From Buster Keaton to the King of Harlem: Musical Ideologies in Lorca's "Poeta en Nueva York" Author(s): Carol A.

Hess Source: Anales de la literatura espaola contempornea, Vol. 33, No. 2, El Teatro de Federico Garca Lorca en la Construccon de la Identidad Colectiva Espaola (2008), pp. 329-346 Published by: Society of Spanish & Spanish-American Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27742556 . Accessed: 03/01/2014 17:34
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FROM BUSTER KEATON TO THE KING OF HARLEM: IN LORCA'S MUSICAL IDEOLOGIES POETA EN NUEVA YORK
CAROL A. HESS
Michigan State University

El paseo de Buster Keaton of 1925, with its discontinuity and elements of surrealism, has been said to embody Lorca's rejection of rationality and realist theater (Vilches de Frutos 40). Similarly, Poeta en Nueva York, the fruit of Lorca's stay in the great metropolis during 1929-30, has been tagged as surrealist 157), with at least one critic noting (MacKinlay connections between the "sequences of images" in the poems and the Bu?uel-influenced screenplay El viaje a la luna, also a New York project (Morris 134). Another point in common between Buster Keaton and Poeta enNueva York is that each

involves a black man. In the former, he appears briefly on stage and eats his straw hat; in the latter, the "King of a janitor's uniform and wields a spoon to wears Harlem" our interpretive faculties; indeed images challenge Poeta en Nueva York as a whole has been tagged not only as one of Lorca's "most enigmatic and challenging" works (Del Rio and "well-nigh uninterpretable" ix) but as "opaque" Both (McKinlay 163, 167). One potential interpretive has noted tool, however, is music. C.B. that the straw hat in Buster Keaton evokes a musical rife with stereo racial show, genre 111/329
scoop out crocodiles' eyes or beat on monkeys' rear ends.

Morris

the minstrel

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typing. For Morris, this reference to "physical and to spiritual debasement" links the man with the straw hat to the King of who in turn embodies Lorca's for Harlem, empathy African-Americans Several scholars have 135). (Morris commented on this empathy, which is also seen as related to Lorca's "hating the abstract, the formal, the regulated; and as the spontaneous, the sensual" loving the natural, sur it is not surprising that music (Predmore 38). Perhaps en Nueva of Poeta faces so frequently in discussions York
since these very

often considered music, open-ended, subjective, and lacking in interpretive specificity. the Accordingly, much aesthetic discourse grants to music capacity to stand in as an ineffable Other in relation to more concrete realities, a topic amply treated in aesthetics and widely associated music criticism (Flinn 6-7). Yet although many critics have tures in Poeta en Nueva York, there of specific musical genres or of their leaves us with a fascinating lacuna. musical structures in the poems, detected musical struc is little discussion either ideological content. This

ity- are

qualities

-naturalness,

with

spontaneity,

sensual

Rather than try to hear this essay explores that on African-Americans lacuna, musical-ideological centering status as the "music of views on black music, black music's the oppressed," and the primitivist discourse frequently em on ployed by both critics of black music and commentators the New York poems. For as Morris observes, in Poeta en Nueva York "things are not what they appear to be ... people are not what their uniform makes them seem" (Morris 134). As it turns out, the musical elements in Poeta enNueva York are not "what they seem" either; in fact, exploring their ideo rather than clarifies the already logical status complicates difficult poems. Yet the questions thus raised enhance our in which Lorca penned of the environment understanding
these can enigmatic us prompt music verses. to Further, anew a sense not of musical only Poeta context en Nueva appreciate

York but the rich ambivalence

hear in Lorca.

that confronts us whenever

we

The influence ofmusic on Lorca's works and life has been noted so frequently that only a representative sample of

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CAROL A. HESS is necessary here. poetic-musical commentary con Belisa identified Amor de Don Perlimplin an "operita," as he did for Lola la comedianta, de Falla collaboration with Manuel (Ucelay

