Amos 'n Andy ca. 1930: What exactly has changed since then?

[fasstrack]

fasttrack-- it's good yr thinking but i think you gotta do some more research; i say that w/all respect for a canarsie bro' & someone who's noticing things but first, some of yr chronology is off & forwards/backwards, all directions, things are waaaay more complex both in terms of art & commerce than yr suggesting. i just walked two hours in bed-stuy-- i saw every "stereotype" you can name & some ya'll can't, either because they're NOT african-american, or they're unique or in flux... lotsa peoples & lotsa stuff. the immensity of minstrel culture, it's NORTHERN roots & popularity, etc etc. just too much basic stuff to get into before we worry THAT much about Amos & Andy. use that as a catalyst howev & we can get back to, for sure.

seriously, start w/the Strausbaugh book, which grapples w/similar questions as yrs & then take it whatever direction seems most interesting. FORGET the hip-hop analogy, which doesn't work, unless you wanna do a partial Marxist analysis of the music biz... if you have an interest in hillbilly/old-timey/jazz, get Nick Tosches meditation on the life of minstel singer Emmett Miller, "Where Dead Voices Gather."

as i'm sure you know Canarsie is a whole different scene today, largely West Indian, w/a few small bits left of old white ethnic; Jews are few & far between tho' i occasionally see an Ortho & a few synagogues are still around. i know a (very very secular) jewish dude, his was maybe last family to split Seaview Village area in '81 or '82. i rock Avenue L often, head up Rockaway Parkway to Brownsville, dig the Pitkin & Belmont scene.

when did you split? a lot of the marshland is gone now, alas, but the alleys are almost still all there.

that elder clementine

I left in Dec. '94, but only for the boogie down Bronx. I'm going a little further soon, though, to Holland to live for a while. Yeah, I peeped the change in Canarsie. White flight was in full swing before I left. We split due to having to sell my dad's house for unrelated reasons. Canarsie is where I started rebelling against my middle-class Jewish upbringing with music, first white rock'n'roll then black music (blues, R&B, and me and my boys were into Stevie Wonder big time. Music of my Mind, Talking Book, etc.) Soon I was venturing into East New York to play in bands.

Then came jazz and poverty....

This doesn't qualify me to talk about shit, BTW. Just reminiscing.

As far as the topic at hand goes, of course it goes deeper than one's first impression. Life always does. Of course, being in the arts 'art and commerce' are on the radar screen for me daily. It's what my life has become about, (sad to say) so I don't have to read about it, as living it will suffice. But suffice it to say it was a shock to watch that movie today in 2006. It triggered the above-mentioned thoughts, that's all. I'm not a sociologist nor terribly well read, to be frank. I play the guitar.

And think too much.

I'll move over now and let some other opinions in.

[AllenLowe]

1) Clem has already made a lot of the important points -

2) I write about the medicine show a lot in Devilin Tune, as this was the prime source of minstrel transmission in the early part of the 20th century - - suffice to say that the Minstrel stage, directly and indirectly, introduced nearly every kind of pop music that exists today - and to a LARGE portion of the population:

a) country music - the use of the banjo of course; also the sentimental semi-pop ditty that was adapted by early country singers (Little Old Log Cabin dowm the Lane) and became a staple of country song; the whole aura of the rural singer and song -

b) standard American song - the professional song writer used the minstrel stage as an early showcase; this represented an important transition from folk to popular methods of transmission, and, more importantly, it represented their complete merging - as well as the creation of a new class of musical professional, hence Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, etc -

c) Jazz/blues - the basic idea of the accompanist's improvised obligato - as in, the singer sings a phrase and the backing musician plays a filler phrase - likely started in Minstresly -

d) ragtime - the rhythm of early minstrel tunes was related to the development of ragtime with its duple meter, most likley -

e) White absorption of black culture - it's been pretty conclusively demonstrated that, contrary to much past scholarship, many minstrel tunes had their actual basis in black folk culture -

