Category: Nationalism

  • The Sadness of the New World

    In 1893, Dvorak and his family traveled from New York to Chicago by train to visit the World’s Fair. From Chicago, they went to Spillville, Iowa, a farming community of Czech immigrants. While in Spillville, Dvorak met and heard the music of Native Americans for the first time. As his son described it, they were:…

  • The DNA of American Folk Music

    Engraving of Pocahontas (1595-1617). In 2018, in response to pushback against her longtime claims of Native American ancestry (including from President Trump, who refers to her mockingly as “Pocahontas”), Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren had her DNA tested, and made the results public. The test indicated that Warren had a Native American ancestor…

  • Classically Black, part II: The Songs of Black Volk Playlist

    W.E.B. Du Bois (above), who spent several years studying in Germany in the 1890s, greatly admired German classical music, and considered it a repertoire full of freedom and possibility for black performers. He especially loved the operas of Richard Wagner (1813-1883), and in 1936 he made a pilgrimage to Bayreuth, the opera house in Bavaria…

  • Can A White Girl Sing Selena?

    April 16 is a state holiday in Texas: Selena Day. Who was Selena? Selena was, is, and, were I to guess, will remain for eternity the most beloved female of all time in the Latino community. (Second place is the Virgin Mary, if you’re looking for context.) . . . She looked like (a more attractive…

  • Sun Ra, Intergalactic Afrofuturist

    Sun Ra (born Herman Blount in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914) was not only a jazz pioneer. He was also a pioneer of all kinds of avant-garde sounds. In the 1950s, when record companies released 45-rpm discs in the hopes of selling them as hit singles, Ra used the 45-rpm technology to record his musical experiments.…

  • Poem: “Black Boys Play the Classics”

    (Photo: Johannes Brahms, 1833-1897.) Another example of “complicating” the repertoire. Is this poem about cultural appropriation or cross-cultural encounter? Black Boys Play the Classics BY TOI DERRICOTTE The most popular “act” in Penn Station is the three black kids in ratty sneakers & T-shirts playing two violins and a cello—Brahms. White men in business suits…