《美国之音》2006第3季度上b004-Folklife Festival Focuses on New Orleans Music
Folklife Festival Focuses on New Orleans Music
Lonnie Bunch, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, sat with the audience at the Folklife Festival enjoying the sunny day after a week of torrential rains had soaked the capital city. Smiling and tapping his foot to the pure New Orleans sound of the Original Liberty Jazz Band, Bunch mused on how Hurricane Katrina may have changed what some have called America's classical music.
"What strikes me is that there is another layer now on top of the music that wasn't there a year ago. A layer of urgency, a layer of immediacy, layer that says 'this has survived. So let's continue to celebrate!'"
It's taken a while for Michael White to feel like celebrating. He's the leader of the Original Liberty Jazz Band, and one of America's foremost jazz scholars. The flooding destroyed White's huge collection of original jazz manuscripts, vintage musical instruments and historical photographs, many dating back to jazz's earliest days. Still, White says the disaster deepened his sense of artistic purpose.
"As important as New Orleans music was to me before, there is even a great sense of urgency in terms of performing and spreading the message of the music because it is sort of like the local version of universal human passions and emotions. It's fun. It's danceable. It's happy. It's sad. There is a grace and a beauty in the music and it comes from the human soul and the spirit and when you go through tragedies like Katrina, it just intensifies those feelings that go into the music. And that spirit will go on."
The spirit of both modern and traditional New Orleans music derives from many sources - including the church, the sounds of black and Native American Caribbean, and African tribal drumming brought to New Orleans by slaves. Those rhythmic influences can be heard in the song, "Search My Heart" performed at the festival by The Friendly Travelers, a popular New Orleans gospel and rhythm group.
At the Festival's opening ceremony, The Friendly Travelers also performed a song in a traditional a cappella style, without accompaniment.
"The a cappella aspect incorporates the Negro spiritual part, as well as the gospel heritage that was done in Congo Square where the slaves actually were brought to New Orleans. This music and gospel music itself speaks about the suffering of slavery. It's not necessarily something we like to dwell on or think about, but it's something that happened!"
No one can deny the catastrophic impact last year's storms and floods have had on New Orleans and New Orleanians. But Friendly Traveler member Floyd Turner believes some good has come from the disaster.
"…I think it's made a lot of people stronger in their belief in God because you can work all your life to achieve goals (and) gain material things. And you can just see in the twinkling of an eye, everything was gone that you worked so hard for! But God still spared your life. New Orleans is coming back. Little by little, neighborhood by neighborhood. So you've got to look at the whole picture."
Some say only those who live in New Orleans can really understand the joy residents feel about their home city, or the sorrow they felt when Katrina scattered them across the country. But Friendly Travelers' lead singer, Alfred Pens, says anyone with ears can hear both the sorrow and the joy.
"Come on! Man! Music! That is the nucleus! Because music is the universal language. People look at your eyes and the heart. So if you do it from your heart, it becomes universal. People understand that."
The endowing music of New Orleans Louisiana after hurricane Katrina feature this year at the Smithsonian Institution's Folklife Festival on the National Mall.
In Washington, this is Adam Phillips reporting.
¤注解¤:
1. torrential adj. 奔流的
2. vintage adj. 古老的, 最佳的, 过时的
3. Caribbean n. 加勒比海
4. catastrophic adj. 悲惨的, 灾难的
Folklife Festival Focuses on New Orleans Music
Lonnie Bunch, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, sat with the audience at the Folklife Festival enjoying the sunny day after a week of torrential rains had soaked the capital city. Smiling and tapping his foot to the pure New Orleans sound of the Original Liberty Jazz Band, Bunch mused on how Hurricane Katrina may have changed what some have called America's classical music.
"What strikes me is that there is another layer now on top of the music that wasn't there a year ago. A layer of urgency, a layer of immediacy, layer that says 'this has survived. So let's continue to celebrate!'"
It's taken a while for Michael White to feel like celebrating. He's the leader of the Original Liberty Jazz Band, and one of America's foremost jazz scholars. The flooding destroyed White's huge collection of original jazz manuscripts, vintage musical instruments and historical photographs, many dating back to jazz's earliest days. Still, White says the disaster deepened his sense of artistic purpose.
"As important as New Orleans music was to me before, there is even a great sense of urgency in terms of performing and spreading the message of the music because it is sort of like the local version of universal human passions and emotions. It's fun. It's danceable. It's happy. It's sad. There is a grace and a beauty in the music and it comes from the human soul and the spirit and when you go through tragedies like Katrina, it just intensifies those feelings that go into the music. And that spirit will go on."
The spirit of both modern and traditional New Orleans music derives from many sources - including the church, the sounds of black and Native American Caribbean, and African tribal drumming brought to New Orleans by slaves. Those rhythmic influences can be heard in the song, "Search My Heart" performed at the festival by The Friendly Travelers, a popular New Orleans gospel and rhythm group.
At the Festival's opening ceremony, The Friendly Travelers also performed a song in a traditional a cappella style, without accompaniment.
"The a cappella aspect incorporates the Negro spiritual part, as well as the gospel heritage that was done in Congo Square where the slaves actually were brought to New Orleans. This music and gospel music itself speaks about the suffering of slavery. It's not necessarily something we like to dwell on or think about, but it's something that happened!"
No one can deny the catastrophic impact last year's storms and floods have had on New Orleans and New Orleanians. But Friendly Traveler member Floyd Turner believes some good has come from the disaster.
"…I think it's made a lot of people stronger in their belief in God because you can work all your life to achieve goals (and) gain material things. And you can just see in the twinkling of an eye, everything was gone that you worked so hard for! But God still spared your life. New Orleans is coming back. Little by little, neighborhood by neighborhood. So you've got to look at the whole picture."
Some say only those who live in New Orleans can really understand the joy residents feel about their home city, or the sorrow they felt when Katrina scattered them across the country. But Friendly Travelers' lead singer, Alfred Pens, says anyone with ears can hear both the sorrow and the joy.
"Come on! Man! Music! That is the nucleus! Because music is the universal language. People look at your eyes and the heart. So if you do it from your heart, it becomes universal. People understand that."
The endowing music of New Orleans Louisiana after hurricane Katrina feature this year at the Smithsonian Institution's Folklife Festival on the National Mall.
In Washington, this is Adam Phillips reporting.
¤注解¤:
1. torrential adj. 奔流的
2. vintage adj. 古老的, 最佳的, 过时的
3. Caribbean n. 加勒比海
4. catastrophic adj. 悲惨的, 灾难的