5) gospel - gospel music at its most basic is the secular composition of religious music - and this started - guess where - likely on the minstrel stage with "gospel tunes written for the minstrel stage" as Dick Spottswood has pointed out; think "Poor Mourner," "Oh Dem Golden Slippers" (written by James Bland, a black composer) - and many more

those are, in my opinion, the highlights - we haven't even begun to discuss the minstrel creation of comic archtypes still in use today -

Edited October 4, 2006 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

gotta add - ditto to Clem on the Strausbaugh book -

and I love the old Amos and Andy Television Series - one of the few things that employed black actors back then; more important, genuinely funny -

[Alexander]

I was stunned when I saw it. You get white guys in black face, interspresed with documentary footage of Harlem with people who really are Black .

Also, FWIW---probably next to nothing---the scene where they're racing through Harlem to meet the train at Penn Sta. uses an early an primitive form of whatever projection technique that is where it appears that a car is moving and it's actually stationary. It may be the first or one of the first times that was used (I'm speculating here). This technique is still in common use in SNL sketches. What's it called? Someone help me out here.

The technique is called "rear projection."

[Alexander]

I don't know if it's still in print, but I direct your attention to a wonderful book on this very subject called "Sambo: The Rise and Decline of an American Jester" by Joseph Boskin (one of my professors at old B.U.).

"Sambo" traces the origins of the "comic darkie" from the colonial period up through the age of radio and television. He discusses "Amos n' Andy," while profiling performers like Stepin Fetchit and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. As Clem and others have noted, this is a complex history that involves BOTH blacks and whites in America. It is not something merely DONE to blacks, but something that blacks actively participated in (there were black minstrels who performed in blackface). The minstrel shows were, in fact, America's pop culture (they were America's first real MASS culture). Many of the jokes we tell today ("Why did the chicken cross the road?") have their origins in minstrel shows. Countless songs ("The Camptown Races," "My Old Kentucky Home") come from the minstrel shows. And yes, Jim Crow and Zip Coon live on in the images of many black musicans and comedians. But this is more about the deep and complex history that black and white Americans share than about simple racisim.

[Jazzmoose]

if you want to bring the "Katrina 'reaction'" into it, its obviously political.

Now that's certainly a revealing reaction...

[fasstrack]

where in tha' boogie down? i know everything south of the cross bronx & a good deal above. yr doing well, it's just A&A really aren't AS shocking it might first seem, nor as particularly "offensive." the currents go all ways then & now.

there's GREAT food in the bx btw. unfortunately, tho' we always respect the x, there has been a hip-hop drought up there for a while it seems, tho' i've heard there are a few underground dudes at least. the yanqui stadium deal infuriated us down here so ya'll ain't totally alone. (& i'm sure you've noticed it's only southern AND black folks who say ya'll in nyc.)

there's a cpl partial jazz joints up still, you check any of out? motherfuh the yanquis--

that elegant clemnentine

Riverdale. The North----funky----shitty part......But you roll with the punches. I had a cheap place w/parking for 7 years and was finally kicked out when the guy sold it. I should've bought it, it was dirt cheap. Now I rent like a shlub......

I am so outta 'heart attack city' (my brother's appellation) in January. It was great, but I've had enough for a long while.

[fasstrack]

BTW, very good input, guys. I'm edified, nearly humbled, and proud of yiz.

[JSngry]

So here's a question - if something is funny in spite of the social baggage attached to (or araound) it, is it wrong to laugh?

I hope not, because Stepin Fetchit's shit cracks me up every time. Not the context that it's being played out in, but his shit. Buffonery brilliance, it is. Buffonery is a tradition that exists (and always has) outside of the realm of American racism.

The question of Fetchit vs. Tati I asked above was a serious one, as were they all.

[Harold_Z]

So here's a question - if something is funny in spite of the social baggage attached to (or araound) it, is it wrong to laugh?

I hope not, because Stepin Fetchit's shit cracks me up every time. Not the context that it's being played out in, but his shit. Buffonery brilliance, it is. Buffonery is a tradition that exists (and always has) outside of the realm of American racism.

The question of Fetchit vs. Tati I asked above was a serious one, as were they all.

If it's funny ... it's funny.

