The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-01-23
THE NEGRO AND MUSIC.
1t is His Own and There Is Nothing Like I
in Its Originality.

in It's Originality.
From the Louisville Commercial.
There are occasional lamentations
heard over the decline and disappear
ance of the genuine negro melodies
meaning the sort of songs and recita-
tions INDUCED in by the black people
before the war and in the days of sla-
very. But there is probably little
ground for apprehension. What may
be called negro music seems destined
to indefinite existence.
One reason for the belief is the strong
hold on the public taste of what is
called negro minstrelsy. II an imita-
ton can go on prosperously, why should
not the original endure? To begin with,
the black people Of the United States
have a music of their own in the way
of songs of labor, of recreation, of re-
ligion, even. The words amounted to
little, but the airs, which may have
come from Africa, We're simple and
even attractive, so that the white man
took them with his usual genius for
appropriation. There Is a tradition
that the first artist to sing and dance
with blackened face was called from
his performance Jim Crow Rice. He
sang in negro dialect some verses about
the American victory at Plattsburg,
the refrain being:
Turn about and wheel about
And jump jes' so;
Turn about and wheel about
And jump Jim Crow
This is counted the beginning of ne
gro minstrelsy, and was followed by
companies and troupes devoted to the
niger" musical business. one of the
very first of these in America was
Christys Ministries. who appeared
nearly or quite 50 years ago in New
York city. 1t was said that the foun-
der of this company, who figured on the
bills as Edwin +, lhristy, ana who was
the first middleman or interioeutor in
the business, had been superintendent
Of a rope walk i'll New Orleans and had
first been attracted to the idea OF min-
strelsy by hearing the songs of the
black people employed about the walk
The songs of Christy's MINISTRIES were
about the black people, not by them.
such as s0ld Uncle Ned" Lucy Neal"
Dandy Jim of Caroline" Dan Tuck
er," and SO on. Neither the airs nor the
words were of African or even Afro
American composition, Still christy's
Ministries, in the arrangement of the
company on the stage with bones at
one end and tambo on the other end,
sci the style for every minstrel troupe,
amateur or professional, which has APP
peared since their day. For ii long
time all the negro minstrels We're white
men. Later we have had troupes made
UP VI Aol1ito IEbDles anu itItNt the
queer spectacle of a negro initiating d
white man who is initiating a negro
How far the minstrel business has
the genuine and original ne
gro music is question. Sometimes
there is a strong and at other times A
weaker resemblance. At one time the
staples of the minstrel stage We're the
songs Of Foster. which have nothing of
the negro in them.
With the end of the civil war. the
and the appearance of
troupes like the FisSe Jubilee Singers,
came a flood of melodies much more
like the genuine article than had been
more of the African In Roll Jordan,
Roll" than in a house full of Nelly
Blys.''
With this reinforcement it may be
said that the genuine negro music has
wased rather than waned in the United
States. The Ministries, with their
blackened faces, continue to reign with
popularity. while Jordan
rolls on, and sweet chariot continues
TO swing low in as many congregations
as ever.
The negro has a native taste for
music. but it is his own music. lie does
not take to grand opera with any more
interest than his white fellow citizen
He has a music of his own and a voice
Of his own, and with this disposition for
his music goes the habit of beating
time or patting, which as learned and
specimen of his race as Bishop
Turner says. Ii natural, and from
which he himself finds ii impossible to
refrain. THAT" says Bishop Turner,
lis the African in me-
While this much of Africa survives
on this continent. which will be long
time vet. the genuine negro melody
will continue TO be upheld In the
South. where the black population is
gathered in masses. there has been no
change. New words may have come In
to limited extent. but the old song
the old rhythm, the old swaying Of the
body, the beating Of the feet and hands
and may remain to the end of
the world. We talk much Of art and
doubtless art is great but then there Is
nature, whose lessons began SO long
ago. and what nature teaches is burned
In by the sun, nor is II washed away by
the rain, and SO the song. the rising and
falling cadence taught. II may be ages
ago under a palm tree in Africa have