113 I 331 Lorca himself en su jard?n as his unfinished

207).l Virginia has noted the centrality of popular songs in Higginbotham the dramatic structure of Bodas de sangre, Yerma, and Do?a Rosita la soltera (Higginbotham into musical 779). Venturing terminology -with all the risks this entails-, John Crow finds inDo?a Rosita, the "musical skeleton of statement, contrast, and re-statement of the given theme"; additionally, Crow notes that "variations are afforded by the language of flowers which play up and down the scales of Rosita's emotions like unseen fingers on the harp" (Crow 91). More concretely, de sangre, linking por Christopher Maurer explores Bodas tions of its text and structure to Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata no. 140, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" (Maurer 94). Mapping musical genres onto Lorca's language also sur faces in discussions of his poetry. The Poema del cante jondo, for example, is said to draw on the siguiriya, the sole?, and

the petenera, all musical forms (Gibson 110).2 Along related critics note Lorca's skill as a pianist, his lines, invariably with the classical familiarity piano repertory, and his devotion to cante jondo and traditional Spanish songs, several of which he arranged if conventional harmoni in pleasing his stature as a modernist zations. Despite author, his tastes seem fairly traditional, privileging Bach and musical Mozart,
works

two icons of the Western

balance, formal

musical

canon
a

in whose
of tran

musical

in New York), activities aesthetic the (analyzing in itself musical and poetry terms), ideological (interpreting the poems in light of the social implications of the music to which Lorca felt drawn).3 Before delving into the third -the
substantivewe can summarize the other two. Lorca's

scendent beauty are widely recognized. In the criticism of Poeta en Nueva York we find three kinds of references to music: biographical (detailing Lorca's

intellect,

clarity,

and

sense

most

musical tances

activity in New York was multi-faceted. By playing the piano and singing Spanish songs for his new acquain in America he did not have to depend on English;

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114/332 indeed,

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that Lorca's Gibson abilities "musical suggests were success all the in doors to his and opened principal key New York" served as Director of the (Gibson 253). Lorca in the United Mixed Choirs of the Instituto de las Espa?as States, rehearsing and then directing a concert of Spanish songs in summer 1929 by that student group; later, he parti cipated in the ensemble (Eisenberg 237, 241; de On?s 324). In learned by heart various Negro addition, it seems that Lorca Rio (del xxxii), spirituals although we have to wonder how the in which black dialect this repertory is often performed sounded in Lorca's voice given that even after months in the still pronounced "with Spanish phonetics the few was he use" to words forced Rio (del xvii). [English] As a listener, Lorca evidently absorbed a variety of musi cal styles. Crow refers to his "fascination for negro jazz which to in the late "often him led Harlem dives orchestras," hours of the night where he would listen to the music with veritable (Crow 3).4 One such jazz club was Ed rapture" Small's Paradise, to which Lorca later referred in a lecture on Poeta en Nueva York (Lorca 351). This expensive establish as known the "Hottest Spot in Harlem," featured live ment, music and floor shows and had a dance floor so small that patrons were said to be entitled to a dime's worth of space each ac (http://www.nyupress.org/bigonion/tour03.html cessed 3 June 2007>). Lorca also appears to have heard black States he

musicals

in at least three Harlem theaters: the Lafayette, the the Alhambra and (Gibson 278). We are unsure of Lincoln, his opinion of the Protestant hymns he undoubtedly heard as part of a church service in which, as he reported to his parents, every "everything human, everything consoling, [was] suppressed" (Gibson 254).5 Given thing beautiful Lorca's love for Bach, it is unlikely that the view expressed to his parents that "the word Protestant is a synonym for abso

(Gibson 254) extended to the cantor of Leipzig; the chorales that appear in nearly every Lutheran moreover, one of Bach's cantatas are similar in structure and melodic or Lowell Mason, content to many a hymn by John Wesley which Lorca might well have experienced in a Protestant
service.

lute idiot"

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CAROL A. HESS As for ways poems, in which Lorca's

115 1333

actual

sounds and rhythms "define the fundamental whose on of space and time" (Higginbotham 784). Drawing of she describes Lorca's New York's Barthes, absorption guage sense
sounds as an act of "decoding," of reacting to and under

in the emerges musicality dealt with rhythm and sound color, ordinary dimensions of poetic language but considered en Nueva in Lorca. In Poeta York, for especially marked sees music as a metaphorical lan example, Higginbotham scholars have

evoked"

