African musical traits in African American music

[RitmoBoricua]

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/19.html

[davidpenalosa]

RitmoBoricua,
That video clip demonstrates a couple of things:

• Afro-Cuban music and instruments were the conduit through which African American music has been continually "Re-Africanized."

• Despite Art Blakey's attraction to African and Afro-Cuban music elements (and instruments: claves, maracas, cowbell), I have seen no evidence that he absorbed them to any degree. Notice that Wayne Shorter is playing 3-2 clave in a 2-3 song ("NIght in Tunisia").

One could say that those two points are contradictory, and I would agree. History is not always a straight line.

Thanks for posting.
-David

[RitmoBoricua]

David,

I have a couple of Art's recordings attempt to play "afro-cuban" and
is the same deal. My intention of posting the link was as you mentioned
to illustrate an attempt to bring (re-africanize) jazz even closer to it's roots.
Luckily Machito and others were way more succesful than Art at this endeavor.

Here is a better example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-56Jerz ... re=related

[davidpenalosa]

Trane's version of "Afro-Blue" illustrates an interesting point in the evolution of jazz. Trane inverted the African 3:2 cross-rhythm. The duple beats (2) are primary and the triple beats (3) are secondary. But Elvin Jones plays the tune as a jazz waltz (3/4 instead of 6/8), occasionally. superimposing dulple beats as cross-beats (2:3). I was a fan of Trane's version for years before I finally heard Mongo's original version. I now prefer Mongo's simpler version using pentatonic blues, rather than Trane's version with its extra chords. This is just my personal taste of course.

[RitmoBoricua]

Trane's version of "Afro-Blue" illustrates an interesting point in the evolution of jazz. Trane inverted the African 3:2 cross-rhythm. The duple beats (2) are primary and the triple beats (3) are secondary. But Elvin Jones plays the tune as a jazz waltz (3/4 instead of 6/8), occasionally. superimposing dulple beats as cross-beats (2:3). I was a fan of Trane's version for years before I finally heard Mongo's original version. I now prefer Mongo's simpler version using pentatonic blues, rather than Trane's version with its extra chords. This is just my personal taste of course.

I always learned something from your post. My take is that some Jazz player did not have the deep knowledge of clave
intricacies, I do not think they were too concern with the clave. No doubt that Mongo plays the definitve versions of "Afro-Blue".

[blavonski]

RitmoBoricua,
That video clip demonstrates a couple of things:

• Afro-Cuban music and instruments were the conduit through which African American music has been continually "Re-Africanized."

• Despite Art Blakey's attraction to African and Afro-Cuban music elements (and instruments: claves, maracas, cowbell), I have seen no evidence that he absorbed them to any degree. Notice that Wayne Shorter is playing 3-2 clave in a 2-3 song ("NIght in Tunisia").

One could say that those two points are contradictory, and I would agree. History is not always a straight line.

Thanks for posting.
-David

Hello David,
I've read, appreciated and have agreed with most of what you have posted on the subject of Jazz/African instruments,Cubanmusic etc.

However, with the above statement, "Despite Art Blakey's attraction to African and Afro-Cuban music elements (and instruments: claves, maracas, cowbell), I have seen no evidence that he absorbed them to any degree." I find it neccessary to disagree with your analyses. For, not only did Blakey further absorb african elements in his playing as a result of his travels to Africa to play with drummers there, he demonstrated it in almost everything that he played even before going there. After all, the rhythmic qualities/elements of Jazz are african in origin, and therefore, it is historically and overwhelmingly displayed in its varying implamentations of the 3 0ver 2 rhythmic pattern that largely characterizes Sub Saharan African Rhythms that were brought to the new world, and, specifically regarding Jazz, were subsequently imployed by african americans and introduced to the european military march cadence.
So, If what Blakey and the 3 Joneses Elvin, Philly Joe and Papa Joe and Kenny Clarke, Max Roach and Franky Donlop or Ed Blackwell as a few examples from the past were doing wasn't the result of furthering of their absorbtion, retention and expression of African rhythmic language as it was forced to adjust itself to Euro- American musical, song and dance environment in America, then please tell me what they were doing? The 3 over 2 rhythmic pattern certainly didn't exist in european music be it March or otherwise.

