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The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States
When Jimi Hendrix transfixed the crowds of Woodstock with his gripping version of "The Star Spangled Banner," he was building on a foundation reaching back, in part, to the revolutionary guitar playing of Howlin' Wolf and the other great Chicago bluesmen, and to the Delta blues tradition before him. But in its unforgettable introduction, followed by his unaccompanied "talking" guitar passage and inserted calls and responses at key points in the musical narrative, Hendrix's performance of the national anthem also hearkened back to a tradition even older than the blues, a tradition rooted in the rings of dance, drum, and song shared by peoples across Africa.
Bold and original, The Power of Black Music offers a new way of listening to the music of black America, and appreciating its profound contribution to all American music. Striving to break down the barriers that remain between high art and low art, it brilliantly illuminates the centuries-old linkage between the music, myths and rituals of Africa and the continuing evolution and enduring vitality of African-American music. Inspired by the pioneering work of Sterling Stuckey and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author Samuel A. Floyd, Jr, advocates a new critical approach grounded in the forms and traditions of the music itself. He accompanies readers on a fascinating journey from the African ring, through the ring shout's powerful merging of music and dance in the slave culture, to the funeral parade practices of the early new Orleans jazzmen, the bluesmen in the twenties, the beboppers in the forties, and the free jazz, rock, Motown, and concert hall composers of the sixties and beyond. Floyd
dismisses the assumption that Africans brought to the United States as slaves took the music of whites in the New World and transformed it through their own performance practices. Instead, he recognizes European influences, while demonstrating how much black music has continued to share with its African counterparts. Floyd maintains that while African Americans may not have direct knowledge of African traditions and myths, they can intuitively recognize links to an authentic African cultural memory. For example, in speaking of his grandfather Omar, who died a slave as a young man, the jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet said, "Inside him he'd got the memory of all the wrong that's been done to my people. That's what the memory is....When a blues is good, that kind of memory just grows up inside it."
Grounding his scholarship and meticulous research in his childhood memories of black folk culture and his own experiences as a musician and listener, Floyd maintains that the memory of Omar and all those who came before and after him remains a driving force in the black music of America, a force with the power to enrich cultures the world over.
Bold and original, The Power of Black Music offers a new way of listening to the music of black America, and appreciating its profound contribution to all American music. Striving to break down the barriers that remain between high art and low art, it brilliantly illuminates the centuries-old linkage between the music, myths and rituals of Africa and the continuing evolution and enduring vitality of African-American music. Inspired by the pioneering work of Sterling Stuckey and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author Samuel A. Floyd, Jr, advocates a new critical approach grounded in the forms and traditions of the music itself. He accompanies readers on a fascinating journey from the African ring, through the ring shout's powerful merging of music and dance in the slave culture, to the funeral parade practices of the early new Orleans jazzmen, the bluesmen in the twenties, the beboppers in the forties, and the free jazz, rock, Motown, and concert hall composers of the sixties and beyond. Floyd
dismisses the assumption that Africans brought to the United States as slaves took the music of whites in the New World and transformed it through their own performance practices. Instead, he recognizes European influences, while demonstrating how much black music has continued to share with its African counterparts. Floyd maintains that while African Americans may not have direct knowledge of African traditions and myths, they can intuitively recognize links to an authentic African cultural memory. For example, in speaking of his grandfather Omar, who died a slave as a young man, the jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet said, "Inside him he'd got the memory of all the wrong that's been done to my people. That's what the memory is....When a blues is good, that kind of memory just grows up inside it."
Grounding his scholarship and meticulous research in his childhood memories of black folk culture and his own experiences as a musician and listener, Floyd maintains that the memory of Omar and all those who came before and after him remains a driving force in the black music of America, a force with the power to enrich cultures the world over.