779), implicit standing his new environment (Higginbotham that such "decoding" to involved references ly arguing musical "cultivated" genres that contrast with the abject cries of pain elsewhere in the poems. Among the "genres she finds the "rondo, nocturne, and ode, waltz, seem less per intermezzo (Interludio)."6 Others, however, suaded by such strategies. McKinlay, for example, notes that
"Vals en las ramas" contains "recurring enumera

although

in threes throughout, suggesting the timing of waltz is in there "little else the music," poem [that] has such a definite connection" In short, while aware 163). (McKinlay tion
ness of musical genres and forms can

enhance our understanding of the poems, it is subliminally hard to be convinced that Lorca's references to them are more than suggestive -however powerful the suggestion may be- rather than structurally integral to the poems. An as the in "Ciudad is found sin sue?o nocturne, example (Nocturno del Brooklyn Bridge)." The wide-ranging expres sive potential of this genre, both in form and character,
evident when we compare two of Chopin's essays:

challenge

our

ear

and

becomes

the graceful Nocturne in A-flat Major, op. 32, no. 2, best in its and orchestrated known, perhaps, choreographed in Les Sylphides, and the stormy Nocturne incarnation in C
minor, op. 48, no. 1, nicknamed "The Prisoner." Given that

the

idea of "nocturne" applies to such a variety of poetic sounds, structures, and attitudes, it is difficult to hear its
in a musically explicit way even as we ourselves seek

presence

to "decode" the New York poems. to popular genres, especially African-American References are more ones, frequent in the literature on Poeta en Nueva

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116/334 York. Lorca

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Ian Gibson notes that Fernando de los R?os, with whom found a kinship between cante traveled to America, he discussed with Lorca which "Black and music," jondo Stone the of (Gibson 247). Likewise, equates depth flamenco's "?Ay!" with the spirit of the blues and suggests that in New York, "Lorca would realize that the Gypsy cante was just one of many 'dialects' pertaining to a universal lan ... the Blues and the of [others being] guage spiri oppressed takes a similar tuals of the Blacks" (Stone 498); Enguidanos such comparisons. tack (Enguidanos 1). Lorca himself made a party at which his for he attended in stay, example, Early he was the only white and at which "a boy sang religious

of Ralph Ellison's the nameless protagonist anticipated Invisible Man, who, upon hearing a spiritual, finds it "as full as flamenco." ofWeltschmerz As we have seen, Lorca encountered at least four genres of in New York: blues, jazz, spirituals, and black black music musicals. We may never know exactly what music he enjoyed or what spirituals, if any, he learned at Ed Small's Paradise by heart. Yet this uncertainty brings us to the first of our ideological considerations. Although each of these four genres was associated with the African-American there underclass, was little agreement among African-Americans themselves on how black music was to be defined and what its priorities should be. This lack of consensus can be seen in an anecdote

songs [spirituals]" and "the Blacks sang and danced" (Gibson 255). Shortly afterwards, he wrote his family, exclaiming de cantos! S?lo se puede comparar con "?Pero que maravilla ellos el cante jondo" (Gibson 255). Here, Lorca unwittingly

in 1926. Among related other things, Langston Hughes refers to Clara Smith, a popular singer, and to the Hughes practice of "shouting," one of gospel music's more exuberant
elements:

in Philadelphia clubwoman prominent Negro paid to eleven dollars hear Raquel Meiler sing Andalusian popular songs. But she told [Hughes] a few weeks be fore she would not think of going to hear "that woman," Smith, a great black artist, sing Negro folksongs.

Clara

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CAROL A. HESS
And many an upper-class Negro church,

117 I 335
even now,

would

not dream of employing a spiritual in its services. melodies in white folks' hymnbooks are much drab The to be preferred. "We want to worship the Lord correctly in "shouting." Let's be and quietly. We don't believe dull, like the Nordics," they say, in effect. (Walser 56)

important point is that "upper-class Negroes" encouraged their brethren to assimilate even before the Lord, an attitude clubwoman was no Hughes despised. Yet the Philadelphia isolated case. African-American journalist Dave Peyton scold ed his readers on the pitfalls posed by jazz (which he some

in some circles, Andalusian Evidently popular music was not equated with black music; in addition, Hughes's attack on the "quiet and correct" church service exactly parallels Lorca's impressions of white Protestant worship. The more

