Author: Ryder, Georgia

Publication Year: 1981

Media Type: Report

Summary:

During the consciousness-raising activities of the 1960s, this writer shared with many academic colleagues the wry observation that music which had permeated and in identifiable ways transformed the vernacular culture of America throughout much of the twentieth century was suddenly being discovered and legitimized.

Abstract:

During the consciousness-raising activities of the 1960s, this writer shared with many academic colleagues the wry observation that music which had permeated and in identifiable ways transformed the vernacular culture of America throughout much of the twentieth century was suddenly being discovered and legitimized.

This era, which propelled the civil rights movement of Black Americans into a global spotlight, brought into focus the profound sociological, economic and political concerns of America's largest ethnic minority. Simultaneously, it clarified the realization that the music of this minority is inextricable from its history. For musicians in academe, the heightened perceptions helped revive a longtime controversy over the merits and sources of African-American music. For some Black academicians particularly, a kind of psychic split was generated by a divergence of their ethnic awareness and their training in the formal Western tradition. Yet, growing convictions were produced that African-American folk music is pervasive in our national culture: that jazz, an African-American creation, is a living art and that Black composers in America will be heard.
(p. 39-47)

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Community Development