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African-American Entertainers in Jahrhundertwende: Vienna Austrian Identity, Viennese Modernism and Black Success

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2011

James Deaville
James Deaville
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Extract

According to jazz scholar Howard Rye, when considering public representations of African-American music and those who made it at the turn of the last century, ‘the average jazz aficionado, and not a few others, conjures up images of white folks in black face capering about’. We could extend this to include white minstrels singing so-called ‘coon songs’, which feature reprehensible racist lyrics set to syncopated rhythms. Traditional representations assign the blacks no role in the public performance of these scurrilous ‘identities’, which essentially banished them from the literature as participating in careers in the performing arts. As a result of the problems with the representation of blacks in texted music from the turn of the century, historians have tended to write vocal performance out of the pre-history of jazz, in favour of the purely instrumental ragtime. However, recent research reveals that African-American vocal entertainers did take agency over representations of themselves and over their careers, in a space unencumbered by the problematic history of race relationships in the USA. That space was Europe: beginning in the 1870s, and in increasing numbers until the ‘Great War’, troupes of African-American singers, dancers and comedians travelled to Europe, where they entertained large audiences to great acclaim and gained valuable experience as entrepreneurs, emerging as an important market force in the variety-theatre circuit. Above all, they performed the cakewalk, the late-nineteenth-century dance whose syncopated rhythms and simple form accompanied unnatural, exaggerated dance steps. By introducing Europe to the cakewalk, they prepared audiences for the jazz craze that would sweep through the continent after the war and enabled Europeans to experience the syncopated rhythms and irregular movements whether as dancers or as spectators.

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Articles
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Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , June 2006 , pp. 89 - 112
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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References

1 This article draws upon sources and insights partially presented in my publications ‘Cakewalk in Waltz Time? African-American Music in Jahrhundertwende Vienna’, in Reverberations: Representations of Modernity, Tradition and Cultural Value in/between Central Europe and North America, ed. Ingram, Susan, Reisenleitner, Markus and Szabó-Knotik, Cornelia (Frankfurt, 2002), 17–39Google Scholar and ‘Cakewalk contra Walzer: Negotiating Modernity and Identity on Jahrhundertwende Vienna's Dance Floors’, in Musik in der Moderne, ed. Celestini, Federico, Kokorz, Gregor and Johnson, Julian (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2006Google Scholar ).

2 Lotz, Rainer, Black People: Entertainers of African Descent in Europe, and Germany (Bonn, 1997), xiiGoogle Scholar .

3 It is important to note that, while European theatre-goers were not free from racial prejudices, the context of racial relationships in Europe was different from that in the USA. Given the absence of slavery, Europeans had a different and generally more limited set of experiences with blacks, and as a result, despite the typical desire for gazing and controlling, they may well have evidenced a genuine curiosity over how the blacks looked and sounded.

4 This is not to say that minstrelsy did not serve a purpose within the culture of early nineteenth-century America, as established in such valuable studies as Cockrell, Dale, Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar and Lhamon, W.T. Jr , Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop (Cambridge, MA, 1998)Google Scholar . Lhamon's, chapter ‘Dancing for Eels at Catherine Market’, in Raising Cain, 1–55Google Scholar , for example, goes to great lengths to establish the Irish and working-class foundations for minstrelsy. However, in its attempt to uncover the roots of and justification for the practice of minstrelsy, scholarship of the 1990s seemed to downplay the fact that it still was a hurtful form of entertainment based in racial prejudice.

5 Tom Riis has published several valuable studies and collections of documents, above all his monograph The Experience and Impact of Black Entertainers in England, 1895–1928 (Champaign, IL, 1988)Google Scholar and his edition of Cook, Will Marion, The Music and Scripts of In Dahomey (Madison, WI, 1996)Google Scholar . See also Green, Jeffrey P., ‘In Dahomey in London in 1903’, The Black Perspective in Music 11 (1983): 22–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Riis made an important contribution to our understanding of the neglected pre-jazz era in general through his study Just Before Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890–1915 (Washington, DC, 1989)Google Scholar .