times found "mushy" and "discordant") in his weekly column for the Chicago Defender "The Music Bunch." In a piece from 1928, he decried the "crude" style of many African-American while praising "the famous white orchestras jazz musicians with their smoothness of playing, their unique attacks, their of the score and other things that ... novelty arrangement make for fine music," that "we wonder why commenting most of our own orchestras will fail to deliver music as the Nordic brothers do" (Walser 58-59).7 Clearly Peyton is equat ing -in anything but flattering terms- the much vaunted spontaneity of African-American jazz musicians with laziness and lack of technical proficiency rather than with innate
genius. Other, more measured, views of black music arose from

lated, that at moral because

the title of a 1925 essay Negro," Alain Locke. Locke envisioned the enter mainstream American society lay ahead. One such obstacle was

the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. That artistic and in of the 1920s, still viable during Lorca's tellectual movement stay (Floyd 24), was dominated by the image of the "New

least one genre of black music, jazz, was im it prompted sexual licentiousness. "Does Jazz

collection by philosopher "New Negro" as ready to despite the obstacles that the notion, widely circu

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was the title of a particularly in Syncopation?" essay on the topic (Walser 32-36). Accordingly, energetic in the Harlem of the leading figures Renaissance many considered jazz, along with other types of black popular music, a "lower form" of expression (Floyd 4-5).

sort of music did they prefer? In general, the What musical authorities of the Harlem Renaissance felt that ver nacular African-American could aspire to the forms music canon. Maud and genres of the European for Cuney Hare, the music of "the illiterate, the un attacked example, ... the output of while praising "Art Music sophisticated" creative works, composed according of beauty, give aesthetic enjoyment to the cultured" 179-80).8 Rising to meet this (Cuney Hare R. composers Nathaniel challenge were African-American Grant Still, to Dett, James Weldon Johnson, and William name just a few. Still, for example, drew on the European in his chamber music and his five tradition, most noticeably symphonies. Yet these works often referred to black music. For trained musicians whose to an accepted standard

of which in 1915 relied on a real flamenco singer, at the same time that both Still's and Pastora Yet Imperio. Falla's works could be seen as "elevated" musical expressions of an underclass, both are complicated by musical reality. More than half the music in El amor brujo has little to do with genuine flamenco sources (Hess 81) and in the case of Still's scherzo, many saw the banjo as demeaning, drawing as it does on the tradition of blackface minstrelsy (Bakan 91). As miere musicologist but related would later assert in a different does and does not count as context, on collective opinion" (Dahlhaus [identity] depends primarily 87-88). At the same time, some Harlem Renaissance figures the notion that black music should challenged aspire to Euro Carl Dahlhaus "what

in the third movement of his "Afro-American example, of 1930 to the Euro (titled scherzo, Symphony" according pean symphonic tradition), Still used a banjo, an instrument associated (Linn 441-42; largely with African-Americans Parsons Smith is comparable to 114-51). This approach use of cante jondo Falla's in El amor brujo, the Madrid pre

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CAROL A. HESS
pean norms. Author Zora Neale Thurston, for example,

119 1337
criti

and performers for "taking composers 'good Negro it into 'mediocre white sounds'" music' and making (Bakan 35). Locke, who had no especially warm feelings toward jazz, took a middle ground. In his book The Negro and His Music, cized Locke

and the Vaudeville (Bakan 31). Even dance-halls, stage" while evoking the specter of slavery, Locke remains optimis with musicians "[African-American] tic, however. Although formal training are cut off from the people and the vital roots mers
of folk music," some African-American composers and perfor

did not necessarily disqualify jazz, blues, or other forms of "Negro music." Rather, he objected to the commer cialism that he felt "tarnished" them, feeling keenly the fate . of black musicians who "know the folk-ways of Negro music . . [but] are in commercial slavery to the of Tin [!] Shylocks to the ready cash of our Pan Alley, in artistic bondage

had nonetheless "learned to openly study and admire the folk music sources of what ismost original and promising inNegro music" (Bakan 31). To sum up thus far: while many whites may have viewed black musical genres as "symbols of freedom from restraint for which the white intellectual longed . . . ardently" (Floyd themselves disagreed on what music 4), African-Americans best represented them. Thus, the idea that the music Lorca heard (and may have evoked directly in the New York poems) was viewed unequivocally by the black community as the voice of the "oppressed" should be approached with caution. Our second ideological consideration relates to the com of African-American mercialization music that Locke notes. Since Mamie Smith's 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues," African-Americans had brisk

recorded and purchased blues music sales of which reflected the strong 40-41), (Dougan sense of identity many African-Americans felt with this music. Yet after the onset of the Great Depression, the re cording industry changed, and the communist party, viable in the U.S. since 1919, surged in importance, especially in Harlem (Naison 115-65). These economic and political up heavals affected music. After several intellectual skirmishes over "proletarian music," that is, music that could speak to

