Traditional West African music displays intricate rhythmic and metric patterns through singing, dance, and instrumental music. Classical West African music neither separates music as a distinct art form of sound, nor rhythms as a distinct art form of time, as is common in the West and the Caribean. Conversely, the West distinguishes musical arts – percussion, orchestral, vocal – lyricism, and dance and merges them as one, both in title and performance. Similarly, music is ostensibly different dimensions – time and frequency, rhythmic, melody, and harmonic – remain audible parts of an undifferentiated totality, unidentified as such. The musical structure of west African music has a significant effect on shaping jazz music and Caribbean reggae and roots music.
In this assignment, the Sana Menga song by Antonio Zimba fully depicts the detailed traditional west African culture and its literary forms. In contrast, we will consider the International Herb song by Culture, and Norah jones’s song Don’t know why 11. Norah Jones – Don’t know why (live in Amsterdam) – YouTube. Both international herb and Don’t know why songs include most of the musical structure and instruments used by Antonio Zimba; hence they are the best fit. Some examples of the musical structures and instruments in both songs are drums, guitars, role performances, and varying rhythms. Therefore, the correlation between the performance of the songs is apparent as they originate from the same source: West Africa. The evident historical event that resulted in the Jazz and Reggae music evolution is slavery in the eighteenth century.
The dispersion of slaves in America and the Caribbean resulted in a collective brainstorming of ideas to develop music. Western African slaves contributed and integrated different musical instruments as they previously used in their motherlands. As a result, the musical instruments diversified. The technological advancements in America and the Caribbean resulted in better and more sophisticated instruments, which improved those used in West Africa. For instance, the Kora instrument used in West Africa, which resembled a harp, was replaced with a guitar. Additionally, the drum sets replaced the traditional West African drums.
Currently, the music performance by Africans in the diaspora has shifted from acoustic to electric instruments. Both the roots and jazz genre performers have abolished face painting initially used by West African performers. Although West African music is a defining aspect, the roots and jazz genres have significantly minimized stage dances. Another change in musical performance by Afro-Americans is the minimization of stage roles. For instance, in jazz, only one performer takes the stage to perform. The leading performer plays the most significant part in performing the song’s vocals in the roots genre, but a secondary backup group assists them.
American Jazz music primarily emphasizes performing previously recorded music by other artists in a new and vibrant performance. On the other hand, Western African music performance focuses on improvisations by incorporating subtle and explosive performance language that stresses immediate call and response, aiming to play a part as a foundation for profound human expression by the performers. The Roots genre significantly prefers performances involving large audiences, a phenomenon partially implemented by the Jazz performers. Alternatively, the West African performances are mainly performed only by the artists and their bands in studios. However, in some instances, the artists perform among large groups of people, like in concerts.
Western African music has a significant influence on the Caribbean and Afro-American music through similarities in their performances. However, Root and Jazz music genres have diversified and slightly evolved from the traditional West African performance and instruments. The traditional drum has been replaced by the modern drum set, losing the tone and musical rhythms. The slave trade and technological advancements pioneered the musical evolution among the Root and Jazz genres.
Work Cited
Frishkopf, Michael. “West African Polyrhythm: Culture, Theory, and Representation | SHS Web of Conferences.” Digital Object Identifier System, EDP Sciences, vol 102, 2021.