page_title: Creole music
section_title: Gottschalk
hierarchical_section_title: Creole music / Gottschalk
caption_attribution_description: English: Louis Moreau Gottschalk pictured on an 1864 Publication of The Dying Poet for piano
context_page_description: The term Creole music is used to describe both the early folk or roots music traditions of rural Creoles of Louisiana.
context_section_description: At the time of Louis Moreau Gottschalk's birth in 1829, 'Caribbean' was perhaps the best word to describe the musical atmosphere of New Orleans. Although the inspiration for Gottschalk's compositions, such as "Bamboula" and "The Banjo," has often been attributed to childhood visits to Congo Square, no documentation exists for any such visits, and it is more likely that he learned the Creole melodies and rhythms that inform these pieces from Sally, his family's enslaved nurse from Saint-Domingue, who Gottschalk referred to as "La Négresse Congo." Whether Gottschalk actually attended the Congo Square dances, his music is certainly emblematic of the crossroads that formed there. 
  Born in New Orleans and reared in the culture of Saint-Domingue, he toured throughout the Caribbean and was particularly acclaimed in Cuba. Gottschalk was closely associated with the Cuban pianist and composer, Manuel Saumell Robredo, a master of the contradanza, widely popular dance compositions based on the African-derived habanera rhythm. It is likely that contradanzas composed by both Gottschalk and Saumell were an antecedent to the ragtime compositions of Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton.
  Perone's bio-bibliography lists hundreds of Gottschalk's compositions. Among them are three solo piano works based on Creole melodies:
  Bamboula, danse des nègres, based on "Musieu Bainjo" and "Tan Patate-là Tcuite" ("Quan' patate la cuite").
  La Savane, ballad crèole, based on "Lolotte", also known as "Pov'piti Lolotte".
  Le Bananier, chanson nègre, based on "En avan', Grenadie'", which like other Creole folk melodies, was also a popular French song.
  In America's Music (revised third edition, page 290), Chase writes:
  Le Bananier was one of the three pieces based on Creole tunes that had a tremendous success in Europe and that I have called the "Louisiana Trilogy." [The other two are Bamboula and La Savane.] All three were composed between 1844 and 1846, when Gottschalk was still a teenager ... The piece that created the greatest sensation was Bamboula.
  Chase apparently overlooked a fourth Creole melody used by Gottschalk on his Op. 11 (Three other melodies had already been identified for this piece). In her 1902 compilation, Gottschalk's sister arranged "Po' Pitie Mamzé Zizi", and included a footnote: "L. M. Gottschalk used this melody for his piece entitled Le Mancenillier, sérénade, Op. 11."
  Regarding "Misieu Bainjo", used in Gottschalk's Bamboula, the editors of Slave Songs write "... the attempt of some enterprising negro to write a French song; he is certainly to be congratulated on his success."  The song has been published in more than a dozen collections prior to 1963, listed by the Archive of Folk Culture, Library of Congress.
caption: Louis Moreau Gottschalk pictured on an 1864 publication
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