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idiom (Seeger workers with a sophisticated downtrodden 121-27), a more accessible musical language eventually won to simplify This out among white composers. tendency musical language coincided with efforts by the United States to restyle itself terms of a home Communist Party (USCP) a for example, "American" Gold, grown, profile. Mike

and columnist for the Daily Worker, attacked "aestheticism" or Stravinsky as a condemned the "use of Arnold Schoenberg (Zuck 137). [for musical criticism]" as "utopian" yardstick the Nor did Gold note any particular distinction between in the "working-class roles of folk and commercial music now of Americans "What songs do the masses revolution." sing?" he

Joe' and the "They sing 'Old Black queried. "this is concocted Tin Pan Alley," adding things by semi-jazz art had to convey "American" the reality." If proletarian now in white composers values, inspiration sought which had folk many music, previously Anglo-American disdained.9 A related phenomenon occurred in the African-American In Gold could write that "the musical 1930, community. than a Harlem Cabaret no more represents the Negro Mass represents a Jew, or an opium den the struggling pawnshop Chinese nation" (Bakan 90). But just a few years later, party leaders were being instructed to defend Negro culture against in part, by listening to the re the "white ruling class," of Billie Duke Holiday, Ellington, and W.C. Handy cordings (Bakan 81). In addition, a new genre -swing- was being ac

claimed as the voice of the oppressed. The term "swing" could be used interchangeably with jazz -black music- and the bur industry was quick to take it up geoning popular music leave our understanding of upheavals did black music and did he admire identify Obviously, it -along with himself- with the oppressed. Yet it is reason status as the voice of op able to propose that this music's these (Bakan 5). do Where

Lorca?

of increasingly Ameri pressed came about in part because canist sentiments the Whatever "au Depression. during or in music the itself (music that, as thenticity" "sincerity"
we have seen, was criticized by some African-American lead

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CAROL A. HESS ers) was

121 I 339

aiding and only part of the picture. Paradoxically, was commercialism the in status this shift very abetting that Lorca so passionately decried.10 -"?Ay, Wall Street!"Our third ideological consideration regarding black music marked Harlem

these supposedly others, mainly whites, viewed primitive traits favorably, much the way literary scholars have praised
Lorca's depiction of "natural," "spontaneous," or "sensual"

for primitivist discourse, is the critical penchant especially in jazz criticism. As noted, some leaders of the form. Yet found jazz a "lower" musical Renaissance

As Ted Gioia has argued, much of this African-Americans. in France, where interest in discourse originated primitivist ever was bandleader African-American the since strong jazz James Reese toured France
were

War,

playing jazz-inflected
composers

numbers
also

in the final months of the Great to great acclaim. Several

drawing on black music, such

as Stravinsky in Ragtime for Eleven Instruments and Darius the latter inspired by a in La Cr?ation du monde, Milhaud in 1922. France, of course, was also a center visit to Harlem for primitivism in the visual arts, as can be seen in Picasso's interest inAfrican masks, along with many other examples. Gioia notes that the first major studies of jazz were by two and a and Charles Delaunay) Frenchmen (Hugues Panassie Belgian virtues

European

(Robert Goffin). Their writings, which focus on the into of primitive culture, were promptly translated man that for "primitive example, proposes English. Panassie, generally has greater talent than civilized man. An excess of culture atrophies inspiration, and men crammed with culture tend to ... replace inspiration by lush technique under which

one finds music stripped of real vitality" (Gioia 137). Goffin, also a champion of the primitive, more directly considers the to abilities question of race, attributing Louis Armstrong's the the fact that he is "a full-blooded Negro [who] brought directness and spontaneity of his race to jazz music"; Goffin in a few that while adds "Armstrong's gift is present name who he could "no white musician is able to Negroes," own to create his atmosphere, and to whip forget himself, himself up into a state of almost complete frenzy" (Gioia 137). As Gioia comments, these statements are "one of the

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earliest formulations of a stereotype which has lingered until the present day -a stereotype which views jazz as a music charged with emotion, but largely devoid of intellectual con as the inarticulate and tent, and which sees the jazz musician an art which he himself of practitioner unsophisticated

