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(
[sid] => 161114
[catid] => 1
[aid] => mick
[title] => JASS BECAME JAZZ TO ELEVATE OUR SOUL !
[time] => 2010-07-13 09:58:09
[hometext] => FRIENDS , I had published this poem in 'poemhunter' and other sites ! Hope all Jazz lovers will like this informative read !
[bodytext] => JASS BECAME JAZZ TO ELEVATE OUR SOUL ! INTRODUCTION My love for this music flows in my veins , And from writing about it myself I could hardly restrain ! The Atlantic Slave Trade : The story begins some four hundred years ago in History , Drenched in the blood and sweat of the black slaves which was no mystery ; Painting a sorrowful background to our Jazz Story ! It was a time when the English , Spanish , French , Portuguese , and the Dutch became frantic , - To gain control of the slave trade across the vast Atlantic ! Slave trade those days was a profitable business proposition ! The funds generated had also financed Britain’s Industrial Revolution ! In 1619 , a Dutch sailing ship had carried the first lot of fifty slaves from West Africa , - To work in the cotton , tobacco and sugarcane plantations of English colony of Virginia ! Only twenty slaves had survived that hazardous Atlantic journey ; And here my friends , lies the roots of my Jazz Story ! While it is true that in New Orleans - Jazz got cradled and nourished ; But it had taken birth in the regions of Western Africa , - Where slave trade had once flourished ! Later , many more slaves were transported across , - To work in the plantations of the Southern States of America ,* And in their hearts one could hear the tom–tom and drum beats of native Africa !** Hollers and Work Songs : The slaves brought no musical instruments with them , And worked under the whip lash of their white Overseers - in chains ! But they had clung to their music which fed their hope and the will to survive ! And from the depth of their sorrow and suffering , - Sprung the rhythm and beat of their life ! While at work they were forbidden to talk to each other , So they sang in a rich sing-song voice , and called out to one another ! This was not understood by their whip-wielding Overseers ! They also called out and communicated to other work gangs in the distant fields , Who also replied back in a similar fashion , - To make their communication network complete ! The ‘hollers’ and ‘work songs’ also did help , To lighten the burden of their treacherous fate ! This ‘call and response’ later formed one of Jazz music’s basic elements ! As ‘improvised music’ got composed with jazz providing a proper vent ! From their tormented soul they sang to wipe away their blues , Giving birth to ‘blue notes’ later , for WC Handy to pay his handsome tribute ! The slaves longed for freedom and emancipation , And sang their ‘spirituals’ with faith and devotion ! While singing they often got into a trance , And felt like the Israelites in bondage in Egypt , - ordained by fate and chance ! The Mississippi was like the River Jordan , across which they hoped to see , - A band of Angels coming in their chariots to set them free , @ From their suffering , drudgery and captivity ! Thus ‘improvisation’ becomes a vital ingredient of Jazz music ; $ For ‘freedom of expression’ is its distinguishing feature , - which Jazz forever seeks ! Thus friends , ‘Jazz’ had come in chains buried deep inside the black man’s soul ! With a longing for freedom from torture and pain , - Which was totally beyond their control ! The tom-tom beats , work songs , spirituals and the blues , - Were all precursor to Jazz , - and here let me pause , - to pay my homage and dues ; To those valiant predecessors who had come in chains , Giving a painful birth to ‘jass’, - from which Jazz gets its name ! # -Raj Nandy New Delhi Foot Notes :- *Slaves sold at 15 dollars per head !Early 1700s saw 75,000 slaves auctioned! By1800s there were one million slaves in US alone ! Slaves came from Senegal, Ashantis, Gold Coast, Niger Delta, Dahomey & the Congo; with a variety of beats and music – buried in their hearts ! **The Drums were an essential form of communication in Africa ! They believed their Gods communicated through their beats ! Those drums provided the basic beats of Jazz Music ! +Blue music= a part of cultural landscape of Southern US by early 1900s ; remained unnoticed till W.C.Handy published his song –‘Memphis Blues’ in1914 ! @Reference famous Negro spiritual song -‘Swing low sweet chariot’ ! I use to sing in my Missionary School in Calcutta ! Slaves had sung them in plantation ‘praise houses’ ! # ‘Jass’ – originally an Africa-American slang meaning sex ! Born in the brothels of Storyville(New Orleans), & Jasmine perfumes used by the girls ! One visiting them , were said to be 'jassed-up' ! Mischievous boys rubbed out letter ‘J’ from posters announcing -"Live Jass Shows'' , making it look like ‘'Live Ass Show'’ ! So ‘ss’ of ‘jass’ got replaced by 'zz' of Jazz ! $ “Improvisation”= is the process of spontaneously creation of fresh melodies over the continuously repeating cycle of chord changes of a tune, which distinguishes Jazz from all other musical forms - raising it to its own great Individualistic Heights ! THANKS ! ……… ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY RAJ NANDY.--- RAJNANDY, PLEASE: To help keep this site INTERACTIVE, please read and comment on at least 3 poems for each one you submit. We especially request this if you are going to post this many poems in less than 24 hours. Please also note not to comment on your own work. Your comment on GOD - THE GREATEST MODERATOR ! has been removed and put in the author's note. Thank you. Number of poems per author per 24 hours are limited depending on membership level and interactivity. [comments] => 2 [counter] => 246 [topic] => 54 [informant] => RAJNANDY [notes] => [ihome] => 0 [alanguage] => english [acomm] => 0 [haspoll] => 0 [pollID] => 0 [score] => 5 [ratings] => 1 [editpoem] => 1 [associated] => [topicname] => happypoetry )
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