Written by Jonathan Curiel
ylviane Diouf knows her audience might be skeptical, so to demonstrate the connection between Muslim traditions and American blues music, she’ll play two recordings: The athaan, the Muslim call to prayer that’s heard from minarets around the world, and “Levee Camp Holler,” an early type of blues song that first sprang up in the Mississippi Delta more than 100 years ago.
“Levee Camp Holler” is no ordinary song. It’s the product of ex-slaves who worked moving earth all day in post-Civil War America. The version that Diouf uses in presentations has lyrics that, like the call to prayer, speak about a glorious God. But it’s the song’s melody and note changes that closely resemble oneof Islam’s best-known refrains. Like the call to prayer, “Levee Camp Holler” emphasizes words that seem to quiver and shake in the reciter’s vocal chords. Dramatic changes in musical scales punctuate both “Levee Camp Holler” and the adhan. A nasal intonation is evident in both…
Danielian, who is Muslim, says non-Muslims find this connection hard to believe because they don’t know enough about Arabic or Muslim music. The call to prayer and other Muslim recitations that were practiced by American slaves had a musicality to them, just as these recitations still do, even if they aren’t thought of as music by westerners, Danielian says.
“In my congregation,” says Danielian, who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, “when we get together, especially when the shaykhs [leaders] come and there are hundredsof people and we do the litanies, they’re very musical. You hearwhat we as Americans would call soulfulness or blues. That’s definitely in there.”…
Blues music, with its strong tempos and many lyrical references to relationships, has been described as “the devil’s music” by those outside it. Many conservative Muslims think of blues music as decadent and indicative of permissive western morals. But people such as Diouf, Kubik and Moustafa Bayoumi, an associate professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, who has researched Muslim culture’s connection to American music, are trying to correct the public record. Bayoumi wrote a paper several years ago that examined African Muslim history in the United States. In it, he argues that John Coltrane’s best-known album, “A Love Supreme,” features Coltrane saying, “Allah supreme” in addition to the many refrains of“a love supreme.”…
Read the full article: http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200604/muslim.roots.u.s.blues.htm