Also, your staement: "Afro-Cuban music and instruments were the conduit through which African American music has been continually "Re-Africanized." is a pretty broadly stroaked don't you think? The only form of African american music that has been effectivley and, if you will, continually "re-africanized" through Afro-Cuban music is Jazz.
The Blues
Gospel
R&B
Rap don't, to my knowledge, bear any glaring examples of what you contend here. Moreover, Afro-Cuban music has borrowed extensively from the African American musical reservoir over the past, well 80 years or more for inspiration, and that musical cross polination between the two cultures is a natural one. All the important innovations in Jazz have been Rhythmic innovations and it is no coincidence that they have all been by african american musicians. Cross rhythms, playing agianst the beat, above and beyound the melody, off pitched tones,(to western musically trained ears) are at the heart of, in particular west african, (where the bulk of slaves came from)music. And one of the most prominent innovative elements that distinguished Bebop from Big band Swing, besides the harmonic substitutions and contrafacts was rhythmic, the divisions of the beat as well as where to accent and or begin and end a phrase... basically how that 3 over 2 pattern was redefined/divided in a measure of four beats, as well odd numbers of measures in a solo; and it was an african american rhythmic conception, not an afro-cuban one.

And pertaining the discussion that this thread mostly concerned itself with, that of the origins of certain musical instruments etc.. http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/379.html
To me, it isn't as important where an instrument first came from than what and how, in the hands or on the feet of any given people or persons, that instrument is put to use. It is is how something is played that largely makes it what the music is and or becomes. Take a sheet of unfamiliar, 12 bars of music in the key of C with no accidentals and give it to a musician strictly from the jazz tradition and also to a classically trained musician. The differences in interpretaion, I think, would be remarkable. And take tap dance for instance, and Willaim Bojangles Robinson in particular. He learned to step in the fashion of the Irish Jigs that he witnessed and imitated as a boy on the docks in Verginia. That was a technique of using his feet as an instrument, what he did rhythmically with that basic step rudiment was an african-american conception. Similar, I think, to what african cubans did with the spanish Clave concept and stringed instruments.


So, with the latter in mind, I think it is safe to say that, every Jazz drummer, as a result of Jazz's evolution, regardless of ethnicity, has from the very beginning absorbed in some fashion or another the African rhythmic precedents. It's simply a matter of how those concepts get transferred.
Acedamy's, which naturally approach things through the western european concept attempt to narrow and constrict music and art down to mathmatics and science; therefore much of the nuance, for instance, that is in dividing a beat or slurring a note or playing outside the melody, or in front of or behind the beat it gets lost in that sort of translation, because it is human feeling that created and continues to create those elusive nuances that speak to us when we listen to Lester Young or Allan Dawson do their thing.


I'm almost done, sorry for the rant! I hope I didn#t go too off subject here.
But, one last thing. There's a illustrative story related by a claissically trained Jazz pianist and liner note author who's name escapes me at the moment. In short, she transcribed one of John Coltranes solos and broaught it to him when she was to interview him and asked if he could play it; he said,"I can't play that."

Good vibrations,
Blavonski

[davidpenalosa]

. . . not only did Blakey further absorb african elements in his playing as a result of his travels to Africa to play with drummers there, he demonstrated it in almost everything that he played even before going there. After all, the rhythmic qualities/elements of Jazz are african in origin . . .

hi Blavonski,
Yes, several of the rhythmic qualities/elements of jazz are indeed African in origin, the most obvious being the rhythmic approach called swing, and the use of syncopated figures like tresillo and its variants. Art Blakey was unquestionably a master of jazz drumming. However, jazz drumming does not contain a lot of other African elements, such as the binary guide-pattern (like clave), or multi-part counterpoint built upon repetition. Blakey was apparently intrigued by African and Afro-Cuban rhythm because he recorded Art Blakey and the Afro-Drum Ensemble: The African Beat.

I do not hear non-jazz African elements used by Blakey, despite his attraction to these non-jazz Afro-genres. If you hear otherwise, can you please cite an example?

So, If what Blakey and the 3 Joneses Elvin, Philly Joe and Papa Joe and Kenny Clarke, Max Roach and Franky Donlop or Ed Blackwell as a few examples from the past were doing wasn't the result of furthering of their absorbtion, retention and expression of African rhythmic language as it was forced to adjust itself to Euro- American musical, song and dance environment in America, then please tell me what they were doing?

My previous comments only addressed Art Blakey, in response to his filmed performance of “A Night in Tunisia.” I expanded on Blakey in the paragraph above.

