Today and Next Week
- Fri: ✏️ Academic Activity Requirement Due
- Fri & Mon: Spirituals
- Fri & Mon Reading: Sections from Ch. 1
- Wed & Fri Blues
- Wed & Fri Reading: Sections from Ch. 5
About Today's Lecture
Today's interpretation draws primarily from:
- Arthur C. Jones, Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals (1993)
- Sandra Graham, "On the Road to Freedom: The Contracts of the Fisk Jubilee Singers" (2006)
- Lectures of Prof. T. Carlis Roberts, University of Denver
What is a Spiritual?
- A primarily vocal genre of religious music
- Created and first performed by enslaved Black Americans
- A musical record of plantation slavery
- Argument: spirituals constitute an alternative historical record
Defining the Spiritual
"A type of sacred song created by and for African Americans that originated in oral tradition. Although its exact provenance is unknown, spirituals were identifiable as a genre by the early 19th century. After the Civil War and into the 20th century choral, solo, and instrumental arrangements for private and concert performance emerged."
— Graham (2012)
Context: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
- Forced transportation of Black Africans to the Americas — primarily from the central-western Atlantic coast
- 17th–19th centuries
- First enslaved Africans arrived in the U.S. in 1619
- Over 10 million people transported throughout the Americas
Drawing from lectures by T. Carlis Roberts
Slave Coast of West Africa · Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Timeline
- 17th–19th c.Economy built on forced transportation of Black Africans to the Americas
- 1619First enslaved Africans brought to the U.S.
- 1776Declaration of Independence
- 1862Emancipation Proclamation "freed" enslaved people
- 1865Slavery made illegal via the 13th Amendment
Fisk Jubilee Singers (est. 1871)
- Formed to raise funds for Fisk University (HBCU, Nashville, TN)
- Performed for President Grant; toured nationally and internationally
- Racial segregation shaped all aspects of travel: hotels, railcars, venues
- Disbanded 1878; a successor group continued under the same name
Graham, S. 2013. "Jubilee Singers." Grove Music Online.
Fisk Jubilee Singers, Nashville, 1870–80 · Library of Congress (LC-DIG-ppmsca-11008) · No known restrictions
Fisk Jubilee Singers — Repertoire & Legacy
- Spirituals were sacred and sensitive material — not initially performed publicly
- Gradually transformed for a "concert aesthetic"
- Their success spawned rival jubilee troupes, and eventually parodies in minstrel shows
"It was ironic that the singers had to trade on an emblem of their enslaved past in order to pave the way for an autonomous future."
— Graham (2006), p. 22
A New Market Category
- "Jubilee singer" became a recognized performer category — young adult Black performers of spirituals
- The group's success created an entirely new commercial market for this music
🎧 Listen
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
Spotify · Fisk Jubilee Singers
Also in Week 2 playlist: "Nobody Knows the Trouble I See" · "Deep River"
Graham, S. 2013. "Jubilee Singers." Grove Music Online.
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
Swing low, sweet chariot — coming for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot — coming for to carry me home
If you get there before I do […]
Tell all my friends I'm coming too
I'm sometimes up and sometimes down […]
But still my soul feels heavenly bound […]
Swing low, sweet chariot — coming for to carry me home
If you get there before I do […]
Tell all my friends I'm coming too
I'm sometimes up and sometimes down […]
But still my soul feels heavenly bound […]
As you listen, consider: · Performance style · Texture · Form