From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta
How West African Standards of Aesthetics Shaped the Music of the Delta Blues
By: Pascal Bokar Thiam, Ed.D.
Published: August 18, 2010
Format: Paperback, 178 pages
ISBN-10: 1609278615
ISBN-13: 978-1609278618
Publisher: Cognella
"Jazz in its inspirations and its blues, in its despair and its hopes embodies through creative rhythmic intuition the African forms of expression and the cultural standards of aesthetics of the African continent exacerbated by the poignantly violent and bloody socio-cultural experience of Africans and African Americans with American slavery, lynching, Jim Crow laws of segregation, economic, political, and academic oppression in the United States, writes University of San Francisco, Performing Arts Adjunct Professor Pascal Bokar Thiam, Ed.D., in his compelling and brilliant book From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta: How West African Standards of Aesthetics Shaped the Music of the Delta Blues. The author describes how not only the jazz and blues musical roots, but the basic standards of aesthetics themselves of of rhythm and dance, are direct descendents of the those still found today in West Africa.
Pascal Bokar Thiam presents an overwhelming case, that despite Americans having a majority of population of European origin, the texture of popular music, vocal tonalities, bent pitches, and blue notes of Africa form the crucial identity of American music. The author describes how popular dance rhythms, from the nineteenth century to today, have much more in common with the cultural aspects of Western Africa than with those of the salons of Europe. For Pascal Bokar Thiam, the harmonics and tonalities of the banjo, the oldest African musical instrument, provide more of a basis for American music and dance, than do the Baroque, Classical and Romantic tones of Europe. The author offers powerful evidence that American popular music and dance is West African, rather than European in its aesthetics, its rhythms, and its very basic musical notes and formations.
Pascal Bokar Thiam, Ed.D. (photo left) points out that combined with the often tragic and heartbreaking experiences of Africans and African Americans in the United States, the very essence of the Jazz aesthetic that emerged from West Africa, has become the global symbol of artistic freedom. The author begins his musical journey with an examination of the culture of West Africa, and on the Niger River, the cultural highway for ideas in the region. Pascal Bokar Thiam provides an in depth description of the important empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, and their tremendous impact on both culture and civilization. The author shows how the movement of trade brought along the aesthetics and musical traditions in their wake. Pascal Bokar Thiam describes how these ideas, sounds, and rhythms took root in the great cities of West Africa over the centuries. Pascal Bokar Thiam also presents some very critical research into African cultural elements expressed through the arts:
* Rhythmic intuition
* Significance of clapping on the second and fourth beat
( The oral tradition of musical transmission
* West African visual arts
* Musical role in West African society
* The music of West Africa and the caste system
* Slavery and the Atlantic slave trade
* West African aesthetics as a means of survival and cultural identity
* The Mississippi Delta Blues
For me, the power of the book is how Pascal Bokar Thiam brings together the many threads that form the musical heritage America, from its West African origins, through the jazz and blues of the Mississippi, to the dance floors of today. The author combines the elements of history, culture, and music across continents and centuries, arriving at the insight that American popular music owes a powerful debt to the people of West Africa. The journey of the people of West Africa, through the tragic ordeal of slavery and discrimination, formed the crucible through which modern American music in all of its variations was formed. From the rhythms, to the notes and tonalities, to dance, the author presents American music as a West African cultural extension and practices.
I highly recommend the insightful and important book From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta: How West African Standards of Aesthetics Shaped the Music of the Delta Blues by Pascal Bokar Thiam, Ed.D., to anyone seeking a deeper and richer understanding of the trans-Atlantic crossing of West African music, and how an entire aesthetic culture and way of approaching the world survived and thrived despite the challenges faced in the new world. This is also a book about social justice, and how art forms provided a basis for freedom of speech and expression, despite an often oppressive and violent culture.
Read the fascinating and well researched book From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta: How West African Standards of Aesthetics Shaped the Music of the Delta Blues by Pascal Bokar Thiam, Ed.D., and discover how the culture and aesthetics of West Africa formed the foundation of modern American popular music, dance, and the arts. This book will change the way you look at the culture American performing arts forever.
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