“Sad to say...” Bet you didn’t know about Harry Belafonte’s jazz career
by Wendy Christie
Harry Belafonte, the acclaimed activist, actor, and artist is known musically for his signature smooth-sounding, melodic island twang. He has captivated audiences with folk songs that take them on a musical journey with the “Coconut Woman” on a “Banana Boat (Day-O)” to “Islands in the Sun.” The famous Jamaican-American entertainer was once considered the king of Calypso (a genre of Caribbean music) and musically, bigger than Elvis Presley.
Yet, very little is known about Belafonte’s stint with the genre of Jazz. Belafonte’s journey with Jazz started in the mid-1940s when, as a struggling actor in New York, he was introduced to singing as a means of survival. His work in theatre was not as fruitful as he had hoped, and he soon realized that singing could be a profitable option.
In the late 1940’s Belafonte found friendship in Jazz musicians who performed in clubs along the famous Broadway strip in New York. He would frequent the clubs after his nightly theatrical performances. These connections helped to birth his career as a vocalist. His colleagues in the jazz circuit were aware of his struggle to find financial success in theatre and suggested he tried singing. Belafonte had a unique voice, but at the time, did not consider himself a singer.
He accepted the challenge and was offered a gig to sing at the Royal Roost, a local jazz club in New York. Belafonte proved himself as the consummate performer and soon dominated his own musical stage. As his early musical career grew, he began performing in clubs across the US. His desire to continue as a performer was, however, thwarted when he was confronted with the brutal realities of racism in the industry. In the early 1950s, he stopped performing in jazz clubs and began experimenting with other genres of music.
Harry Belafonte’s famous album, “Calypso” which was released by RCA Records in 1956, is the first record by a solo artist, to sell one million copies.
Belafonte prides himself on his work as an activist for whom music has been his sword in the battle against oppression. He was a close friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a partner in the fight for civil rights. Belafonte refers to himself as an activist who became a singer/entertainer. He is the son of Jamaican immigrants and was raised on the island. His passion for both his island home and activism contributed to his success in entertainment.
“Sad to say...” a line from Belafonte’s hit folk song, “Jamaica Farewell,” is perhaps, the best way to describe the fact that very little is publicized about the instrumental role of jazz in the launch of Belafonte’s now lauded entertainment career. Harry Belafonte who recently turned 95 years old, is also a Grammy, Emmy, and Tony award-winning entertainer.
The Cavalcade of Jazz in Los Angeles
by Keith Rice
Jazz music has been an integral part of the musical landscape in Los Angeles since the early twentieth century. The large influx of African Americans to Los Angeles during World War II provided audiences large enough to rival those of clubs in New York. Most of the jazz clubs were located along the Central Avenue corridor from Little Tokyo/Bronzeville to Watts. In 1945, Leon Heflin Sr. began producing the Cavalcade of Jazz, the first large outdoor jazz entertainment event of its kind at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. The Cavalcade shows featured some of the biggest names in entertainment such as Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, and Roy Milton. Heflin produced the shows from 1945-1958.
Hip-Hop Music Video by Kombilesa Mi with 1970s Photos by Richard Cross
This music/archival photos video mixes the music video Ma Kuagro by Kombilesa Mi with photographs by Richard Cross. The purpose of this video is to celebrate the Afro-Colombian community of Palenque de San Basilio using the contemporary art of this amazing group of Palenque's musicians with photos of the community taken by photographer Richard Cross, who documented life in the community in the 1970s. The original sequence editing was done by Marta Valier. William Kwon did additional editing. We thank Kombilesa Mi for allowing us to use their music video. To watch the original video of Kombilesa Mi, visit their YouTube channel. To see more photos of Palenque by Richard Cross, visit the Bradley Center's digital collection.
“Benkos Biohó: Symbol of a Movement and Community”
by Guillermo Márquez
Though not much is known about how Benkos Biohó, known as Domingo Biohó to his captors, arrived in the Americas, we know that he did so towards the end of the 1500s. He was captured in West Africa by Portuguese human traffickers and sold to one of the many Spanish business interests in Cartagena de Indias, the 16th century’s largest port and human trafficking market. Denied his freedom and subjected to abuse and forced labor on arrival, Benkos Biohó actively resisted his enslavement, even attempting to escape three times, a fact that made him “rebellious” and “aggressive” in the eyes of his captors and colonial authorities and a victim of constant punishment.
In 1599, Benkos Biohó escaped an unprecedented fourth time, and this time he was successful, leading a group of 30 enslaved Africans, including his wife and children, to the safety of the María Mountains, where they settled in Ciénaga de la Matuna, one of the region’s many swamps. Here, Benkos Biohó and his followers constructed Palenque de la Matuna, a fortified community where they could live life on their own terms, and used the environment for food, shelter, and protection.
