Honey & Juba Dance

Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) composed two pieces, Honey and Juba Dance, that intrigue me. Both are from a suite, “In the Bottoms,” published in Music of Africa and the African Diaspora (Oxford University Press) by William Chapman Nyaho, which also includes Florence Price’s Nimble Feet. The title, “Honey,” makes me think of my honey Steve, my sweet children and grandchildren, and that lovely golden liquid I love to put on my biscuits. When I play the opening phrase, I’m singing to myself “won’t you be my honey?” Whether my loved ones answer yes or no, some musical cajoling is necessary. In the minute and a half this piece takes, Dett indicates several different tempos and ends with my favorite, allegro con brio.

 

Dett, born in Ontario, Canada, was the first person of African descent to graduate from Oberlin College; he earned a double degree in piano and composition in 1908. At Oberlin he heard a quartet play music by Antonín Dvořák, a Czech composer who had recently toured the United States and incorporated elements of American music in his own work, including the New World Symphony. Dett wrote that

Suddenly it seemed I heard again the frail voice of my long departed grandmother calling across the years; and in a rush of emotion which stirred my spirit to its very center, the meaning of the songs which had given her soul such peace was revealed to me.

From then on, Dett composed music that used Negro folk idioms in a new way. He railed against ragtime-influenced minstrel shows, viewing them as a corruption of Negro folk music and a reinforcing of racial stereotypes. Dvořák’s challenge to American composers to use their own folk materials for the basis of musical creation found a wonderful answer in Nathaniel Dett’s music.

Months later, as I prepared to perform Honey on a program for Black History Month, I discovered that this piece was inspired by a poem of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906). This video excerpt, from the 1990 video “The Eyes of the Poet,” features Herbert Woodward Martin performing the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dr. Martin, University of Dayton professor emeritus, is an acclaimed scholar and interpreter of Dunbar’s works. Maya Angelou called Dunbar the first documented black “poet/rapper.”

Juba Dance, is a great piece with a melody harmonized in fourths. Fellow Musicians: is this a true example of Quartal harmony? I’m still learning it; here it is played with utmost assurance by Leon Bates, whom I once heard in a live concert.

Juba is an African city, the capital of South Sudan. Juba is also a clapping song I learned in a Kodaly workshop and tried to teach to kids. The words to the song tell the slaves’ status in a plantation:

You sift-a the meal, you give me the husk

You cook-a the bread, you give me the crust.

You fry the meat, you give me the skin

And that’s where my mama’s trouble begin.

Here Sule Greg Wilson presents Juba as a ritual for relieving stress–just what we all need!