Dear HD,
This isn’t directly related to a specific event but is a general question I’d like to ask everyone.
For many years—decades, really—the Bread & Puppet Theater Band has been playing “Dark Town Strutters’ Ball” in parades and as one of the tunes in our preshow warm-up for the audience.
Last year in New York we had a major complaint from one member of the audience, saying the song was very racist. I googled the origins of the song and learned it was written by a Black and Native American man from Canada who later moved to the upper Midwest. I also learned that the Dark Town Strutters’ Ball was a real event that took place in Chicago for the more upper-class Black community there. I sent the woman in New York this info and more, and she wasn’t impressed.
I also asked our band members about this, and they told me that they were actually singing “Dork Town Strutters’ Ball” (which to me didn’t seem like any kind of an improvement).
So we kept on doing the song, and this year in New York we had the same “this is racist” reaction from a man in the audience.
Do any of you play “Dark Town Strutters’ Ball” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMHJ8PgVatk)? Do you have experiences or thoughts on this tune?
We’d appreciate hearing from you.
Linda Elbow
Bread & Puppet Theater Band
Glover, VT
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Hey HD,
Is anyone else trying full-fledged Dubstep (defintition at http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dubstep) for their marching band this season? The TriBattery Pops is recording in southern Manhattan our Suspicious Package CD with a lot of it. It seems to work well with Sousa and such.
Conductor Tom
The TriBattery Pops
Ground Zero, NYC: Proud Home of the New Mosque
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Comments? Questions? Please write Harmonic Dissidents editor: bill(at)harmonicdissidents.org
I played the tune in a funeral parade of a New Orleans native who had lived near my home in Sonoma, California. It was a pick-up band called together by the grieving family and this tune and “Saints” were the only numbers we all could play together.
It is perhaps sad but true that tunes can have symbolic value (think of “Dixie”), and that people do project their symbolic meanings on them. Get enough people projecting the same meaning on a tune and the meaning takes on an “objective” reality in the world.
Your band has as much right to project its own meaning on the tune as individual members of your audience. Once the meaning takes on an “objective” reality in a significant part of your audience you may need to reconsider. For now you just need to decide if the tune is worth saving because playing it gives you joy.
It’s interesting and horrifying to google “Darktown” and see how many horribly racist images come up. Currier & Ives did a whole series called the “Darktown” series and it is a challenge for museums to deal with this material, although it is part of the art historical record. I grew up as a white child listening to my grandmother play “Darktown Strutters Ball” on the piano with terrific zest. I also think that we learned the song in elementary school. To me it always spoke of the exotic, elegant and exciting urban nightlife. I always wished that I could go to the Darktown Strutters Ball! It sounded like fun.
As an adult, I do confess to cringing at anything that used the term “Darktown” although I do wonder if it means that we will never hear that lively tune performed in public again. Were these white people who were complaining?
The “Darktown Ball” was, in fact, a real event, but it did not start out as being for the higher classes. It was originated by the ladies of the evening in the Darktown area of Chicago. They decided to create the ball as their way of showing that, for at least 1 night per year, they were just as good as everyone else. It was by invitation only and, over time, became THE most sought after ticket. Even the Major of Chicago could not attend without an invitation.
The composer was Shelton Brooks, a black man who was celebrating the event and the fact that it had become such an important part of the city’s history.
Those who see racism in this song are those who have simply become conditioned to seek the most simple, childish explanation for the “supposed” motivation. I wouldn’t let any of these comments bother you. They come from simple, uneducated minds. I’ll bet the vast majority of the audience loves the song as audiences have loved it since 1917.
If these black students are willing to perform the song in a contemporary setting, then whites should just shut UP>
http://www.colum.edu/cbmr/events/keep-a-song.php