Villepastour emailed me to let me know that clave had made it to South Africa.
Thomas Altmann wrote:. . . a rudimentary clave feel, less refined than in Cuba, is present in many Jazz melodies, arrangements and rhythmic comping.
Do you think the "clave-isms" that can be heard on those songs are the result of exposure to Cuban music, an example of African retention, or a natural tendency in music where tresillo is common? Maybe it's some combination of all three? I don't remember hearing your thoughts on the origins of those figures.
Thomas Altmann wrote:A rudimentary clave feeling (mostly 2-3) has always been incorporated in New Orleans music that was based on the Second Line parade beat. . . . Some modern parade beats reflect exactly the rhythmic structure of the Conga Habanera.
Thomas Altmann wrote: The "big four" is nothing but the Afro-Cuban "ponche".
Thomas Altmann wrote:After the Haitian revolution in 1791, refugees are known to have flocked to the Oriente of Cuba, bringing the Contradanza with the Tango rhythm, Vaudou, and the Tumba Francesa to Cuba. After a few years, some of these Haitian refugees traveled on to New Orleans. The crescent city is very much a part of the Caribbean, and at some period, N.O. was even Spanish. For more details check out Ned Sublette's "The World That Made New Orleans".
jorge wrote: . . . in 1863 Gottschalk composed El Cocoyé, which definitely has a clave influence, although I would not say it was clave based in the modern sense.
Can you refer me to some second line music with a 2-3 clave feel? Everything I’ve heard is in the simpler tresillo feel. By modern, do you mean post-1950s?
Because of the non-syncopated, on-beat emphasis of the first half of the pattern, the big four can be thought of as a 2-3 phrase. Is this the version of the big four you were referring to?
Peter Manuel, in Creolizing Contradance in the Caribbean (2009), makes the point that Havana contradanzas may have absorbed the single-celled figures tango and cinquillo locally, not from the Oriente of Cuba. The cinquillo is heard in Havana-style Congolese makuta.
I am surprised at what you say about lack of inclination in German academic circles toward Cuban music persisting to the present day. This does not seem to be the case for popular music, am I right?
jorge wrote: . . . yes the cinquillo pattern and in places tresillo was what I was referring to. Not clave, but with a little bit of a danzon-like feel. Or given that this predated the danzon, probably the danzon was influenced by pieces like this from the US and Europe.
Unlike the classic funk pattern I posted earlier, these patterns do not seem to have an obvious connection to the Cuban mambo or conga. Instead, they are based on a pattern of five consecutive cross-beats, beginning on the first and offbeat (I'm thinking of the measures as 2/4).
jorge wrote: It was guarachon who mentioned the book "Creolizing contradance in the Caribbean", not me, although I was in on the discussion.
Thomas Altmann wrote: While none of these patterns shows a direct Cuban influence, both the two-bar patterns from the first position and from the third position show a strong resemblance to the 3-2 and the 2-3 Son clave, respectively:
|| x..x..x.|.x..x..x || -----> || x..x..x.|..x.x... ||
|| ..x..x..|x..x..x. || -----> || ..x.x...|x..x..x. ||
Thomas Altmann wrote: The bass drum pattern in my second example creates a cross clave effect, as it represents the two-bar re-periodization, starting from the first position, but closing with a "musical ending":
|| x..x..x.|.x..x.x. ||
Thomas Altmann wrote: So both Cuban Conga and the New Orleans parade beat have common roots, perhaps something like that mysterious "African retention" that seems to have survived the hardest hardships of slavery "in the veins".
davidpenalosa wrote: I like what Kubik says about that:
“Cultural transmission works through codes, and the individual can stitch between channels, from the auditory to the motional to the visual. As long as the codes are transmitted intact, the individual’s unconscious can reassemble the missing patterns...
The phenomenon of individuals reassembling the missing patterns is quite mysterious.
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