The 3 over 2 rhythmic pattern certainly didn't exist in european music be it march or otherwise.

Beethoven used it, but not systemically, like in sub-Saharan African and Afro-Cuban musics. In European music accent is meter; in sub-Saharan music, accent is a pattern of counter-metric attackpoints.

The original version of Afro Blue begins with the bass playing six beats per clave. Listen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbE7jf_Hp5w

These are not the main beats, these are counter-beats (cross-beats). John Coltrane interpreted "Afro Blue" in such a way that accent = meter; he heard those six beats as the main beats and performed "Afro Blue" as a jazz waltz. Elvin Jones did periodically create cross-rhythm though, by superimposing duple beats over the rhythm. As I said in the previous post, the result was two-over-three (2:3), the inversion of the basic African 3:2 cross-rhythm.

Here is a video by Conor Guilfoyle, author of Odd Meter Clave and Rhythmic Reading for Drummers, demonstrating 2:3 in a jazz waltz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEAyWsTL ... re=related

The earliest use of an African-type 3:2 cross-rhythm by a straight ahead jazz group that I’m aware of was Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” on the Miles Davis record Miles Smiles (1967).

Hear it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62p-CXrYmf4

Also, your staement: "Afro-Cuban music and instruments were the conduit through which African American music has been continually "Re-Africanized." is a pretty broadly stroaked don't you think? The only form of African american music that has been effectivley and, if you will, continually "re-africanized" through Afro-Cuban music is Jazz.

I didn’t say all African American music

Gospel

A lot of Gospel groups have a conga drummer.

R&B

R&B and early rock ‘n’ roll absorbed clave and clave-based rhythms in the wake of the “mambo craze” of the 1940s and 50s. This happened most significantly in New Orleans.

Dave Bartholomew, a New Orleans jazz musician who produced Fats Domino’s earliest R&B hits, created some iconic grooves by incorporating Cuban musical elements. Bartholomew said that he took a Cuban bass line from a record he heard, and arranged the part for saxophones on his R&B tune “Country Boy” (1949). You can hear a sample of the song here:

http://www.amazon.com/Country-Boy/dp/B0 ... 811&sr=1-2

On “Carnival Day” (1949), Bartholomew incorporated the Cuban conga rhythm. Hear:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9r7Ay4T ... ure=artist

He uses claves, but to my ears, the pattern is not properly aligned with the rest of the rhythm. The clave seems to be half-time in relation to the rest of the song. Professor Longhair’s incorporation of the Cuban conga became something new entirely, a new, original New Orleans hybrid. On “Tipitina” we hear a similar half-time/regular time dichotomy, with the congas playing at twice the tempo of the rest of the song. See here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBSN7WOP ... re=related

The New Orleans mambo and the New Orleans conga became staples of R&B, and were further refined during the funk era. Of course by the 70s and 80s, the binary figures can’t really be called “Cuban” elements anymore. They were completely integrated into American music. It is interesting though, how the binary structure made it easily adaptable to Cuban rhythms. For example, we hear a funk progeny of the New Orleans conga in the Temptations “Cloud Nine.” Check out how Mongo Santamaria’s conga playing fits so well in the funk groove:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBxFTzxc0Bo

The clave pattern itself became a standard R&B motif, as heard in Johnny Otis’s “Hand Jive:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOrQTh_C ... ture=share

And Bo Diddley’s “Bo Diddlely:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewwe89dt ... re=related

The incorporation of the clave/binary-figure into R&B was a major development. Check out the stick patterns played by the Dixie Cups on “Iko Iko:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rDdWPYdgg

Rap

The most sampled drum break in break dance and hip-hop is called the Amen Break, and is the essence of the New Orleans conga rhythm. There’s a short documentary on the break on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2b ... ture=share

Whenever you hear a hip-hop bass line that’s a clave-like figure, you are hearing an echo of the Cuban influence in African American music.

Afro-Cuban music has borrowed extensively from the African American musical reservoir over the past, well 80 years or more for inspiration, and that musical cross polination between the two cultures is a natural one.

Agreed.
-David

[blavonski]

Hello David,
below wrote:


"Yes, several of the rhythmic qualities/elements of jazz are indeed African in origin, the most obvious being the rhythmic approach called swing, and the use of syncopated figures like tresillo and its variants. Art Blakey was unquestionably a master of jazz drumming. However, jazz drumming does not contain a lot of other African elements, such as the binary guide-pattern (like clave), or multi-part counterpoint built upon repetition."

