For an instrument that seems intrinsically to evoke images of southern, white-haired, white men sitting on their back porches in the mountains of West Virginia that have come to symbolize a brand of American patriotism, the banjo has an astonishingly un-American history. Although the etymology of the word, “banjo,” itself, is uncertain, what is certain is that its origins lie not in the American South, but somewhere on the African continent and it did not appear in North America until slave trade began. Until very recently, the banjo had not only lost mostly all African connotations to Americans; it had become a symbol of white rural America through a three-hundred-fifty-year succession of brute force domination, inflicted diaspora, and cultural appropriation.
Before the banjo came to even be acknowledged by white Americans, any form of African music was prohibited and considered repugnant. Forbidden from playing the drums, newly enslaved West African people turned instead to constructing makeshift “banjars” from dried and gutted squash gourds, (usually hog) hide, wood for the neck, and horsehair strings. One of the most famous written documentations of the banjar is from Thomas Jefferson in 1781: “The instrument proper to them [Slaves] is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa, and which is the original of the guitar, its chords being precisely the four lower chords of the guitar.” Perhaps the earliest recorded banjo piece from the North American continent is a short jig called “Pompey Ran Away.” Notated as early as 1782, the piece was most likely played by a slave and heard and transcribed by a Scottish visitor to the United States. The jig, 6/4 in time, is a 12-bar melody of about 8 notes that repeats three or four times, and was allegedly described by 18th century writer and musician, Hans Nathan, as “one of the earliest blends of European and primitive melodies.” Although this can hardly be considered collaboration, this intersection of European and African music was appreciably early, noted by the ill reception of the African component.
To a western ear, this little jig may not seem to bear any resemblance to anything other than Irish music, but the driving, circular melody that makes use of interwoven melodic ascent and descent and the compound meter are key in West African music. A compound meter like 6/8 or 6/4 allows for hemiola and complex syncopation, which is demonstrated in the ngoni performance of Adama Kamissoko. What is more evident in this piece, however, is this driving, circular melody that accentuates the tonic by delicately embellishing around it. Even though immediate connections between West African and African American music seem hardly to be recognized especially with the progression of time, they are apparent in the fundamental groundwork of each type of music.
In the early 1800s, although the banjo could not yet have been considered appreciated musically by white Americans by any stretch of the imagination, its presence began to creep into the periphery of popular white American acknowledgement. A Virginia native by the name of Joel Sweeney is reported to be one of the first white men ever to learn how to play the banjo at the age of thirteen, using the technique known as clawhammer. Clawhammer banjo, which requires plucking with the back of the fingernail and the thumb, corresponds to African ngoni-type instrument technique. Today throughout West Africa, ngoni players can be seen using a version of this technique. By the 1830s, Sweeney had become somewhat of a court jester, traveling around, playing the banjo, dancing, imitating animals, and eventually wearing blackface. An 1854 minstrel song entitled, “Oh, I’se So Wicked,” written by white American actor, George Howard, runs:
Black folk can’t do naught they say,
I guess I’ll teach some how to play,
And dance about dis time ob day,
Ching a ring a bang goes de breakdown.
While minstrel shows really are, to a certain extent, largely responsible for the popularization of the banjo, this was due in no small part to its utilization as a tool by which to reduce and classify African American culture. During minstrel era, the function of the banjo could hardly be classified as a musical instrument—it was simply an incredibly reductionist symbol of blackness.
Nevertheless, minstrel era marked the expropriation of the banjo by whites. From then on, the banjo was harnessed and transformed by white players. Although one might suggest that the banjo was not entirely westernized until the introduction of frets in the later 1880s, there is reason to believe that once players moved up or down the neck at all, any hints of remaining African style would have been lost. After several decades of having ascertained West African banjo origins, ethnomusicologists finally believe that the most likely instrument of origin is one called the akonting or ekonting from The Gambia. Though fretless, the ekonting does not seem to typically make use of much more than a hand’s length of the neck per song, as demonstrated by a performance by Gambian ekonting expert, Remi Diatta. The two regions of fingering are marked off about a third and a half of the way down the neck, and Diatta’s hand does not move past either mark. A 1920s song written for clawhammer banjo, however, would have made use not only of more of the neck, but of the sliding feature allowed by the lack of frets, as well. It is precisely this conquering of more of the neck that has since become characteristic of banjo music from the Civil War Era on, when its lost stigma allowed for individual ownership of banjo playing styles. Clawhammer began to branch out into fingerpicking styles, frets were added, and more and more celebrated white banjo players emerged onto the scene. With this post-war scenario came increased desire to write songs that stood for a unified America, which, at the time, was essentially restricted to white males. This, in turn, coincided with the individualization of banjo playing to produce a whole genre of music that came to be known as Americana.