At Palenque de la Matuna, Benkos Biohó encouraged the development of a community whose existence paid homage to freedom. There, they embraced their African identity and culture, shameless speaking their languages, praying to their gods, preserving their customs. As word quickly spread, it comes as no surprise that Benkos Biohó, a man without a pedigree in Africa, was soon known as Rey del Arcabuco (King of the Forested Mountain).
Shortly thereafter, King Benkos Biohó led a campaign of active resistance against the colonial system that enslaved him, and other Africans like him. Warriors under his command plundered farms and plantations, gathering supplies, and liberating enslaved Africans along the way, with one demand: the official recognition of their freedom. This quickly became unacceptable to colonial authorities who depended on forced African labor and rather than negotiate, their fear of a slave insurrection in Cartagena de Indias turned to aggression as they opted for war.
Beginning in 1602, reports of African depredations on the local population flooded King Phillip III’s desk. Colonial authorities also vowed to destroy the palenques and return any survivors to slavery. However, King Benkos Biohó and his followers fiercely resisted all Spanish attempts to enslave them again. Evidently, many chose death rather than a lifetime of slavery. By 1605, weary of the cost and the conflict, colonial authorities capitulated. This was a major victory for King Benkos Biohó and his followers, whose nascent movement demanded fierce resistance and a commitment to liberation, which left Spanish authorities in Cartagena de Indias with no other choice but to agree to their freedom. Beyond this, it became clear to the palenqueros that Spanish imperial power had its limitations.
On the night of March 16, 1621, King Benkos Biohó was assassinated, a victim of state-sanctioned violence, after an altercation with local authorities in Cartagena de Indias. He was arrested on charges of contempt for authority and inciting an insurrection, subjected to a short trial, and sentenced to a brutal death. He was hanged and quartered, much to the jubilee of the local authorities and residents. As his death reverberated throughout Cartagena de Indias and Palenque de la Matuna, the seeds of liberation that King Benkos Biohó sowed in the María Mountains bore fruit. The tragic death of King Benkos Biohó symbolized the success of the liberation movement, which reinvigorated their struggle.
Over the course of the 1600s, palenqueros from across the María Mountains ramped up their resistance as enslaved Africans continued to escape, leading colonial authorities to a state of panic. Reports to the king were followed by a string of failed military campaigns, which only worsened the situation. As the number of palenques and runaways increased, Spanish authorities in Cartagena de Indias were forced to admit that they were powerless to stop them.
By the 1680s, the conflict had taken its toll, especially on the colony, and it was at this time that the King Domingo Angola approached the Catholic Church with a peace proposal, honoring their tradition of peace. However, timing and active resistance from colonial authorities delayed the process, which included a royal decree in 1688 ordering the destruction of the palenques and a new royal decree from 1691, in which King Charles II of Spain ordered peaceful negotiations with palenqueros, accepting virtually all of their demands.
Peace, unfortunately, would have to wait much longer. Colonial authorities in Cartagena de Indias simply hid the king’s decree and doubled down on their campaign to eradicate the message of the liberation of the palenques of the María Mountains. After just over 20 more years of resistance against Spanish aggression, King Nicolás de Santa Rossa received a threatening letter from colonial authorities to which he responded with a peace proposal, once again reiterating the community’s tradition of peace, a time-honored tradition since the days of King Benkos Biohó and King Domingo Angola.
Beginning in December 1713, both sides negotiated in discussions mediated by Fray Antonio María Cassiani, Bishop of Cartagena de Indias. After weeks of talks, both sides agreed, signing a treaty in January 1714. More importantly, however, this represented the defeat of an imperial power and the vindication of the struggle for peace and liberation that Benkos Biohó formalized and encouraged in 1599. Included in the treaty was a stipulation to establish San Basilio Magno, from whose fertile lands and womb was born San Basilio de Palenque and its residents, the living testament and legacy of Benkos Biohó, and the thousands of formerly enslaved Africans who opted resistance before accepting the hopelessness of slavery in the Americas.
Though much of his story is shrouded in myth and fantasy, the documentary evidence presents an ordinary man with an unbreakable spirit whose desire for freedom led him on an epic journey across Colombia’s María Mountains. Benkos Biohó instilled in his followers a love for freedom and an empowering message of cultural and racial pride that encouraged enslaved Africans to resist the yoke of slavery. While his exploits in life saw many flee and join his movement, his death emboldened many more to continue to resist, which left an enduring legacy in San Basilio de Palenque, home of the Palenqueros and a symbol of resistance, rebellion, struggle, and liberty.
