Cross the Water Blues

Cross the Water Blues: African America Music in Europe
Edited by Neil A. Wynn
University of Mississippi Press

From the late Nineteenth Century European tours of the Fisk Jubilee Singers to the 1960’s British Blues Revival tours, African American musicians have often found receptive audiences across the Atlantic. In response to the centennial celebration of W.C. Handy’s first blues publication, particularly Mike Figgis’s examination of the British Blues tradition for Martin Scorsese’s PBS special, an academic conference examining the phenomenon of African American music in Europe was organized by the University of Gloucestershire and the European Blues Association. Many of the resulting papers have now been revised, collected, and published in Cross the Water Blues.

As is to be expected in anthologies, not every contribution offers the same level of insight. However, there are several valuable papers which challenge the notion of an entirely enlightened European embrace of the music. Both Iris Schmeisser writing on Josephine Baker in France and Catherine Parsonage discussing jazz in England identify a similar dichotomy. The French and English were attracted to this music both as an expression of urban modernism and to satisfy an exotic fetish for the music’s perceived primitive African roots. Parsonage writes: “Jazz encapsulates musically the metaphor of the ‘urban jungle,’ as its modernity was expressed through its perceived ‘primitive’ rhythmic qualities.” (p. 92)

One of the more valuable pieces comes from Rainer E. Lotz, whose “Black Music Prior to the First World War,” performs some impressive musical archeology, tracking down details on now obscure musicians who were able to carve out impressive careers on the Continent. Citing many archaic cylinder recordings, Lotz concludes: “African American musicians were among the pioneers of recorded music not only in the United States, but also in Europe.” (p. 81)

Probably the weakest selection was Sean Creighton’s hero-worshipping love letter to Paul Robeson. Glossing Robeson’s loyalty to a Stalinist Soviet Union, Creighton is frankly deceptive when he describes Robeson’s ideology as: “a non-violent crusade for freedom.” (p. 139) As the Hoover Institution's Arnold Beichman catalogues in the Washington Times (article reprinted within comment 47), Robeson sided with the Soviet invaders over the Hungarian people in 1956, defended the Hitler-Stalin Pact, and endorsed the show trials of the Great Terror. Regardless of what you think of Robeson’s ideology, non-violent hardly seems an apt description.

Excepting Creighton’s dubious contribution, Cross the Water is a largely informative volume. As well-mined as the British blues-rock movement might be, Rupert Till finds fresh insight, particularly in his examination of the blues roots of (and litigation against) Led Zeppelin. Many contributors, like Lotz display a laudable enthusiasm for their subjects, while remaining instructive in their papers. Although it is all too easy to believe some of the collected pieces began life at an academic conference, there is much here for music scholars to absorb and debate.

Robeson’s Drama

For this week at least, the BBC’s favorite Stalinist is Paul Robeson. BBC4 broadcasted Paul and Yolande, a radio play dramatizing the affair between Robeson and uppercrust Brit Yolande Jackson (available here until next Tue.) written by Linda Grant. Actually, Grant’s accompanying article, in the Guardian no less, is actually reasonably nuanced when discussing Robeson’s politics. Grant writes she was more interested in Jackson, conceding Robeson’s flaws, like:

“the terrible errors of political judgment he made, like so many western intellectuals who covered their eyes and bit their tongues when the truth of Stalin’s torture state was there to be seen.”

In her radio play, Robeson comes off as a stentorian figure, making pronouncements on dignity and respect as if he were always speaking at a political rally. Jackson sounds like an actress auditioning for a dinner theater production of Love Letters. Listening to the radio play, it is difficult to understand how they could have had a fifteen minute conversation, let alone come close to marriage.

The play largely skirts the political issues of Robeson’s life, although around the forty-two minute mark, Jackson wonders if she might have “turned him away from the Communist path,” had their relationship worked out differently. Robeson became a willing mouthpiece for the Stalin regime, hewing loyally to the party line. When Soviet forces crushed the Hungarian Revolution, Robeson parroted Moscow, blaming America:

“Of Course, it was not a true uprising of the people. It was inspired by America and other agents.”

Undoubtedly, Robeson’s life has great dramatic potential. How someone with the strength and pride of Robeson could voluntarily cede his political opinions and independence to the Communist Party, calling for the tanks to roll into Hungary, is an intriguing question. As drama though, Paul and Yolande is pretty flat. Read the article instead.