In the meantime, as the celebrity of white banjo players thrived, very few black banjo players were duly admired for their musical talent. Those who became household names were so because they traveled with white minstrel troupes still in blackface. Furthermore, racism prevailed more strongly than ever before, relegating any kind of African American accomplishment to the background. Nevertheless, black musicians continued producing music that was very particularly not Americana, heavy on syncopation and more danceable rhythms, and these styles gradually developed into ragtime and the jazz of the early 1900s. An 1893 painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, depicts a black boy sitting on the lap of an old man who is probably his grandfather, holding a banjo. This painting is evocative of longstanding traditions being passed between generations, and that an African American boy is depicted painstakingly attempting to master an instrument that many had and have still stripped entirely of its Africanness is particularly significant.
As the 1900s progressed, jazz and the beginnings of Appalachian bluegrass as their own genres grew more and more distinct. A more percussive banjo sound can be heard as played by Elmer Snowden in Bessie Smith’s 1925 recording of “I Ain’t Got Nobody”, but his career extended much beyond the background. However, simply because of his race, he was hardly credited for his talent until much later in his career—1960, to be exact, on his album, Harlem Banjo!, in which the banjo as a melodic center is featured prominently. On the other hand, a 1927 recording of a folk song, “Cluck Old Hen,” by an all-white, male band called The Hillbillies already presents the banjo as a melodic equal to the fiddle, guitar, and mandolin, a combination of timbres that would come to be known as standard bluegrass instrumentation. By the 1940s, this characteristic bluegrass sound had reached what is called the “Golden Age” of bluegrass, out of which came several distinguished names primarily of southern, white, males—chiefly Earl Scruggs and Bill Monroe. Interestingly enough, although “black use” and “white use” of the banjo seemed to diverge most at this point, from then on, bluegrass and jazz actually grew more and more similar in structure, not to mention that some white musicians played jazz and some black musicians played bluegrass. Jazz and bluegrass both stretched their limits as time went on, growing from mere branches of folk music in their own rights to fully blown art forms that highlighted and demanded sheer virtuosity from their performers.
Flatt & Scruggs’s iconic “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” of 1949 opens by clearly stating its main theme and gradually deviates from this theme through improvised solos on various instruments, always returning to the banjo, whereas “Cluck Old Hen” simply laid out a chord structure for all of its musicians to follow. Even though the banjo can still really only be heard as a percussive instrument, a 1930 recording of King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band and a 1950s recording of the Dukes of Dixieland playing with Louis Armstrong both wield a prominent banjo timbre and the similar setup of a main theme that leads into virtuosic improvised solos. By the latter half of the 20th century, bluegrass and jazz, and thus the differing approaches to the banjo, were well on their way to reconvening into a genre with far more ambiguous borders.
It is interesting to note that the banjo does not become a melodic instrument in a genre other than bluegrass until the later 60s through 80s, a period that sees further fusion of jazz and bluegrass. In what is called the “second generation” of bluegrass, the use of the banjo becomes far more experimental with the emergence of such artists as Bela Fleck, who recognize not only the versatility of the instrument but also begin to excavate its history. While Fleck’s performance roots lie deeply in jazz, he has also played a fair amount of bluegrass, arranged classical music for the banjo, and collaborated with artists from all over the world. In addition to his rhythmically and technically complex jazz and collaboration with Tuvan throat singing group, Alash, a 2008 trip around the continent of Africa to explore its roots with the modern banjo was the subject of a compelling, moving documentary entitled Throw Down Your Heart. The film features Fleck traveling from country to country, improvising on themes of the music played by the artists he comes across. From Mali to Uganda, musical conversations in the four countries Fleck visits bear fascinating information about the line between borrowing and collaboration in a history that had been ignored for centuries.
When does borrowing an instrument and using it to play a type of music unfamiliar to its origins become culturally appropriative? Perhaps a seemingly benign case in which the new use of the instrument is simply exploratory and for the purpose of creating any kind of music like western use of the sitar could actually be considered offensive. Perhaps the instrument has significance unknown to the borrower. What is certain is that although it is natural for musicians to explore the confines (or lack thereof) of their instrument in an attempt to find a niche that might not correspond to presupposed categories, once an instrument or type of music is used to insult, undermine, or even stereotype a people or cultural practice, not only cultural appropriation but assertion of hegemony is evident. The history of the banjo is a history of co-opting one of the few forms of expression African slaves had left, turning this channel of catharsis and general emotion on its head to further exert hegemony over them, and utilizing the newly harnessed power over the instrument in making it a symbol of the oppressor. In other words, it is a story of musical colonialism that can never truly be righted. Nevertheless, attempts made by artists like Bela Fleck to embrace the history of the banjo are leaps and bounds in the right direction. Hopefully the history of racial discrimination in the United States will turn out somewhat like the history of the banjo: turned around through collaboration and celebration of diversity.
Deskchair Ethnomusicology 