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First published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 18, 2020
Just read this book if you think you listen to music for its own sake. You don't have to listen to Blues, Soul, R&B or rap to appreciate this book. Point to any music genre in the American soundscape, you can connect it to some form of African or African-American music (yes, including bluegrass and country). This book will help you make those connections. Rewards multiple reads, rewards conscious and diligent listens to music records of various sorts and genres. Fantastic read and experience in general. Eye opener.
June 7, 2023
I stumbled across this book doing some searches on the ring shout and it is like the book had information on everything I was looking into and more.
Lots of information and well-sourced. Gives me some interesting things to look for later.
Lots of information and well-sourced. Gives me some interesting things to look for later.
October 3, 2023
This book traces the historical and spiritual development of African American music. More specifically, the primary aim of this book is to demonstrate how African American music is a reflection of Black folks’ “cultural memory” of their traditional African past. In proving this aim, historian and theorist Samuel Floyd dives into the foundations of Black music, going straight to the source—the continent of Africa. Floyd demonstrates how African music was intimately tied to traditional African religion, and how this connection (along with its many rituals, such as the “Ring Shout”) was brought over to the New World by captive Africans.
In America, Africans not only maintained the deep spiritual relationship between music and religion (adopting older African religious traditions to Christianity), they used music—such as “Spirituals”—to center their newfound condition and orient themselves toward the ultimate objective of freedom. Spirituals, along with call & response and other gestures, were mainstays in the Ring Shout and were eventually solidified in the Black Church, making their way into early Gospel music. The work song also accompanied the Spirituals as early mainstays of African music translated to the Americas. As did Black “folk music.”
African American music is fundamentally about Black liberation—at least it was until such time that Black identity became thoroughly intertwined with American identity and the desire of assimilation. As integration set in, Black music solely began to shed important Africanisms, including its connection to the “ring.” Floyd details how this happened, and how the music retained elements of its original character born out of the Drum, Song, and Dance of the African “ring.”
Ultimately, Floyd broadly traces the evolution of Blues, ragtime, Jazz, Gospel, R&B, rock n roll, and Soul music, depicting how each art form and some of its sub-variants reveal Black “cultural memory.” I would have like to have seen at least a mention or reference to Hip Hop, especially but that clearly was not on the docket for whatever reason. Nevertheless, this book provides a wealth of knowledge—even if it sometimes gets bogged down in complex musical theories that are difficult to understand.
In America, Africans not only maintained the deep spiritual relationship between music and religion (adopting older African religious traditions to Christianity), they used music—such as “Spirituals”—to center their newfound condition and orient themselves toward the ultimate objective of freedom. Spirituals, along with call & response and other gestures, were mainstays in the Ring Shout and were eventually solidified in the Black Church, making their way into early Gospel music. The work song also accompanied the Spirituals as early mainstays of African music translated to the Americas. As did Black “folk music.”
African American music is fundamentally about Black liberation—at least it was until such time that Black identity became thoroughly intertwined with American identity and the desire of assimilation. As integration set in, Black music solely began to shed important Africanisms, including its connection to the “ring.” Floyd details how this happened, and how the music retained elements of its original character born out of the Drum, Song, and Dance of the African “ring.”
Ultimately, Floyd broadly traces the evolution of Blues, ragtime, Jazz, Gospel, R&B, rock n roll, and Soul music, depicting how each art form and some of its sub-variants reveal Black “cultural memory.” I would have like to have seen at least a mention or reference to Hip Hop, especially but that clearly was not on the docket for whatever reason. Nevertheless, this book provides a wealth of knowledge—even if it sometimes gets bogged down in complex musical theories that are difficult to understand.
December 30, 2025
Samuel A. Floyd Jr. – Wenn die Geschichte den Backbeat findet
Holen Sie das Schlagzeug aus dem Keller und drehen Sie den Verstärker auf elf: Samuel A. Floyd Jr. schreibt keine trockene Musikgeschichte, er dirigiert eine transatlantische Jam-Session. In The Power of Black Music fegt er den Staub aus den Archiven und zeigt, dass Jimi Hendrix in Woodstock nicht einfach die US-Hymne zerlegte, sondern ein jahrhundertealtes Call-and-Response mit seinen westafrikanischen Ahnen führte – elektrisch verstärkt, aber kulturell tief verankert.