6 The studies were collected by the author and published in the volume Black People.

7 A valuable source for detailed information about the early years of the ensemble is Ward's, AndrewDark Midnight when I Rise: The Story of the Jubilee Singers who Introduced the World to the Music of Black America (New York, 2000)Google Scholar . Ward is interested in making a theological point, even proselytizing through the sacred work of the singers, so their everincreasing secular offerings in the later years receives very little attention. See also Graziano, John, ‘The Early Life and Career of the “Black Patti”: The Odyssey of an African American Singer in the Late Nineteenth Century’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 53/3 (2000): 3–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Given his knowledge of the European sources, Lotz has served as the primary source for the details about the ensemble's European tours.

8 Article in Svensk Musiktidning 1 (1 Oct. 1891),Google Scholartrans. Berggren, Lars and cited in Lotz, , Black People, 166Google Scholar .

9 See Ward, , Dark Midnight, 389Google Scholar .

10 Lotz, , Black People, 16Google Scholar .

11 This ensemble appeared under a variety of names in Europe, including ‘The Four Black Troubadours’ (central Europe), ‘The Colored Meisters’ (England) and ‘Das schwarze Udel-Quartett’ (Germany and Austria). See Ibid., 172–8.

12 Ibid., 167.

13 Advertisement in Der Artist 611 (2 Oct. 1896), trans. Lotz, Google Scholar and cited, Ibid.

14 ‘Nur für Etablissements ersten Ranges, Variétés, Theater und Concertsäle’. Ibid., 168.

15 Of course, there was great variation within these routes, especially for groups who were resident in Europe for more than one season or year. A parallel is evident in the American tours of Theodore Thomas and his orchestra during the late nineteenth century. See Deaville, , ‘“Westwärts zieht die Kunstgeschichte”: Liszt's Symphonic Poems in the New World’, in Identität – Kultur – Raum: Kulturelle Praktiken und die Ausbildung von Imagined Communities in Nordamerika und Zentraleuropa, ed. Ingram, Susan, Reisenleitner, Markus and Szabó-Knotik, Cornelia (Vienna, 2001), 238Google Scholar .

16 Lotz, , Black People, 170Google Scholar .

17 Original English text in Das Programm 500 ( Nov. 1911)Google Scholar .

18 Pratt, Mary Louise, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London, 1992), especially 6–7Google Scholar .

19 Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (London, 1992), especially 208–9Google Scholar .

20 ‘I[m] … Kontext des ethnisch-kulturellen Pluralismus … innerhalb des Vielvölkerstaates in den letzten Jahrzehnten des 19. Jahrhunderts.’ Stachel, Peter, ‘Mehrsprachige, Fremde, Marginal Men: Zur transatlantischen Geschichte eines Forschungsansatzes’, in Identität – Kultur – Raum, ed. Reisenleitner, Ingram and Szabó-Knotik, , 199Google Scholar .

21 See, for example, Berner, Peter, Brix, Emil and Mantl, Wolfgang, eds, Wien um 1900. Aufbruch in die Moderne …, (Vienna, 1986), 144–5Google Scholar , for an expression of this widely accepted concept of Viennese Modernism.

22 Heer, Friedrich, Der Kampf um die österreichische Identität (Vienna, 1981), 288Google Scholar .

23 For a discussion of the Austrian Pan-German movement as it manifested itself in music, see the present author's ‘Die Wacht an der Donau’?!? The Wiener akademischer Wagner-Verein, Wiener Moderne and Pan-Germanism', in: Wien 1897: Kulturgeschichtliches Profil eines Epochenjahres, ed. Glanz, Christian (Frankfurt, 1999),49–8Google Scholar .

