African Diaspora II: Afro-Caribbean Carnival in Trinidad and Brooklyn
Weeks 5:
-Afro-Caribbean music/dance/costuming traditions in 19th century Trinidad.
-The Caribbean diaspora and the emergence of modern Carnival in Harlem and Brooklyn.
-Carnival, resistance, and cultural identity.
9/24 Ray Allen & Lois Wilcken (1998), Island Sounds in the Global City, Introduction: “Island Sounds in the Global City,” 1-6.
How do Carribbean-New Yorkers use their musical traditions to express a group identity?How do they mediate intergroup tensions in the modern, multicultural urban setting?
“West Indian Day Parade Celebration A Hit Online”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TE1quE8Sfg
A very brief history of colonization and decolonization of the Carribbean
Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
National Origins Formula 1921-1965
Immigration Act of 1917
Immigration Act of 1924
1965 Immigration Act (Hart-Cellar Act)
Immigration Act of 1990
***
Joseph Nathan “King” Oliver (b.1881Aben, Louisiana, d. 1938 Bronx, NY)
Paul Samuel Whiteman (b.1890 Denver, CO, d.1967 Pennsylvania)
Justo Ángel Azpiazú (b. 1893 Cienfuegos, d. 1943 Havana)
https://youtu.be/sj7NfrrnaKE
Frederick Wilmoth Hendricks (b. 1895 in Port of Spain, Trinidad d. 1973 in New York, NY)
Alberto Socarrás Estacio, (b. 1908 Manzanillo, d. 1987 New York, NY)
https://youtu.be/uToMloaQATg
Justo Ángel Azpiazú (b. 1893 Cienfuegos, d. 1943 Havana)
Mario Bauzá (April 28, 1911 – July 11, 1993)
Lord Invader (Rupert Westmore Grant) b. 1914 Fernando, Trinidad, d. 1961 Brooklyn
10/1 Donald Hill (1998), “I am Happy Just to Be in This Sweet Land of Liberty”: The New York City Calypso Craze of the 1930s and 1940s, 74-91.
How did Trinidadian calypso become so popular with North Americans?
Scope: NYC 1935-1947, or the initial “calypso craze” that preceded the third wave of West Indian migration in the late 1960s.
Image: Melton Prior, Carnival in Port of Spain Trinidad, 1888, Illustrated London News.
A brief history of Carnival: https://retrospectjournal.com/2018/11/11/the-origins-and-evolution-of-carnival-in-trinidad-and-tobago-2/
“Early Recordings of Calypso for the West Indian Market”
An example: George Bailey, a.k.a. “Lovey,” 1912
“The Greenwich Village Scene”
The manager of Village Vanguard in 1940 recounts the summer of 1939 when he hired Trinidadian singers after hearing a record that one of his customers had accidentally left at the club: “The music was unusual and the ballad, based on the romance of King Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson, was delightfully satirical, I thought. It would be something new in night club entertainment. With this in mind I got in touch with these players and immediately signed them for the Vanguard. They worked here for ten weeks, during which time my business more than doubled. Enthusiasts who had heard their records flocked to hear them in person.” New York Sun, April 5, 1940. pp. 79
The Caresser accompanied by Gerald Clark and his Caribbean Serenaders:
The Andrew Sisters’s recording of “Rum and Coca-Cola” sold four million copies in 1946.
The lyrics to Lord Invader’s song “New York Subway” gives voice to the racism West Indians encountered in NYC:
looking for someone to help me through.
You talk about people as bad as crab,
is the drivers who driving the taxicab.
Some passing you empty and yet they wouldn’t stop,
some will say they have no gas or they can’t make the drop.
I had money yet I had to roam,
but still I couldn’t get a cab to drop me back home.
I console myself and started to walk,
I said that happen to persons who born in New York.
So I decided to leave the girls alone,
if they want to see me they must come to my home.
Because New York is so big it take a year and a day,
for anyone to get accustom to the subway.
I had money yet I had to roam,
and still I couldn’t get a cab to drop me back home.”
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
