Folk & Traditional Music of the Western Continents

The folk & traditional music of Europe, Africa & the Americas explored.

Home Main Menu Singing & Playing Order & Order Info Support Search Voucher Codes



Share page  Visit Us On FB



Previous Contents Next
NEGRO FOLK MUSIC IN THE NEW WORLD 187
Bibliography and discography
Two publications by Richard A. Waterman provide theoretical background for the study of New World Negro music: " 'Hot' Rhythm in Negro Music," Journal of the American Musicological Society, I (1948), 24-37, and "African Influence on American Negro Music," in Acculturation in the Americas, ed. Sol Tax (Chicago: University of Chi­cago Press, 1952). Several studies of South American Negro music are important reading: Alan P. Merriam, "Songs of the Ketu Cult of Bahia, Brazil," African Music, I (1956), 53-82; Melville J. Herskovts, "Drums and Drummers in Afro-Brazilian Cult Life," Musical Quarterly, XXX (1944), 447-92; Luis Felipe Ramon y Rivera, "Rhythmic and Melodic Elements in Negro Music of Venezuela," J-1FMC, XIV (1962), 56-60; and Mieczyslaw Kolinski, "Part III, Music" in Suriname Folklore by M. J. and Frances Herskovits (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1936),
Negro music in the Caribbean is discussed, with musical transcrip­tions, in Harold Courlander, The Drum and the Hoe (Berkeley: Uni­versity of California Press, 1960), a study of Haitian voodoo culture. Peter Seeger, "The Steel Drum: a New Folk Instrument," Journal of American Folklore, LXXI (1958), 52-57, presents a recent development. Among the numerous publications on U.S. Negro music, John and Alan Lomax, Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly (New York: Mac-millan, 1936), George Pullen Jackson, White and Negro Spirituals (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1943) and Harold Courlander, Negro Folk Music U.S.A. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963) are landmarks because of their theoretical importance.
Important records of Negro music in Latin America are Music of Haiti, collected by Harold Courlander, Folkways P 403, 407, 432 (3 disks); Cult Music of Trinidad, Folkways 4478; and Afro-Bahian Re­ligious Songs of Brazil, Library of Congress AAFS 61-65, Album 13 (78 rpm records). Among the numerous recordings of North American Ne­gro music we mention two large sets of records, Music from the South, recorded by Frederic Ramsey, Folkways FP 650-58 (9 disks) and South­ern Folk Heritage Series, edited by Alan Lomax, Atlantic 1346-52 (7 disks, including white and Negro music). Also worth mentioning are Leadbelly's Last Sessions, Folkways FP 241-42 (4 disks) and The Rural Blues, edited by Samuel B. Charters, RFB Records RF 202 (2 disks).