24 See, among others, Locke's, ‘Constructing the Oriental “Other”: Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila’, Cambridge Opera Journal 3/3 (1991): 261–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; ‘Reflections on Orientalism in Opera and Musical Theater’, The Opera Quarterly 10/1 (1993): 8–9Google Scholar ; and ‘Cutthroats and Casbah Dancers, Muezzins and Timeless Sands: Musical Images of the Middle East’, 19th Century Music 22 (1998): 20– 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Locke's contribution to this special issue of Nineteenth-Century Music Review also centres on issues of racial otherness.

25 Lotz, , Black People, 162Google Scholar .

26 For more about the Völkerschauen, see Eissenberger, Gabi, Entführt, Verspottet und Gestorben: Lateinamerikanische Völkerschauen in deutschen Zoos (Frankfurt am Main, 1996)Google Scholar ; Staehelin, Balthasar, Völkerschauen im Zoologischen Garten Basel, 1879-1935 (Basel, 1993)Google Scholar ; and Thode-Arora, Hilke, Für fünfzig Pfennig um die Welt: Die Hagenbeckschen Völkerschauen (Frankfurt, 1989)Google Scholar .

27 For a detailed and nicely illustrated history of the quite successful Viennese amusement park called Venedig in Wien, see Rubey, Norbert and Schoenwald, Peter, Venedig in Wien: Theater- und Vergnügungsstadt der Jahrhundertwende (Vienna, 1996)Google Scholar .

28 Scherpe, Klaus, ‘Die Gewalt des Fremden: Über Repräsentation’, in Vom Schein des Schönen und seinen Schatten, ed. Brittnacher, Hans-Richard and Störmer, Fabian (Bielefeld, 2000), 366–79Google Scholar .

29 ‘Arm und reich, Volk und Adel, alles strömte in den Tiergarten, um sich die schwarze Gesellschaft anzusehen … Ein Teil der Wienerinnen war … geradezu toll nach den “schwarzen Gesellen”, die mit Geld und Geschenken von der Damenwelt überhäuft worden … Man behauptet auch, daβ “Schwarz-Weiβ” im darauffolgenden Winter mancher Maid nachgewiesen worden sei!’ Rubey, and Schoenwald, , Venedig in Wien, 69–70Google Scholar .

30 See above all Leppert's, ‘Cultural Contradiction, Idolatry, and the Piano Virtuoso: Franz Liszt’, in: Piano Roles: One Hundred Years of Life with the Piano, ed. Parakilas, James (New Haven, CT, 1999), 225–7Google Scholar (‘Modernity as Looking’).

31 ‘Das schwarze Udel-Quartett erregt allabendlich als eine der originellsten und besten Variéténummern, die bisher geboten wurden, das gröβte Aufsehen … Das Publicum wird durch die trefflichen Gesangsleistungen der in eleganter Salontoilette auftretenden Neger zu wahren Beifallsstürmen hingerissen. Auch die musikalischen Kreise Wiens finden sich jetzt im Colosseum ein, und die Logen zeigen das gesellschaftliche Bild einer groβen Wiener Concertpremière.’ ‘Das schwarze Udel-Quartett’, Neues Wiener Tagblatt 9 (6 Apr. 1900): 7Google Scholar . It should be noted that here and throughout the citations from German-language sources, the use of the word ‘Neger’ is not pejorative, but rather one of neutral observation, much like the term ‘Negro’ in English-language usage of the 1960s.

32 Ironically, the various troupes’ formal dress distinguished the ‘authentic’ black performers from white minstrels in blackface.

33 Thus we find the following advertisement for the Orpheum, Viennese in the Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt 257 (17 Sep. 1905): 17Google Scholar : ‘The Jetnoys. Origin. amerik. Song dance. Original Cake Walkes. Neger-Truppe.’

