|
From Africa to the New World ♦ The New World Banjo ♦ African Ancestors ♦ Lute Family ♦ Related Topics ♦ Please note: This site is currently under construction. For the latest in modern banjo roots research, please visit: http://www.myspace.com/banjoroots
|
|
|
"This instrument is the invention of, and
was brought here by the African Negroes...."
The story of the banjo begins in the late 17th century. From this period, we have the earliest reports of enslaved Africans making and playing plucked lutes in the West Indies. On through the early 19th century, European observers noted in their journals and travelogues that these instruments were distinguished by having drum-like gourd bodies topped with taut skin heads and fretless necks, typically with three or four strings. To the first chroniclers, these antecedents of the banjos we know today were strange and exotic, so unlike the contemporaneous Western European musical instruments they were familiar with. Most agreed that the source for these unusual instruments, unique to the African survivors of the horrific Middle Passage and their descendants, could only be one area of the world: AFRICA! Yet, the banjo is not an African instrument. It is a plucked lute of the African Diaspora in the New World, descended from and based on traditional African plucked lutes. As the historical record tells us, the banjo was invented and developed by enslaved Africans and Creoles (people of African descent born in the Americas) in the Caribbean sometime in the 17th century. While the banjo's African ancestry is clearly evident, it's a New World hybrid formed in the musical and cultural crucible of the African Diaspora. Like all other elements of African Diasporic music and culture, the banjo is the product of creolization, an evolutionary synthesis that fuses together African and European admixtures, concepts and elements. This evolutionary process came to a head in 19th century America when European American musicians and instrument makers picked up the instrument and developed it further to create the 5-string banjo. By the 1850s, the 5-string banjo had crossed the Atlantic to become a major pop sensation in the British Isles and Europe. The 1880s on through the 1920s marked the 5-string banjo's "Golden Age" as a popular world-class instrument. With the advent of the Jazz Age in the Roaring Twenties, the 5-string gave way to other forms of the banjo: the 4-string tenor banjo and plectrum banjo and banjo hybrids-- the banjo-guitar, banjo-mandolin, and banjo-ukulele. Even still, the 5-string banjo continued on, both in folk tradition and the classic banjo tradition. The late 1950s and early '60s marked the return of the 5-string banjo to the world pop stage, thanks to the emergence of the Folk Revival and the popularization of American bluegrass and country music on an international scale. The banjo, in all its many different forms, is now enjoying a resurgence of popularity around the globe. Today, banjo family instruments are found throughout the world in an incredible diversity of music forms. In addition to the American styles they're most associated with-- bluegrass, country, folk, traditional jazz, early blues, etc.-- banjos can be heard across the spectrum of world music: from the mento of Jamaica and the scratch band music of St. Croix to the chaabi (folk pop music) of North Africa , the traditional music of Ireland, and the hiva kakala ("fragrant songs") of Tonga (Polynesia). Likewise, you can hear banjos playing nearly everything: modern jazz, classical, indie rock, folk punk... the list goes on and on. On Banjoroots.com, we will explore the New World banjo from the earliest forms of the gourd banjo on through the emergence of its offspring and successor, the 5-string banjo. We will trace its roots back to West Africa-- the main region of sub-Sahara Africa for indigenous plucked lute family instruments-- and examine the many and varied lute traditions found there that were most likely the progenitors of the New World banjo. Likewise, we'll look at related string instrument traditions throughout sub-Sahara Africa and the adjacent islands in the Indian Ocean, as well as those of North Africa and the Middle/Near East. Here we'll also examine the European admixtures that contributed to the evolution of the New World banjo-- especially, Portuguese and Spanish lute family instruments. In addition, we'll look at the origins and history of the lute family of string instruments-- both plucked and bowed (fiddles)- and various lute family instruments around the world. We hope you enjoy your visit to Banjoroots.com. Please feel free to drop us a line at info@banjoroots.com with any questions or comments you may have.Next: The Early Gourd Banjo
|
|
♦ Home ♦ Introduction ♦ Sources ♦ Links ♦ Contact ♦ Please send
mail to
info@banjoroots.com with questions or comments about this web site.
|
