms and played in the clave rhythm, provided a key symbol of Afro-Cuban culture and identity while also heavily influencing other musicians and music genres. It provided Havana’s Afro-Cuban lower classes with a source of income and the chance to enter a previously European dominated market. Son was exported to the rest of the world during the 1930s and 1940s and became particularly popular in the United States, also providing the grounds for the creation of salsa music in the 1970s.
This music style sometimes aquired chanting and emphasized the syncopated beat. Reggae contained a collection of many different instruments and music genres. Electric guitars, organs, pianos, and drums were the most used instruments in reggae records. Reggae also had some mixed beats from American R and B or other traditional folk music from Africa. There have been a number of successful artists come from Jamaica.
The reign of the Garvey movement, as Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., wrote, "awakened a race consciousness that made Harlem felt around the world. "^2 Popular Hero Borne along on the tide of black popular culture, Garvey's memory has attained the status of a folk myth. While the 1987 centennial of Garvey's birth will be marked by formal ceremonies honoring his memory, on a more dynamic plane, Garvey is daily celebrated and re-created as a hero through the storytelling faculty of the black oral tradition. As the embodiment of that oral tradition transmuted into musical performance, Jamaica's reggae music exhibits an amazing fixation with the memory of Garvey.