Hip people take the humor as intended, racists make something else of it.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

So here's a question - if something is funny in spite of the social baggage attached to (or araound) it, is it wrong to laugh?

I hope not, because Stepin Fetchit's shit cracks me up every time. Not the context that it's being played out in, but his shit. Buffonery brilliance, it is. Buffonery is a tradition that exists (and always has) outside of the realm of American racism.

The question of Fetchit vs. Tati I asked above was a serious one, as were they all.

If it's funny ... it's funny.

Hip people take the humor as intended, racists make something else of it.

And the (majority of?) people who are neither...?

MG

[Harold_Z]

So here's a question - if something is funny in spite of the social baggage attached to (or araound) it, is it wrong to laugh?

I hope not, because Stepin Fetchit's shit cracks me up every time. Not the context that it's being played out in, but his shit. Buffonery brilliance, it is. Buffonery is a tradition that exists (and always has) outside of the realm of American racism.

The question of Fetchit vs. Tati I asked above was a serious one, as were they all.

If it's funny ... it's funny.

Hip people take the humor as intended, racists make something else of it.

And the (majority of?) people who are neither...?

MG

Those who get it being hip and those who don't (or misconstrue it) being unhip.

Edited October 5, 2006 by Harold_Z

[Alexander]

So here's a question - if something is funny in spite of the social baggage attached to (or araound) it, is it wrong to laugh?

I hope not, because Stepin Fetchit's shit cracks me up every time. Not the context that it's being played out in, but his shit. Buffonery brilliance, it is. Buffonery is a tradition that exists (and always has) outside of the realm of American racism.

The question of Fetchit vs. Tati I asked above was a serious one, as were they all.

In "Sambo," Boskin quotes Lincoln Perry (aka Stepin Fetchit) as being bewildered at the sudden backlash directed at him when his brand of humor became unfashionable in the 60s. He said: "I was only playing a character...Just because Charlie Chaplin played a tramp doesn't make tramps out of all Englishmen, and because Dean Martin drinks, that doesn't make drunks out of all Italians."

[medjuck]

I edited an article on Stepin Fetchit that never got published because the magazine for which I was an editor went under. (It was Take One-- for any of you film fans old enough to remember it.) My memory is thatt I was shocked by how popular he was amongst the Black community and how financially succesful he was. (We were going to run a picture of him in front of an airplane he owned and flew.)

[medjuck]

So here's a question - if something is funny in spite of the social baggage attached to (or araound) it, is it wrong to laugh?

I hope not, because Stepin Fetchit's shit cracks me up every time. Not the context that it's being played out in, but his shit. Buffonery brilliance, it is. Buffonery is a tradition that exists (and always has) outside of the realm of American racism.

The question of Fetchit vs. Tati I asked above was a serious one, as were they all.

Well here's another example of how knowing people's race affects our perceptions:

The original version of the song "Further On Down the Road"is by Will Bradley and it it's great but it reeked of blackface to me because I presumed that the Bradley band was White. Amos Millburn covered it and had a big hit singing exactly the same words. His version isn't quite as good but the the words no longer seem condescending because he's Black. (I think he even makes areference to piano player Freddie Slack that's in the original.)

[fasstrack]

So here's a question - if something is funny in spite of the social baggage attached to (or araound) it, is it wrong to laugh?

I hope not, because Stepin Fetchit's shit cracks me up every time. Not the context that it's being played out in, but his shit. Buffonery brilliance, it is. Buffonery is a tradition that exists (and always has) outside of the realm of American racism.

The question of Fetchit vs. Tati I asked above was a serious one, as were they all.

The Joker as symbol has cropped up again and again in literature. Comedy has great signifigance and great therapeutic powers.

I don't really know Stepin Fetchit. I always found Eddie Anderson/Rochester funny and in the end he always outsmarted "Mr. Benny". But it still feels heavy as lead to watch that stuff. Amos And Andy in that movie wasn't even close to bring funny. It embarrassed me.