(Gioia 137-38). scarcely understands" these comments to a remark of Leon Bloy, Compare quoted by Angel del Rio apropos Poeta enNueva York, name is the ly, that "the unquestionable sign of every poet the disturbing faculty of uttering prophetic unconsciousness, to all men and at all times strange words, whose meaning he himself does not understand" (del Rio xxix). Along similar Predmore observes that for Lorca, lines, Richard poetry
"went beyond reason, consciousness, and social convention"

like the evocations of Armstrong 10). And, much "whipping himself into a frenzy" just cited, Ben Belitt de of [flamenco] . . . the frenzy, the scribes the "spontaneities shudder, the paroxysm" and asserts that Poeta enNueva York (Belitt xlv). goes even deeper than gitanismo" Yet as critics exalt the primitive elements -the spon (Predmore

"comes out" all everything miraculously -licksoften many hours right. Rather, they practice patterns a day so that in the heat of battle, when the improvisation is on there will resources full be of to which tilt, going plenty draw. Also complicating the image of the unschooled jazz primitive is the fact that even in Panassie's time, many jazz were well acquaint musicians, including African-Americans, ed with the European musical tradition. These included Scott Earl Hines, Fletcher Henderson, Fats Joplin, Lil Hardin, and Art as saxo Tatum such (Horn 237-57). Some, Waller, studied music in college (Gioia phonist Coleman Hawkins, a had in 140). (Henderson degree chemistry but worked as a because racial song-plugger prejudice barred him from the An anecdote in jazz circles concerns sciences.) oft-repeated

in Poeta enNueva York and relate them taneous, the naturalto black music, any parallel between such elements and the actual practices of jazz musicians does not hold up. Jazz is filled with cues and patterns that are often quite complex. do not simply play, reveling in some flow of Jazz musicians sound in which

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CAROL A. HESS the notion illiterate

123 ?341

that African-American jazz players were musically In fact, many could read music (Prouty 317-34). the melodic perfectly well: they would, however, memorize outlines so as to play without the score before the public, who
craved

lot. The idea, therefore, that black music is a fairly disciplined utterance unmediated primitive by intellectual rigor or at best and an unfortunate is misleading musical discipline
stereotype at worst.11

"spontaneity."

In

short,

these

noble

savages

were

suggested, including actual jazz Yet be problematic. While some consider the "king" motif to reflect nostalgia for a primitive Africa in over their destinies control which blacks had greater or the 780), Chorrojumo, (Higginbotham king of the gypsies (Gibson 256), "kings" were also common in U.S. jazz circles. one of several white "rulers" of Clarinetist Benny Goodman, was commercial known as "the King of Swing." jazz's empire, was not only "the Man who Made a Lady out Paul Whiteman of Jazz" but the "King of Jazz"; his indeed, in dedicating 1931 book of Jazz"

Let us return to the King ofHarlem. structures in Lorca hearing musical in this particular poem, may patterns allusions to jazz are by no means absent.

As I have

to Louis Armstrong, Goffin declared him "the real (Gioia, 136). The presence of Count Basie and King Duke Ellington has also prompted jokes about noble titles, an lives so many especially grim irony given the hardscrabble The King lived, especially African-Americans. jazz musicians in of Harlem, his embodies Afri suit, trapped janitor's
can-Americans' pain. Is his spoon, the only accessory Lorca

offers him, a scepter, as some suggest? Is it a weapon with which to flail helplessly against the forces of materialism? Or is it a percussion instrument with which to beat a relentless of which his "subjects" dispute? While rhythm, the meaning Poeta en Nueva York emphasizes the collective plight of Afri can- Americans, the King of Harlem is an individual, who stands out

in relief from the faceless multitudes and the of industrialization and materialism. unforgiving landscape The paradox is that by presenting him as such, Lorca a of African-American life suggests unitary representation
that, as we have seen, was by no means precise, even in rela

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124/342 tion to music. Like

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in El paseo de the symbol of minstrelsy straw the hat, the Keaton, indigestible presumably can it be "what seems." of Harlem's spoon hardly King A final paradoxical note: neither was minstrelsy "what it were rarely seemed." At least in its early days, minstrels Buster blacks but whites who cork, participating, illusion and ritual that embodied arena of the theater.12 A coherent concept of "black music" in en Nueva Poeta York remains similarly obscured. Yet the ideologies implicit in both it and El paseo conflicting musical de Buster Keaton enhance our understanding of these works -and the criticism they have invite interpretation. generatedand continue to "blacked along with up" their faces with burnt their public, in a play of racial tensions in the "safe"