34 ‘Die Seven Florida Girls, die eine reiche Zahl amusanter Tänze und Evolutionen executiren, können jedenfalls für ihren Cake Walk das Recht absoluter Originalität und heimatlich treuer Wiedergabe reclamiren.’ ‘Programmwechsel bei Ronacher’, Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt 9 (1 Mar. 1903): 31Google Scholar .

35 ‘Der Londoner “Globe” hat festgestellt, daβ die Heimat des Cake Walk Florida ist. Dies gibt der Production der Seven Florida Creole Girls bei Ronacher erhöhtes Interesse, da die Zuschauer die Gewähr haben, den Excentriquetanz genau so zu sehen, wie er in seiner Heimat getanzt wird.’ ‘Der Florida-Cake Walk bei Ronacher’, Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt 66 (8 Mar. 1903): 18Google Scholar .

36 ‘Jeder will den Cake Walk sehen und von obendrein von Jenen, die ihn mit all’ seiner urwüchsigen Drastik aus seiner südlichen Heimat in Florida herübergebracht haben.’ ‘Etablissement Ronacher’, Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt 73 (1 Mar. 1903): 20Google Scholar .

37 Here is an interesting description of the ambience of the variety theatre, occasioned by the change in venue at Danzer's Orpheum: ‘The tables have disappeared, and the truly Viennese “gemütlich” smoky theatre has become a real stage, for which the directors have set a literary programme.’ ‘Die Tische sind verschwunden und aus dem einstigen echt wienerisches zurechtgelegt gemütlichen Rauchtheater ist eine veritable Bühne geworden, deren Leiter sich ein literarisches Programm gestellt haben.’ ‘Das Ende von Danzers Orpheum’, Das Organ 2 (1908): 9Google Scholar .

38 Lotz, , Black People, 297–389Google Scholar , provides a detailed history of the European activities of Douglas.

39 ‘Die schwarze Jodlerin hat sich ein wienerliches zurechtgelegt und wird die populären Jodlerlieder unserer heimischen Sängerinnen vortragen. Es wird dies ein besonderer Genuβ sein, da die exotische Schönheit eine vorzügliche Jodlerin ist.’ ‘Pfingstvorstellungen im Etablissement Ronacher’, Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt 132 (1 May 1910): 21Google Scholar .

40 ‘Sensationell ist das Negerquartett Black Troubadours, schwarze Sänger, von ausgezeichneter Schulung, und unwiderstehlicher Wirkung ihrer ernsten und humoristischen Vorträge.’ ‘Vergnügungsanzeiger’, Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 89 (1 Apr. 1900): 3Google Scholar .

41 ‘The Darktown Entertainers … zeichnen sich vor Allem durch das wunderbare Zusammenspiel aus … Sie verfügen sämmtlich über klangvolle Stimmen, aber der Tenor und der Baryton ragen durch den starken Timbre ihres Glockenorgans besonders hervor. Ihre Lieder sind durch einen seltsam melancholischen Anstrich characterisirt, während man in den heiteren Piècen ihren Humor und ihre Gestaltungskunst anerkennen muβ.’ ‘Ein schwarzes Quartett’, Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt 252 (12 Sep. 1905): 10Google Scholar .

42 The literature about the cakewalk remains quite limited for a variety of reasons, including its musical simplicity in comparison with its successors ragtime and jazz, and its embodied performance (dance music has traditionally occupied a problematic position within the canons of Western music). Moreover, the racially problematic titles, images and texts associated with the cakewalk have undoubtedly discouraged musicologists from dealing with this repertory. Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889–1895 by Abbott, Lynn and Seroff, Doug (Jackson, MI, 2002)Google Scholar provides numerous press sources that document the practice of cakewalk performance in the USA during the early 1890s.

43 See Victor, and Turner, Edith, ‘Religious Celebrations’, in Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual, ed. Turner, Victor (Washington, DC, 1982), 201–11Google Scholar .

