HURRICANE KATRINA AND NEW ORLEANS FUNERALS
August 22, 2007 by Josh
It is now almost two years to the day since hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and surrounding areas with such devastating force in August 2005. I am still shaken by the fact that I was in New Orleans giving a talk at the Louis Armstrong conference early in the month, and the good times seemed to be rolling without end. Now, although many in the city are still struggling with basic survival needs, the French Quarter–the heart and soul of New Orleans jazz–seems to be returning to its former vibrancy.
This fact highlights for me the amazing message of resilience which, paradoxically, the traditional African-American music of the New Orleans funeral communicates so powerfully. This music flows from a unique set of beliefs and many famous quips.
For instance, the jazzman, Jelly Roll Morton has been credited with the hair-raising pun about the end of someone’s life: “It was the end of a perfect death.”
Or how about: “Rejoice at the death and cry at the birth.”
In a traditional New Orleans funeral march, the music is sad and slow on the way to the cemetery as mourners march to the poignant strains of the band playing “Flee As a Bird,” inspired by the opening verse of Ps. 11–”Flee as a bird to your mountain.” But on the way back to town, usually to the lodge or home of the fraternal order, which has traditionally paid burial expenses, sick benefits, and small amounts to beneficiaries, the musicians break loose with a lively number like “Oh Didn’t He Ramble.”
Lynne asks, Why do we write about funeral music on a site called Music and Happiness? Because we believe that this ability to move from sorrow to joy is an essential aspect of human resilience in the face of its greatest challenges–destruction and death. So listening to music with this awareness in mind can lead each of us through our own moments of despair into the knowledge that hope still exists. Hope is one of the great virtues connected to happiness.
What music carries you from a place of sadness into one that arouses your sense of hope?
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT
August 22, 2007 by Josh
“..what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance, and I heard nothing, or someone heard a shepherd singing, and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life; it was only my art that held me back.”
These poignant words are from Beethoven’s “Heiligenstadt Testament” of 1802, half suicide note and half artistic credo. They come from a period of severe crisis during the summer of that year while he was trying to desperately to recuperate in this country village outside of Vienna. But that summer provided little comfort as he became acutely aware of the extent of his deafness, an affliction that would plague him for the rest of his life. He was only 31 at the time!
What is absolutely astounding is how, during this general period, he completed his Symphony no. 2, an amazing composition combining elements of serenity–in the words of a fellow composer, “a delineation of innocent happiness hardly unclouded by a few melancholy accents”– and utter exuberance, even mischief. He even anticipates musical ideas that later re-appear more fully formed in his Ninth Symphony.
In fact, the narrative of moving from a sense of conflict to victory, from darkness to light, carries through many of Beethoven’s most famous compositions. Among them are his only opera FIDELIO, the Symphony no. 5, and his final symphonic masterpiece, the Ninth (”Choral”) and its “Ode to Joy.”
Lynne suggests: when you listen to these pieces we hope that giving you a sense of the context in which they were written will increase your appreciation of them and touch your own life in some way.
How was it possible for a brilliant young musician, threatened by loss of the very faculty that he most treasured, to transcend his fear and despair and find the energy to write a piece filled with exuberance and mischief? What does this have to teach us?
BLUES AIN’T NECESSARILY BLUE
August 7, 2007 by Josh
“My whole life has been happiness. Through all the misfortunes…I did not plan anything. Life was there for me and I accepted it.” Louis Armstrong.
The word “blues” or feeling blue is, for many people, inseparable from feeling sad and depressed. Certainly, looking at the word historically, one can trace it to Elizabethan times when it was a synonym for feeling melancholy.
But when it is applied to music, specifically, jazz, blues takes on a far richer, more nuanced meaning. In fact, surprisingly often the lyrics are about being resilient, about having the capacity to survive and move on.
When blues records were first commercially released in 1920 the collective memory of train travel was a very powerful one. Some thirty thousand miles of train track were laid after the American Civil War, north to south, and east to west. The image of the train taking one to a better place became irresistible, representing a certain independence of movement. Thus we find titles like “Goin’ Away Blues,” “Up the Way Bound,” Frisco Whistle Blues, ” and many more.
For example, in perhaps the most famous and most widely recorded blues of all time, W.C. Handy’s 1914 “St. Louis Blues,” we have the following lyrics in the opening choruses :
I hate to see de evenin’ sun go down (twice)
It makes me think I’m on my last go-round
Feeling tomorrrow like I feel today (twice)
I’ll pack my crib and make my getaway.
Sometimes, as in “Empty Bed Blues,” we have a song filled with puns about the sexual prowess of a lover, as when Bessie Smith sings:
He’s a deep sea diver with a stroke that can’t go wrong (twice)
He can touch the bottom and his breath holds out so long.
Or what about W.C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues” ?
Folks I’ve just been down, down to Memphis Town
That’s where the people smile, smile on you all the while,
Hospitality, they were good to me
I couldn’t spend a dime, and had the grandest time
I went out to dancing with a Tennessee dear
They had a fellow named Handy with a band you should hear
and while the folks generally sway, all the boys begin to play
real harmony.
I never will forget the tune they call Handy’s “Memphis Blues.
Lynne says, When you listen to blues closely, you may be surprised at how often the messages are about resilience and the pursuit of happiness.
What are your favorite blues? What do you hear in them?