Friday, January 17, 2020

Cool Stuff from Black America and South America

The past week has been quite informative. We got to learn about the blues and music from Ecuador. Now I get to find some cool and interesting things from South America and Black African music. I started with a huge area of South America and found dances from both Venezuela and Uruguay.

In Uruguay, there is a heavy tango tradition. However, the most typical dance in Uruguay is candombe, which has tango origins. Normally the music is melancholic and depressing. This is because it was brought over by African slaves. The sad music was a way to relieve their homesickness. Nowadays it is time to dance and have some fun like the people in the video below.


The second dance I found, from Venezuela, is joropo. Much like how candombe is from tango, joropo gets its start from flamenco. It is used as a way for farmers to celebrate their life and have fun. The most popular joropo song, Alma Llanera, is also regarded as Venezuela's second national anthem.


Switching gears here and going to Black America, I decided to look more in jazz. We studied the blues and talked a tad about jazz but I wanted to know more. Like we discussed in class jazz is more focused on improvisation and dynamics than blues. Much more than that jazz is the jelly (or jam if you prefer) and blues are peanut butter. I know that's a weird metaphor but bear with me.

Blues were originally very sad, homophonic music. Now while it has livened up over the years it still holds al lot of its roots from the very first blues song. And you can tell it's blues just like you can tell that peanut butter is peanut butter. Blues are also in everything just like how peanut butter can go with anything... mostly. But jazz surprises ya. It's smooth while full of flavor and comes in all kinds; apricot, strawberry, grape, you name it.

Yeah, that's the best I got for jazz. Enjoy this live video!

12 comments:

  1. I was surprised to learn that the blues is in every genre of music. I thought it was its own genre.

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    1. It is it's own genre but it has influenced other genres.

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  2. I was also really interested in the different dances of South America. It is cool that the tango was brought over by slaves and has evolved into a great world dance.

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  3. I have never heard of Joropo or the Candombe so I am glad you included that.The metaphor about jelly and peanut butter makes sense and I have never thought about the blues and the jazz that way.

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  4. I loved the first two dances! It reminds me of the dance playlist I have for when I need my brain stimulated to do work! I'd love to go to Uruguay and Venezuela and experience the dances there! I also love the Jazz that you included! Jazz always makes me feel calm and that was a nice ending to the blog!
    -Katie Edge

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  5. Hi Hayley!
    I love metaphors so I very much appreciated your peanut butter and jelly one! It did make sense to me. The dances were so neat. I enjoyed watching both videos! :)

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  6. It was very interesting to read your blog about the dance and music traditions, especially in Uruguay and Venezuela. I had never come across neither of the two traditional dances but through your blog I had an opportunity to know about their culture and build my knowledge.

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  7. It was very interesting to learn that candombe music was originally melancholic because of its origin but is now used to dance and have fun.
    Tanjae H.

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  8. I remeber talking about the tango coming from Argentina and Uruguay is right near it so their is probably going to be some connection there. That was a very fun video to watch loved the music even tho it was is suppose tot be a sad song.

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  9. Learning that the candombe was originally sad because of its roots in slavery but is now used for fun was very cool to learn. It's inspiring to know that something built from sadness is now used positively. And I absolutely love jazz music and the song you included was very pleasing to the ears!

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  10. I’ve never heard of the dances that you mentioned above, so thank you for expanding my knowledge about them. On the topic of blues, at first, I had a hard time understanding your analogy but I thought about it a bit more and it makes sense. If you really start to think about it, jazz is way more complex than what we think.

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  11. Yes, blues and jazz and even some rock can be tricky to distinguish from each other--they twist around and influence each other and had similar origins. It's fun that you've posted the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. They're one of the big groups in New Orleans, and their travel manager is a Converse Alumna!

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