Being and Music

  I once heard acclaimed Afri-US historian Sterling Stuckey discussing the African/Black presence in the novel Moby Dick or The Whale by way of Herman Melville's time spent in upstate NY in the first half of the 19th century and by way as Toni Morrison has pointed out the essay Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, through the marginal references to race. In his discussion, Stucky discusses how the Black cabin boy aboard the Pequod, Pip, plays music described as "gloomy jolly".  It is this characterization which opens up a way to think about African based music in the diaspora. No correction, not so much the music but more so the spirit or ethos within the music. It is difficult and in our contemporary approach, practically racist, to talk about general characteristics or traits among various racial or ethnic groups. Yet can one talk about attitudes or fairly general approaches to large issues such as the nature of life and living, that could be said to be common among cultural groups? Similar to the way one could describe a spiritual or philosophical viewpoint, can we talk about music having a specific theoretical perspective or character? Even further can we suggest that the music itself becomes an embodiment of a theoretical or philosophical attitude? If so, than perhaps we could see the ways in which these cultural perspectives pervade cultural media. Can we say that among African based populations there are cultural forms that maintain ambivalent elements that reflect or make comment about the nature of existence itself. Cutting to the chase, do Black people's inner lives live through their music?
  Going back to Melville's term "gloomy jolly" it matters that the term carries such a paradoxical meaning. I am not certain about the importance of the source of the term, whether it be Melville's way of describing the music played by the character, Pip, or a term used among sailors to describe a type of music and a  interesting as it would be to know, whether this is a term that comes from the African based community of the time. Regardless what is central to these musings is the ambivalence that lies at the heart of the term. The words gloomy and jolly are complete opposites of each other. The terms describe emotional states that are incompatible, wherein both describe almost absolute states of emotion. Unlike terms or emotional states such wry, sardonic, bemused, which suggest a limit or a mixture of negative and positive feelings, one limiting the fuller expression of the other, "gloomy jolly" articulates a disengagement from a full commitment to either emotion. Neither side of the term gloomy nor jolly  can establish itself as the dominant feeling or the the primary ground in which the music is based.
  Ambivalence may be the way to think about the term, or rather the music that the term describes. Ambivalence suggests not just a considerable divestment in either emotional state, but possibly recommends the existence of a state removed from these options. The sensibility is one that weaves awareness and recognition of emotional states, with apathy toward feeling a set way about said states. I say this because it is my thought that the music is indeed responding to something. In Melville's novel Pip plays the "gloomy jolly" strands on his tambourine on that "dramatic midnight". As instrumental music, the tambourine lets the circumstances create the context that the tambourine then responds to or by which it is understood. Lyric based musical forms, of course, are able to ore explicitly establish their meaning. Point being, their is a context in which the music is played to which it responds, comments on, or even, interrogates. Through this interlocution we are able to understand the nature, personality and character of the music and its producers.

The Afri-US form, "The Blues" are seen as the paradigmatic example of the emotionally ambivalent style in Black music.  Noted for its focus on the more morbid and negative aspects of human experience the music itself serves a very social function. One would assume that singing about despair (above), death, murder, heartbreak and disappointment would lead to a solitary life yet the Blues and the institutions it supports leads to an extreme sense of joyous community. Notable is in the face of dire experiences, the understanding of the resilience gained in community. Is it the comfort of shared gloom? Is it the presence of others that distracts us from our hurt? Or is it that loud ass, shit talking mother fucker, laughin' in the corner that cracks you up and gives your soul a chance to breathe again? Whatever the cause, the point is the experience of the balance between  the most personal pains in the circumstance of the most public venue.

Assuming a thread from Melville's Pip to Big Jack Johnson and all arterial (musical) tracks in between, allows for the recognition of an attitude, a disposition toward being alive expressed in the music. In the broadest sense this willingness to engage, recognize and acknowledge the misery of existence but without surrendering to it  and in fact confronting it with a healthy amount of disregard (insouciance even), argues a remarkable cultural and spiritual courageousness. Albert Murray calls it "heroism". I call it "funnin' the Devil". I will not adopt Murray's description though I understand and appreciate his articulation of this impulse, but "funnin' the Devil" is more appropriate for this discussion because laughter and pleasure (funnin') are central to the disposition that disregards surrendering to the dark. It is more than disregard it is almost a mockery of the possibility of being absorbed into damning emotions.

  Arguably, knowing the dark is so close gives the insouciance a certain edge, heroism is not quite the pose, the heroic is confrontational, implying a certain self seriousness. Funnin's power lies in the ability to take neither the dread emotional state or the emotional subject, seriously. It is a striking sensibility that listens for its own goofy laugh echoing across the precipice of despair.

   This pose, is certainly a survival strategy, developed against the danger in investing in one's self destruction as well, it is a wink and a nod to the randomness of existing, one must not expect too much from "order" nor be overly committed to it either. Moments of disregard are like escape hatches in a demented fun house, one must always know when it is time to escape, once the ride gets too heavy. All of this living in the shadow of one's own darkness or in the midst of horror beyond your control, is messy business and if tools of negotiation can not be developed than cancel Christmas! In particular strains of music in Black life, the courage to continue on and to do it with self awareness and control are manifested through the craft of the creator. Banging beats, nasty grooves and brassy insinuation all function with an attitude of "I'm gon do my thang!" which is a call to arms against the peoples, institutions, forces and notions that eat souls on the regular. At the heart of every revolution is the idea of doing one's own thang and the first step toward freedom is a step away from oppression. The key to the kingdom of understanding how Black people have survived so long in spite of all the things we could mention, have managed to hold on to some idea of themselves is the understanding of freedom, pleasure, and joy that emerge from and transcend morbidity, are moments of self command that momentarily disrupt and sever, ties that can bind us to feelings beyond our control.