Swing is not an original African Rhythmic element introduced to Jazz. Swing is a uniquely African American creation as a result of the African rhythmic conception in the americas, USA in particular adapting itself to european american musical forms. And before it began to swing, it was more of shuffle and or rocking feeling as a result of drummers like Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton going from Strong beats 1&3 to weak beats 2&4 with added eigth notes. And it was brought to the fore in american popular music by Louis Armstrong. And as Mr. Armstrong has demonstrated, it is more feeling than any musicaologist can precisely define in strict musical terms.
Like wise the Afro-cuban swing feeling is uniquely its own creation.

"I do not hear non-jazz African elements used by Blakey, despite his attraction to these non-jazz Afro-genres. If you hear otherwise, can you please cite an example?"
Here is one of numerous examples to answer your question. And, it is interesting to note that you repeatedly refer to Jazz rhythmic elements as if they lie outside of an African rhythmic concept. If that were the case , then there would be no jazz as we know it, would there? Also, if, as you contend, Swing is an African element and as it is widely known that, Blakey was the "Master Swinger", well then that would mean that Blakey plays what you term as non-Jazz African elements.
Would it not?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnYBOP_- ... re=related

"However, jazz drumming does not contain a lot of other African elements, such as the binary guide-pattern (like clave), or multi-part counterpoint built upon repetition."

With the above statement by you, it is obvious to me that your relation to and understanding of jazz music is an academic one or maybe also casual listener. Do you play Jazz, drums or any other instrument? But, I believe that I can answer, refute that statement with one instrument and that is the Hi-Hat. Traditonally it guides the rhythm on Beats 2&4, a binary division of the 4/4 meter and it is repeated, it is continuous. And before Kenny clarkes innovation in moving the ground rhythm from base drum to ride cymbal, that steady repitition was traditionally held in tha base drum in jazz. And concerning your mention of counterpoint, to my knowledge, it is a European compositional, melodic device/technique.

The 3over 2 rhythm pattern is everywhere in Jazz from it's beginnings, and examples in cross and or polyphonics/rhythms in jazz prior to your example of Wayne Shorters footprints,(a tune I've played numerous times on sax as well as drums), are also ubiquitous in straight ahead jazz. Dig what Franky Donlop is puttin down on his reide cymbal here: You can fast forward toward the end to see him playing it. It is the difintive ride pattern and has been around a long , long time.
(tat ti tat, tat tat or tat tat, tat ti tat) http://youtu.be/gLmnmja72vA I would post more and earlier one but don't have time.
Here's again one of my favorite Jazz drummers displaying it all in his own elegant way:http:
http://youtu.be/kbXK-Q1jsy0
As far as your examples of those popular ventures in spicing up R&B or Urban Blues with maracas or missed managed clave, are hardly what I would call re-africanization of African american music through Afro-cuban elements. Moreover, the Hand clapping and other examples of the clave pattern in xour examples is inacurrate, you may be hearing a clave, but it isn't. As I understand it, the clave whether 3:2 or 2:3 is divided over two bars 4 beats per measure. By contrast, african american 3 over 2 patern is divided and contained with in one bar, 4 beats per measure algamation. Listen more closely to your examples. It is not latin or Cuban derived it is an US, african american rhythmic concept/feeling and I've been doing my whole life, from the church, to the dance floor to my instruments.

"A lot of Gospel groups have a conga drummer."
We've been through a similar topic here recently. Do have an example of this?
You may have a conga in a gospel band, but that conga ain't in no kinda way playing clave or rumba concepts. If he does he won't be in the band long let me tell you, that is if it's an authentic traditional african american gospel outfit. And like all african american music there's plenty of repitition in it.

I would love to engage further, but, I have a date with my Saxophone and Bongó.

Good Vibrations,
Blavonski

[blavonski]

Also, below is the intire version of the Amen Brother break beat that you provided. Yes, I know it well and have broke down to it many times in my Hip Hop days in New York at places like the Roxy, The devils nest in the Bronx, the Palladium and many others. It's a funked up gos0pel tune and that rhythm is a Jazz derived 3 over 2 pattern with snare accents on 3. All subsequent Musical genres, rock, Funk, soul, Gospel in the United States have derived their rhythms from previous Jazz concepts.


http://youtu.be/GxZuq57_bYM


GV,
Blavonski

[Chupacabra]

Just a side note:

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is playing here in Japan at the end of October (if anyone will be in the neighbourhood!). 30th in Tokyo, 31st here in Osaka. Lots of African/N'Awlins connection in that band! Wish I could catch them, unfortunately will be back in Canada by then!

