Brendan Foreman penned this review.
American Pop from Minstrel to Mojo: On Record 1893 to 1957, Allen Lowe’s amazing examination of the origins and nature of American popular music. To accomplish such a daunting task, Lowe sifted through his obviously vast record collection and listed all of the singles that occurred to him as being the most historically significant in terms of style. Starting with an extraordinarily rare 1893 recording, and ending with a 1956 recording of Buddy Holly, Lowe traced the journey that American pop music has taken since its inception. Along the way, he provided some hilarious commentary on modern attitudes on race and musical inspiration, as well as some requisite Lomax bashing.
An excellent book, all in all, which seems to have acquired cult status of late — at least, among my friends, who keep stealing my copy of it. The problem is, one can’t really hear the music by words on a page.
To remedy this situation, Music and Arts of America released this companion 9-CD collection. Containing almost all of the singles described by Lowe in his book (the set ends at 1946), this gargantuan group of CDs (almost 11 hours of music) turns out to be just as important a musical document as Lowe’s original book. Some of these tracks are unbelievably rare; and more importantly, one would be hard pressed to find another document that presents the accomplishments of the American musical culture of the early Twentieth Century as well, as thoroughly, and as enjoyably as this collection.
Like Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, there are no field recordings on this. Each of these tracks is a studio recording. This is an important point to Lowe. American popular music, as we know it, seems to have started with the advent of recordable media. Only then — with access to the controllable, relative neutrality of the studio — was an artist able to set down accurately the exact sound that she or he was striving for. In fact, shockingly enough to those of us living in a world where bland bubblegum pop seems to rule the world of radio, each of these tracks were released as commercial singles — including the shape-note singing on CD 4. Granted this set does span over five decades worth of music, so homogeneity is not really going to be a problem. Yet, it is fascinating to hear the commercial releases during a time when the record companies, not knowing what was going to be popular, released as many different styles of music as they thought might sell.
The importance of this set doesn’t rest solely on the sheer number of important, yet rare, singles chosen from America’s musical past, but also the chance for the listener to experience them chronologically, as the various styles came into existence, developed, transformed into other styles or faded into oblivion. We hear the early forms of Black popular music in vocal groups like The Unique Quartette — here given by a 1893 (!) recording of “Mama’s Black Baby Boy” — and in minstrel groups like Polk Miller and His Old South Quartette — here singing a hilarious song called “Oysters and Wine At 2 A.M.” A most notable track is the anonymous “Cakewalk,” a generic name for the type of dance innovated by slaves of the South, who were simultaneously imitating, and mocking the dances of the White plantation owners.
The minstrel singing and a cappella vocal groups give way to blues, very old-time country, and Tin Pan Alley. The popular big brass bands of the late Nineties and early Aughts, such as The Sousa Band and The New York Military Band, transform their sounds into ragtime and even some very early jazz.
We listen in as the Southern string band sound morphs into bluegrass, and combines with jazz to create Western Swing. From Eck Robertson and Kahle Brewer in the Twenties, to Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith in the mid Thirties, we hear the country fiddlers get slicker, more modern in sound. We also hear the urbanization of Black mainstream music, as the majority of the Black artists slowly abandon many of their rural trappings as jazz, and its cousin swing, capture their imaginations.
Intermingled with all of this, Lowe lets us hear the long, strange journey that jazz itself has taken since its early days as Dixieland and improvised ragtime. We hear the makings of jazz in the Dixieland sound of The Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the heavy orchestra of James Reese Europe of the Aughts and Tens. Later, in the Twenties, the stride piano of James P. Johson and almost free-form ragtime of Jelly Roll Morton let us know that jazz has officially arrived. From there, the luminaries just keep popping up: Louis Armstrong, whom Lowe claims as the “most revolutionary figure in American musical history,” Fletcher Henderson, the man who could have invented swing, Duke Ellington, Bix Biederbecke, Art Tatum, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, among others. Along the way, Lowe examines all the main trends and styles that jazz visited up to 1946, while keeping the more universal quest of finding the source of the American pop sound in perspective.
Throughout all of this, we hear the complex interplay of ideas between the White and Black musicians. Since the early Nineteenth century when the slaves of the South invented the cakewalk, a parody of White music, and White musicians invented the minstrel show, a parody of Black musicians, Black and White American musicians have repeatedly copied off of each other, forming a mutual cross-pollination pattern of Black artists copying the styles of the White artists, who then copy what they hear from the Black artists, the next generation of whom then imitate thoseWhite artists, etc. To Lowe, this interaction is the key element in the history of American music: the drive that has ever given American music its energy, and the catalyst for what makes American music sound so American. It has also served as an ever-present resource for new material for both the White and Black musicians. Although most of this musical intrabreeding seems to have occurred in the early to mid-Nineteenth centuries, there is ample evidence on this collection that Allen Lowe’s ideas on this are quite sound.
For the interested student of American music or even the armchair historian, this set of rare, yet quite listenable, singles is absolutely essential. By compiling such numerous tracks by artists who are getting increasingly hard to find in this day of CDs and made them available to the general public, Allen Lowe has easily created a musical document with the value and importance of Harry Smith’s seminal collection.
Be sure to visit the Web site of Music and Arts of America for a special price on this collection.
(Music and Arts of America, 1998)