Edited October 5, 2006 by fasstrack

[Jazzmoose]

also, linguistic sidenote-- up north, ya'll know who the only two groups who regularly say (or write) ya'll are?

signed,

the effusive clementine

Let's see...those who don't know it's a contraction of "you all" and spelled y'all and the other ones?

(Yeah, I know Jim; we've been through that one before... )

[Alexander]

I don't really know Stepin Fetchit. I always found Eddie Anderson/Rochester funny and in the end he always outsmarted "Mr. Benny". But it still feels heavy as lead to watch that stuff. Amos And Andy in that movie wasn't even close to bring funny. It embarrassed me.

Boskin actually credits Anderson with helping to destroy the "Sambo" image, precisely because he and Benny so often reversed roles (with the black man outsmarting the white man).

[fasstrack]

On a very related sidebar (books) I again cracked the recent Lester Young bio (I just had it in my hands but too many brain cells are gone to remember title and author, but it's by a sociologist with three names, one of which is Henry, I believe ). To my surprise I found it much more engaging the 2nd time around. The 1st his prose style was so cumbersome and dry, to me, as to totally leave Lester the person out.

"Yes, I was wrong. Again I was wrong...."

This is a very accomplished book in describing social conditions in the Midwest in the early part of the 20th century, the jazz scene, intergration/miscogenation (sp?), and Pres's life and times (damn, that's the title, just remembered... ). He is very much there in fact (multiple interviews with him) and spirit (interviews with sidemen, etc.). It's a tour de force of scholarship and well worth putting up with the awkward prose of a scholar and not a conversational tone. RJ Smith's book is eminently readable, both talk about the same thing and points, namely the jazz and social life of 40s LA. A lot of attitudes of blacks and whites are explored/exposed. The only really annoying habit he has is capitalizing Black (white is in l.c.). It really slows down and stiffens the page and does nothing to offset any social ills. Other than that much recommended.

Over and out.

[fasstrack]

Lester Leaps in: the Life And Times of Lester "Pres" Young by Walter? Henry Daniels.

Walter is wrong. Someone correct me.

[brownie]

Lester Leaps in: the Life And Times of Lester "Pres" Young by Walter? Henry Daniels.

Walter is wrong. Someone correct me.

It's Douglas Henry Daniels.

Interesting book with its own perspective!

[GA Russell]

Boskin actually credits Anderson with helping to destroy the "Sambo" image, precisely because he and Benny so often reversed roles (with the black man outsmarting the white man).

Alexander, Sambo was a very intelligent Indian boy who outsmarted the tiger.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Boskin actually credits Anderson with helping to destroy the "Sambo" image, precisely because he and Benny so often reversed roles (with the black man outsmarting the white man).

Alexander, Sambo was a very intelligent Indian boy who outsmarted the tiger.

Mowgli.

MG

[Alexander]

Boskin actually credits Anderson with helping to destroy the "Sambo" image, precisely because he and Benny so often reversed roles (with the black man outsmarting the white man).

Alexander, Sambo was a very intelligent Indian boy who outsmarted the tiger.

Boskin has much to say about "Little Black Sambo" and the fact that it cut against the "Sambo" image. Sambo was, in the 19th century, a generic name for a black person, much like "Uncle Tom" or "Jim Crow." In the Minstrel shows, Sambo and Tambo were usually the "end men" (the actors who stood at the ends of the line-up of minstrels and swapped jokes and insults). Another common Minstrel name was "Bones," as in "Mistah Bones" or "Brudder Bones."

So yes, the boy in "Little Black Sambo" is meant to be Indian (my mother-in-law owns a copy of it and has read it to my daughter on many occasions). And he's meant to be clever. And in some editions (more modern editions) Sambo is drawn as an Indian child. But when the book was first published, Sambo and his parents (Mumbo and Jumbo) were drawn in the manner of the old black stereotype. An example is this image:

This image (below) is the edition my in-laws have:

So yes, you are right, but Sambo has connotations that go well beyond the children's book.

[Alexander]

This image comes from the 1899 edition of "The Story of Little Black Sambo." Notice that his hair is more in keeping with an Indian child, but that his features are in the minstrel tradition.