Floyds konzeptioneller Geniestreich ist der „Ring“: der afrikanische Kreis aus Tanz, Trommel und Gesang als unzerstörbare kulturelle DNA. Dieser Ring überlebt Sklaverei, Plantage und Jim Crow und zieht sich durch Delta Blues, Bebop und Motown wie ein unerbittlicher Basslauf. Schwarze Musik erscheint hier nicht als Aneinanderreihung von Stilen, sondern als kontinuierlicher Erinnerungsraum, in dem Körper, Rhythmus und Geschichte untrennbar verschränkt sind.
Damit räumt Floyd endgültig mit der Legende vom bloß „nachgeahmten“ weißen Sound auf. Die Musik der afroamerikanischen Moderne ist kein Coverprojekt, sondern eine kulturelle Urgewalt, gespeist aus dem, was Floyd das „Gedächtnis von Omar“ nennt: ein kollektives Archiv afrikanischer Praktiken, das sich selbst unter brutalster Unterdrückung nicht auslöschen ließ.
Dieses Buch liest sich wie das intellektuelle Äquivalent eines Sidney-Bechet-Solos: virtuos, schmerzgesättigt, präzise – und so mitreißend, dass selbst die steifsten Musiktheoretiker unwillkürlich anfangen zu wippen. „The Power of Black Music“ ist eine Abrechnung mit dem Hochkultur-Dünkel und eine Erinnerung daran, dass der wahre Geist der Moderne nicht im Elfenbeinturm, sondern in der Synkope wohnt.
Holen Sie das Schlagzeug aus dem Keller und drehen Sie den Verstärker auf elf: Samuel A. Floyd Jr. schreibt keine trockene Musikgeschichte, er dirigiert eine transatlantische Jam-Session. In The Power of Black Music fegt er den Staub aus den Archiven und zeigt, dass Jimi Hendrix in Woodstock nicht einfach die US-Hymne zerlegte, sondern ein jahrhundertealtes Call-and-Response mit seinen westafrikanischen Ahnen führte – elektrisch verstärkt, aber kulturell tief verankert.
Floyds konzeptioneller Geniestreich ist der „Ring“: der afrikanische Kreis aus Tanz, Trommel und Gesang als unzerstörbare kulturelle DNA. Dieser Ring überlebt Sklaverei, Plantage und Jim Crow und zieht sich durch Delta Blues, Bebop und Motown wie ein unerbittlicher Basslauf. Schwarze Musik erscheint hier nicht als Aneinanderreihung von Stilen, sondern als kontinuierlicher Erinnerungsraum, in dem Körper, Rhythmus und Geschichte untrennbar verschränkt sind.
Damit räumt Floyd endgültig mit der Legende vom bloß „nachgeahmten“ weißen Sound auf. Die Musik der afroamerikanischen Moderne ist kein Coverprojekt, sondern eine kulturelle Urgewalt, gespeist aus dem, was Floyd das „Gedächtnis von Omar“ nennt: ein kollektives Archiv afrikanischer Praktiken, das sich selbst unter brutalster Unterdrückung nicht auslöschen ließ.
Dieses Buch liest sich wie das intellektuelle Äquivalent eines Sidney-Bechet-Solos: virtuos, schmerzgesättigt, präzise – und so mitreißend, dass selbst die steifsten Musiktheoretiker unwillkürlich anfangen zu wippen. „The Power of Black Music“ ist eine Abrechnung mit dem Hochkultur-Dünkel und eine Erinnerung daran, dass der wahre Geist der Moderne nicht im Elfenbeinturm, sondern in der Synkope wohnt.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews