Re: West Afrikan Akonting lute musik Old Time Herald web site

Ulf certainly it is  as inaccurate to deny significant Griot influence as it
is to say no other African musical agencys influenced the music of the
slaves but the Griots.
There are no reliable statistics on the percentage of Griots who were
transported. And taking your point about the absence of power structures in
the new world, then those griots  who were transported could have
disseminated  their music and instruments  to their peers irrespective if
the latter were not in a griot genealogical line of succession since all
such genealogical familial structures would have been broken up anyway.

So I agree no exclusive influence of griot but  I think you take this griot
issue too literally, non griots could have preserved and transmitted griot
traditions  if they had been exposed to griot performance, We have a
parallel  example with the bards and harpers of 16th century Ireland, who
were exiled, killed and banned by the Cromwellian forces as part of the
destruction of the  Gaelic aristocratic clan order who were the patrons of
the bards and harpers. There is no question that the fragmented survivors of
this repression fled for sanctuary to the peasentry in the remote parts of
the west of Ireland and then disseminated their musical traditions among
this population, traditions that were once exclusively reserved for clan
nobility. Thus historians are not surprised that the late 17th century and
18 th century witnessed an explosion in rural Irish music composition,
dancing, and instrument innovation. The instrumental innovation is
particularly of interest to the hybridization process happening to banjo
proto-types in roughly the same period in the new world. In Ireland between
the 17th and 18th century new instruments based on European court culture,
the violin, the transverse flute and the musette were Celtized by the Irish
farmers and the descendents of the bardic and harping tradition ( travelling
musicians and dancing master/musicians) who adapted these instruments to
indigenous Irish music.

"...have been accused that the Jola Akonting music we have found has been
influenced by modern Western music. But the same people then accept the..."

I think you may be citing me but here you miss my point. No contemporary
African music forms currently being practiced griot or not can escape the
influence of colonial and post-colonial cultural influences, so  as I
pointed out to you, banjos based on the American design were circulating in
English colonial Africa as early as the late 19th century.  American
Minstrel shows toured what is now South Africa, throughout the last third of
the 19th century. The Fisk Jubilee singers who toured South Africa in the
late 19h century influenced current Zulu choral style singing.  In what is
now Zimbawe  vocal dance music was influenced by the records of Jimmy
Rodger's yodeling. The point of this is that you cannot use
ethnomusicological evidence from present day Africa as if it was  unmediated
expression of 17th century Africa whether one is talking about the Griots or
others. Tradition are both perserved and are altered in significant fashion
over three hundred years of colonial intrusion.

On Friday, November 28, 2003, at 02:08 PM, Ulf Jägfors wrote:

Lyle
Thanks
I appreciate that you like the article and the sound clip.

I will come back with a more scientific report in a another magazine next
year. The most important thing is to get rid of the general believe  that it
was the Griots who were the main carrier of the Afro-American music to the
New World. They were  according to what I have found so far, not so at all.
Different folk lute instruments and the folk tradition in different ethnic
groups had a much more important impact on the common music life in the New
World than the very few bards, Griots, that by accident could have been
brought over from Africa.

Another side of the coin is that  some Africans in the New World took up
part of the Griot traditions. Things like that is something that always
happened when there is an sudden empty field old traditional power
structures. The main problem for me is to get rid of this misconception that
had been cemented over the last fifty years of  historical music writings.
Everyday of work with this topic have given me more and more proof that the
banjo history written by Michael Coolen and others are not based on correct
facts. Sam Charters has been my guest in my hose this fall and admits that
he perhaps took a hasten wrong standpoint in his book Roots of the Blues
about the Griot music as the forefather of the banjo music. Time will give
me right in this matter

I have been accused that the Jola Akonting music we have found has been
influenced by modern Western music. But the same people then accept the
Griot music as genuine African folk music and roots of the Banjo music when
we now that the Griots took up Western influenced music as early as in the
1920s i.e. when they made the six string guitar a Griot instrument.
Most musicologist both on the white and black side don´t care, but they
should, as this concerns all contemporary music of the last 150 years in the
western world.

Akontings supplied by me can now be seen in all temporary banjo exhibitions
in Kentucky, Katonah N.Y, Stone brook of Long Island and in MIM, Brussels.







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