Back to the regularly scheduled programming!

Sumimasen!

[Joseph]

The most sampled drum break in break dance and hip-hop is called the Amen Break, and is the essence of the New Orleans conga rhythm. There’s a short documentary on the break on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2b ... ture=share

Good piece on the Amen Break.
Thanks for sharing that.
And very interesting re-tracing the history of a rhythm, as well as commentary on modern music biz.

Sounds like a sped up drumset version of the conga part to "What's Goin' On" by Marvin Gaye.
...but then again "What's Goin' On" probably is the NOLA conga rhythm.

I'm just glad the clave rhythm became all pervasive before the concept (and enforcement) of copyright became the way of the world.

[pcastag]

Here's another glaring fallacy among many. Too may to even waste time responding too.

I did say that the African American banjo is a New World descendent of these Sudanic instruments.

"New World" (American) banjos are not descendants of the African stringed gourds in your non-dated photo.
That might fool 7th graders in your class as you can say "look, the bases are both round" and your students respond in unison "yeah".
And then you'll say, "and they're both wooden"... and your students exclaim "yeah".
And then you say " so the Americans copied the African inventors"...see?"
While the actual difference is the same as a donkey pulling a cart of straw and a Semi Truck loaded with semiconductors.
And that's why our schools are CRAP.

You have zero evidence that Europeans nor Americans fashioned or patterned their earliest banjos after the stringed gourd in the photo.
The original banjos the Europeans made could have possibly borrowed something from the far more sophisticated, round stringed instruments used in the middle-east. That's possible. Europeans nor Americans would never have made something as primitive as the stringed gourds you posted.

The American banjo used in earliest jazz music is a descendant of European and American stringed instruments.
The design, materials used, tuning system, detail, ornamentation are better in every way from the non-dated stringed gourds in your photo.
These are American banjos used in the creation of jazz.
They are infinitely more sophisticated and well-tuned, able to actually play all chords and melodies of European music.

The American banjo (1865)

(1900)


I won't waste another minute of time with this thread. It's a broke joke.
My only reason for responding is in the hope that this book will tell the truth and edit the lie about "some African instruments" being used in early jazz, there were none used. All of the instruments were American and European exclusively.

jeez I've had about enough of this guy. If Jazz didn't have any african elements how the hell did black people invent it then? Why didn't some oakies from Oklahoma start playing it? We had this same conversation years ago Myk., You made all kinds of disrespectful statements about the simplicity of sub-saharan african music, at which point I challenged you to learn how to play some bata drumming, arguably one of the most developed and difficult rhythmic repertoires around. Give a try then come back and continue to make statements like

"Europeans nor Americans would never have made something as primitive as the stringed gourds you posted."

Jeez man, what a complex! Give it up dude, go back to playing your music and stop worrying about trying to prove something that people have known for years. Without the slave trade jazz today as we know it does not exist. Without the exposure to european instrumentation and harmonic structure jazz as we know it does not exist. Jazz is not made up wholy of one thing or another, one thing is clear, it is a BLACK AMERICAN FORM OF MUSIC THAT CAME DIRECTLY OUT OF THE BLACK AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.
PC

[davidpenalosa]

Good piece on the Amen Break. Sounds like a sped up drumset version of the conga part to "What's Goin' On" by Marvin Gaye.
...but then again "What's Goin' On" probably is the NOLA conga rhythm.

Exactly!
-David

[davidpenalosa]

Swing is not an original African Rhythmic element introduced to Jazz. Swing is a uniquely African American creation as a result of the African rhythmic conception in the americas, USA in particular adapting itself to european american musical forms. And before it began to swing, it was more of shuffle and or rocking feeling as a result of drummers like Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton going from Strong beats 1&3 to weak beats 2&4 with added eigth notes. And it was brought to the fore in american popular music by Louis Armstrong. And as Mr. Armstrong has demonstrated, it is more feeling than any musicaologist can precisely define in strict musical terms.

OK, so it’s a feeling (agreed), that musicologists can’t define, but you can, and your definition excludes music from Africa.