44 Thus the StreetSwing's Dance History Archives notes the gestural similarities between the cakewalk and dances of certain tribes of the African Kaffir. ‘Cakewalk’, StreetSwing's Dance History Archives <www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3cake1.htm> (accessed 27 Oct. 2005)+(accessed+27+Oct.+2005)>Google Scholar .

45 The connection between modernism and nervousness is well established by Knittel, Kay in ‘“Ein hypermoderner Dirigent”: Mahler and Anti-Semitism in fin-de-Siècle Vienna’, 19th Century Music 18/3 (1995): 256–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar . See also Worbs, Michael, Nervenkunst: Literatur und Psychoanalyse im Wien der Jahrhundertwende (Frankfurt am Main, 1983)Google Scholar .

46 About the origins of the csárdás and its role in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, see for example Sárosi, Bálint, Zigeunermusik (Budapest, 1977)Google Scholar .

47 ‘Ein neuer Tanz! Der “Cake-Walk” (Kuchen-Tanz). Die Sensation der Pariser und Londoner Bälle … Jung und Alt lernt nun den “Cake-Walk” mit Feuereifer und jeder Tanzmeister hat ihn in sein Programm aufgenommen … Der Erfolg des neuen Tanzes “Cake-Walk” wächst von Tag zu Tag. Man tanzt ihn bereits überall.’ From Webster, Harry, ‘Die lustigen Neger’ (Vienna, 1903)Google Scholar .

48 ‘Ebenso wie bei dem “Pas de quatre” gibt es auch hier einen mustergiltigen classischen “Cake-Walk” …’ Ibid.

49 ‘Description of the Dance … The main requirements are: 1) to bend the body decidedly backwards, 2) to keep both arms horizontally extended, 3) to lift the knees very high with each step and to swing the legs forwards … Figure 1 (with illustration). The gentleman and lady, one next to the other, dance with their bodies bent backwards and their arms extended forwards while they keep their knees as high as possible. This is the rule that is to be maintained for all of the other figures as well.’ ‘Beschreibung des Tanzes … Die Hauptbedingungen sind: 1. Den Körper sehr stark zurückbeugen. 2. Die beiden Arme horizontal ausgestreckt halten. 3. Die Knie bei jedem Schritt sehr hochheben und die Beine nach vorwärts schwingen … Figur 1. (Mit Abbildung). Der Herr und die Dame, einer neben dem anderen, den Körper zurückgebeugt, die Arme nach vorn ausgestreckt, tanzen, indem sie die Knie so hoch wie möglich heben. Dies ist die Regel, welche auch für alle anderen Figuren festzuhalten ist …’

50 For example, the anonymous author of ‘Aus guter Gesellschaft’ calls the dance a ‘groteque social game’ ( Fred, ., ‘Feuilleton: Ans guter Gesellschaft’, Neues Wiener Tagblatt 71 (13 Mar. 1903)): 2Google Scholar . See also Harer, Ingeborg, ‘“Lustige Neger”: Verbreitung und Nachahmung der Musik der Afro-Amerikaner in Österreich um 1900’, jazzforschung/jazzresearch 30 (1998): 182Google Scholar .

51 See Micale, Mark S. ed., The Mind of Modernism: Medicine, Psychology, and the Cultural Arts in Europe and America, 1880–1940 (Stanford, CA, 2004)Google Scholar .

52 Swoboda, Hermann, Studien zur Grundlegung der Psychologie (Leipzig and Vienna, 1905),51Google Scholar .

53 The original Hungarian allows for the possibility of both meanings presented in the translation.

54 Philip Bohlman has observed, in personal communication, how the body and hand positions of cakewalk dancers in illustrations resemble those of Jews in representations from Europe of the late nineteenth century. The connections between these racial representations in central Europe of the period merit closer study. In a study of race in the film The Jazz Singer (1927), Michael Rogin helps to explain how blacks and Jews were positioned relative to each other in America of the 1920s; see his essay ‘Blackface, White Noise: The Jewish Jazz Singer Finds His Voice’, in Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot (Berkeley, CA, 1996), 71–120Google Scholar .