Bibliography
Cassiani Herrera, Alfonso. Palenque magno. Resistencias y luchas libertarias del Palenque de la Matuna a San Basilio Magno, 1599-1714. Cartagena: Icultur, 2014.
De Friedemann, Nina S. and Richard Cross. Ma ngombe. Guerreros y ganaderos en Palenque. Bogotá: Carlos Valencia Editores, 1979.
“The Music of the Carnaval de Barranquilla”
by Guillermo Márquez
The Carnaval de Barranquilla, like all other carnival celebrations across the Americas traces its origins to medieval Spain. However, to better understand the origins of carnavale, we must go back much farther, to the ancient European Saturnalia, the celebration of Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture. Each year, the enslaved were temporarily freed and all official functions postponed, allowing all to participate in all festivities, including usually prohibited forms of leisure.
The rise of Christianity throughout medieval Europe played witness to the Catholic Church’s inconsistency in its attempts to repress what it perceived as debauchery, which ultimately helped its institutionalization in 11th century Italy. Celebrated on the streets and in private homes, European urban centers exploded with carnavale as locals celebrated with abandon, emulating Saturnalia. At the same time, it was also a reflection of local circumstances, practices, and customs that transcended time, space, race, and class.
By now known as carnaval, the celebration appeared in the Spanish colonies during the 1700s with unique variations. Once in the Americas, it became subject to local circumstances, practices, and customs. Thus, paternalistic elites always seeking to soften the animosity and the strength of the spirit of liberation of the Africans they enslaved allowed their participation in carnaval festivities, cementing African contributions.
Many of those enslaved were trafficked from parts of West Africa where drums and percussion instruments were and remain historically and culturally significant. Their participation during the Spanish colonial era enriched the celebration with their ancestral culture, invoking Africa in their instruments, movements, music, and aesthetic. Notwithstanding, by way of their cultural expressions, these enslaved Africans also developed distinct drumbeats for different occasions and a drumbeat-based system of communication for use by the enslaved during the colonial era.
The African legacy has been a lasting one, all things considered, and it is palpable. Modern-day performers of these Afro-influenced dances have noted that each dance is accompanied by a distinct and unmistakable drumbeat. In fact, the sounds and musical structure of cumbia, the musical symbol par excellence of Colombian identity, also reflect African influence as the use of drums, guache, and maracas represent a distinctive African flair within the genre.
Barranquilla’s rapid growth and development during the second half of the 1800s encouraged both foreign and internal migration, from Europe and from Colombia’s rural poor near the Atlantic coast, respectively. This environment fomented a tolerance, albeit a limited one, of diversity that facilitated the gradual incorporation of these rural migrants, many of them of mixed or Indigenous ancestry, into Barranquilla’s existing popular neighborhoods and mainstream social and cultural life. This proved to be the catalyst that propelled carnaval into yet another transformation.
Once in Barranquilla, their ancestral culture, their rural folk songs and chants accompanied by gaita (pipe), flauta (flute), drums, and maracas, also an Indigenous instrument, over time constituted the most important artistic and cultural contribution of the many different Indigenous groups in the region to the celebration. The regional pre-Hispanic origins of the gaita, flauta, the most significant Indigenous instrument for musical expression, the drums and maracas, complemented the structure and style of Colombia’s national sound and a carnaval favorite: cumbia.
The modern-day carnaval de Barranquilla’s owes its color, candor, sound, and mystique to centuries of subjugation, accommodation, preservation, and resistance. Born on the margins of Barranquilla’s society, residents from the city’s popular neighborhoods celebrated, interpreted, performed, and, most importantly, preserved their ancestral culture. In doing so, they helped define Barranquilla’s unique culture and the carnaval as its most important avenue for popular cultural expression. For that and more, it comes as no surprise that in 2003, UNESCO declared the carnaval de Barranquilla a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, a fact that surprised nobody.
Bibliography
Cassiani Herrera, Alfonso. Palenque magno. Resistencias y luchas libertarias del Palenque de la Matuna a San Basilio Magno, 1599-1714. Cartagena: Icultur, 2014.
De Friedemann, Nina S. Carnaval en Barranquilla. Bogotá: Editorial La Rosa, 1985.
-------------------, Richard Cross. Ma ngombe. Guerreros y ganaderos en Palenque. Bogotá: Carlos Valencia Editores, 1979.
Listen to our podcast, Emancipated
by Marta Valier
Listen to episode 5 of our podcast Emancipated with the 2nd part of the panel discussion “Environmental Racism, Gender, and Black Place-Making in Mexico's Costa Chica,” with filmmaker Ebony Bailey, Historian Jayson Maurice Porter, and Anthropologist Meztli Yoalli Rodríguez. Episode produced by Marta Valier and available on all podcast platforms via Anchor, https://anchor.fm/emancipated.