“SWING: An intangible rhythmic momentum in jazz. …Swing defies analysis; claims to its presence may inspire arguments. But it is meaningful as a general concept: in swing and bebop, ‘swinging’ triplet subdivisions of quarter notes (or of eighth notes at slow tempos, halves at fast tempos) contrast with duple subdivisions . . .”—The New Harvard Dictionary of Music (1986: 818).

Like wise the Afro-cuban swing feeling is uniquely its own creation.

Actually certain aspects of Afro-Cuban music share the same qualities of swing as straight ahead jazz. But yeah, generally speaking, the two have many significant differences.

. . . it is interesting to note that you repeatedly refer to Jazz rhythmic elements as if they lie outside of an African rhythmic concept. .

No, you have misunderstood me. I was attempting to differentiate between those African rhythmic elements, which are a part of jazz (say, up to the post bop era), and those African rhythmic elements, which are not.

. . . it is obvious to me that your relation to and understanding of jazz music is an academic one or maybe also casual listener.

OUCH!!!

ouch!.tiff (96.41 KiB) Viewed 6305 times

Now, you are fighting dirty! You’ve called me an academic, who can’t play!! It’s “obvious” you say? I’m afraid your powers of perception have failed you, because you were not able to perceive a lifetime of playing music, including jazz. May I suggest that we stick to the substance of the thread topic, rather than attempting to deny the other’s credentials?

Do you play Jazz, drums or any other instrument?

Yes. By the way, I first performed “Footprints” in the 1970s, on flute, and later, on percussion.

. . . I can answer, refute that statement with one instrument and that is the Hi-Hat. Traditonally it guides the rhythm on Beats 2&4, a binary division of the 4/4 meter and it is repeated, it is continuous.

It’s true what you say. The repeating hi-hat only makes your case in the most general sense. If you listen to highlife, juju, samba, and son montuno, you will hear several significant shared African rhythmic elements not present in jazz. I thought this was obvious.

And concerning your mention of counterpoint, to my knowledge, it is a European compositional, melodic device/technique.

Yes, but most music terminology originated from Western music traditions. Do you have a better term for the interaction of contrary attackpoints as expressed in African and Diaspora musics?

As I understand it, the clave whether 3:2 or 2:3 is divided over two bars 4 beats per measure. By contrast, african american 3 over 2 patern is divided and contained with in one bar, 4 beats per measure algamation.

The three-over-two cross rhythm is like you say, one bar (if we write clave in two bars). The "one bar" structure pervades African music, as well as Afro-Cuban music. The bass line in Mongo’s “Afro Blue” is an obvious example.

Gotta go. I have a busy day ahead of me.

-David

[davidpenalosa]

“SWING: An intangible rhythmic momentum in jazz. …Swing defies analysis; claims to its presence may inspire arguments. .”

The discussion between me and Blavonski illustrates just how easily how claims to the presence of swing may inspire arguments.

“. . . in swing and bebop, ‘swinging’ triplet subdivisions of quarter notes (or of eighth notes at slow tempos, halves at fast tempos) contrast with duple subdivisions . . .”

The contrasting of duple and triple subdivisions is a topic I’ve investigated quite a lot. Last summer Michael Spiro and I gave a lecture/demonstration titled Swing, the Elusive Feel. This was the description on the workshop’s webpage:

Michael Spiro and David Peñalosa will explain and demonstrate swing, the most elusive and intangible element of Afro-Cuban rhythms.

David will begin the first section by examining the definitions of the term, and by demonstrating how the same cross-rhythms that generate clave, also generate swing. He will next show how triple-subdivisions can be substituted for duple-subdivisions. The first section will conclude with an analysis of stroke displacement, a phenomenon of swing, where certain attack-points fall in-between the triple/duple-subdivision "grid."

In the second section, Michael will demonstrate his technique of stroke displacement, which he calls fix. As Michael says in his groundbreaking book, The Conga Drummer's Guidebook:

"[In] Afro-centric musics the rhythmic distinction between three subdivisions per beat and four subdivisions per beat (triple vs. duple), is frequently blurred. In several cases, the difference does not exist at all -- there is a completely "new" subdivision at work. This is what gives rumba from Cuba and samba from Brazil and even certain kinds of bebop their unique characters ... I call this 'averaging' of rhythm between a four and a six feel, fix (four and six), and it is an essential component of learning to swing in these styles. Fix is a concept we must acquire, manipulate and finally, internalize" (2006: 38).

Do any forum members who were at this lecture/demonstration have any critiques to contribute?
-David