NOTES 1. Collaborations with Falla that did see the light include not only the cante jondo contest of 1922 but the theatrical production of Epiphany (6 January) 1923, enhanced with music ranging from the seventeenth century to Stravinsky, all performed with decidedly
modernist 2. As mero seems common the final -if not downright such mapping noted, as romancero gitano forced, with instrumentation (Hess 132). parodiecan be problematic. the Pri Classifying a rondo (Garc?a-Posada 25), for example, the poem's structure little has in repeat rondo Symphony Sonata are in form, such as that found no. 88, or the in G Major in C Minor, op. 13 (the

that given that of traditional of Haydn's of Beethoven's other

last movement movement

"Path?tique"). 3. Certainly en Nueva

many For

factors Stone

treated emphasizes

in discussions Lorca's

of Poeta fragile emo

York.

tional state when he arrived in New York in June of 1929 and the psychological challenges of reconstructing his troubled identity there (Stone 493-96) while Paul Binding proposes that Poeta en
Nueva sexual 4. As stay Crow York "presents us with 18). out, Crow's pointed taken with caution. deeply" drums" by (Crow account Here, "the of Lorca's for example, slides of the wonders a vision of America from a homo standpoint" (Binding have several scholars in New refers and York must be to Lorca the beats

example,

trombone

"stirred being of the kettle

3). One

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CAROL A. HESS
what less sort of jazz in a Harlem del Rio, because hymns" son Cuban in "Poema combo "dive." Crow he (Crow of the insists imagined 3-4). would

125
include that kettle Lora the drums not (timpani), learn

1343
much

5. Unlike "probably Protestant 6. The than from indicate "with on his forms concerto

he did

usual

monotonous

spirituals kind of rather double choir to

last poem

is identified herself

cultivated the musical multiple two voices, former involve whose Who Made

genre.

Higginbotham del lago Eden," which doble concerto form of the double of equal

as a popular "evokes" the she or finds double

"borrows

so that the poet speaks importance" one from his past and the other as a commentary self musical 782). Of course, many (Higginbotham voices voices of equal importance."

7. Peyton might well be thinking here of bandleader Paul White

man, Man use smooth him earned the moniker "The arrangements a Lady out of Jazz." in on what she considers also weighs the excessive

"multiple

Hare 8. Cuney of syncopation taste 9. Examples

musical

Siegmeister, commercial on various 10. Even

in ragtime, she "the which, claims, through of the youth was being 133). poisoned" (Cuney Hare Aaron include Elie Thomson, Virgil Copland, and other both of art and composers, Cowell, Henry who used either was during folk melodies, this time. in folk style, the name or drew of "the

music,

of Americana aspects as commercialism black musicians were

occurring

people," menon ture. Condon. 11.

acknowledged widely for example, the See,

constantly being in both scholarship 2006 movie Dreamgirls, just described,

a pheno exploited, and popular cul directed Lorca's by Bill in less

In addition If France Salazar sin was refrain

jazz put him at odds with Spain's

Salazar. embraced friendly. complained a mano" se encontraron cacofon?a distaste represent, Salazar ni gracia the culture as we from

to the paradoxes

interest was

leading critic, his friend Adolfo

arms, Spain instrumentos it as he "una ruidosos inmunda Salazar's to jazz Nor did

open jazz with of "toda clase de in jazz, qualifying

que

inter?s" have

(Palacios was

210).

of commercialism seen, cultural held e

Feeding considered

which,

far from monolithic. limitations

to other in jazz to "la Bolsa de U.S. was "una una

the ascribing of American aspects la M?sica," Salazar las m?s necias

musical

he perceived life. Referring sharply in the that music criticism

insolentes de la profesi?n, y de a su comercialismo" s?lo equivalente (Palacios 209). ignorancia 12. In the latter part of the nineteenth blacks century, participated as in minstrelsy its subject matter to broadened (as did women)

de

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1261 344 ALEC

satirize suffrage. more aspects of contemporary life, among

33.2 (2008)
women's

them

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