55 ‘Es ist ein Zweitritttanz, ähnlich dem Csardas, und leicht in Kombination zu bringen mit dem Zweitrittwalzer. Er gestattet vollkommene Bewegungsfreiheit und gestaltet sich daher, von guten Tänzern ausgeführt, sehr abwechslungsreich.’ ‘Mode und Gesellschaft: Neue Tänze und Gesellschaftspiele’, Wiener Frauen-Zeitung in Neues Wiener Tagblatt 52 (22 Feb. 1903): 28Google Scholar .

56 See Harer, Ingeborg, ‘“Dieses böse Etwas, der Jazz”: Varianten der Jazz-Rezeption in Österreich von der Jahrhundertwende bis zu den 1920er Jahren’, in Fremdheit in der Moderne, ed. Flotzinger, Rudolf (Vienna, 1999), 138–72Google Scholar . Beyond documenting the activities of the African-Americans in Vienna, Harer wished to establish lasting influences from the cakewalk and other early syncopated music upon Austrian musical composition, which did not appear to be the case after the cakewalk began to lose its popularity circa 1905. The long-term influence was upon the public, not the composers.

57 Regarding couplets (Einlagen) in operetta, see among others Csáky, Moritz, Ideologie der Operette und Wiener Moderne: Ein kunsthistorischer Essay, second edition (Vienna, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

58 Regarding In Dahomey, see note.

59 See Rubey, and Schoenfeld, , Venedig in Wien, 132–4Google Scholar , for a history of the work.

60 In an ad for cakewalk sheet music in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt 45 (1 Feb. 1903): 53Google Scholar , for example, the words ‘Cake-Walk’ dwarf the reference to Léhar's latest operetta hit.

61 ‘Plötzlich nehmen die vereinigten Snobs des Kontinents diesen Tanz, mit dem sie der Rasse, den Bewegungen und Stimmungen nach nicht das geringste zu tun haben, vom Variété, und man kann in keine Gesellschaft gehen, ohne schüchterne Versuche, im Cake-Walk ungraziös zu sein, mitzuerleben.’ Fred, ., ‘Feuilleton: Aus guter Gesellschaft’, 2Google Scholar .

62 Published by F.A. Mills in Chicago. On the cover of the sheet music, ‘Whistling Rufus’ is called a ‘characteristic march’, but the publisher adds that it ‘can be used effectively as a two-step, polka or cakewalk’. The first page of the music (p. 3 of the edition) gives the history of the piece: ‘No cake walk given in the Black Belt District in Alabama was considered worth while attending unless “Whistling Rufus” was engaged to furnish the music. Unlike other musicians Rufus always performed alone, playing an accompaniment to his whistling on an old guitar.’ The work was phenomenally popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

63 Writing in 189, Georg Simmel noted the following about the Gigerl: ‘Das Gigerl treibt die Tendenz der Mode über das sonst innegehaltene Maβ hinaus … Das Individuelle, das er vorstellt, besteht in quantitativer Steigerung von Elementen, die ihrem Quale nach eben Gemeingut der Menge sind.’ Simmel, , ‘Zur Psychologie der Mode: Soziologische Studie’, Die Zeit: Wiener Wochenschrift für Politik, Volkswirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Kunst 5/54 (1895): 23Google Scholar . As his op. 150, J.F. Wagner composed a piano march entitled ‘Gigerl’ (Vienna, n.d.), on the cover of which are portrayed two dandies, whose excessive dress certainly calls to mind American caricatures of the blacks.

64 The one-act work, dating from late February 1903, is by Leopold Ely and is preserved in the censorship files of the Berlin Landesmuseum, no. 6 8.

65 The text is not of high quality, and some of the grammatical constructions are colloquial, inaccurate or incomplete, all of which would suit the quasi-improvised, popular theatrical entertainment called Posse.