Black Music Sunday is a weekly sequence highlighting all issues Black music, with over 240 tales masking performers, genres, historical past, and extra, every that includes its personal vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll discover some acquainted tunes and maybe an introduction to one thing new.
We’ve received fairly just a few holidays on the December calendar, together with the winter solstice (also referred to as Xmas), Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Yr’s Eve. There may be music hooked up to all of them, in a number of genres. So come all ye celebrators, and provides a hearken to a cross part of tunes from every.
Winter solstice is additionally celebrated as Xmas.
As Helen Berger writes for Brandeis College:
Xmas will probably be celebrated by Wiccans and plenty of different Pagans within the Northern Hemisphere on Dec. 21, the day of the winter solstice. For Pagans, the shortest day of the 12 months marks the finish of the descent into darkness and the start of the return of the sunshine as the times start to get longer after the solstice. Like many different spiritual holidays, Xmas is a celebration of sunshine.
“In The Bleak Midwinter” is a winter solstice hymn written by Christina Rossetti. This classical instrumental duet, carried out by cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and his sister, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, evokes its sentiment.
Neo-classical pianist Karim Kamar, who constructed a piano profession utilizing social media as his launch pad, composed this delicate tribute to the winter solstice.
However Kamar’s not the one one naming tunes after the shortest day of the 12 months. Within the jazz vein, Ralph Towner composed the album “Solstice” for the avant-garde ECM label. Michael G. Nastos reviewed it for AllMusic.
When Ralph Towner burst onto the up to date jazz scene within the mid-70s, listeners have been properly conscious of his superior expertise as a member of Oregon. However when Solstice was issued on the ECM label, it took the sensible guitarist’s caché to a a lot larger degree, particularly as a composer. With the otherworldly curved soprano sax and flute taking part in of Jan Garbarek, the exact drumming of Jon Christensen, and distinctive bass sounds of Eberhard Weber, the music on this album lifted the ECM/Euro-styled jazz and improvised music to a brand new realm of pure expressionism. Merely put — this music is stunningly stunning.
Right here’s Towner’s “Winter Solstice.”
This 12 months, Hannukah begins on the night of Dec. 25 and continues until Jan 2.
Hanukkah — additionally spelled Chanukah or different transliterations from Hebrew — is Judaism’s “festival of lights.” On eight consecutive nightfalls, Jews collect with household and associates to mild one further candle within the menorah — a multibranched candelabra.
In Hebrew, Hanukkah means “dedication,” and the vacation marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem within the 2nd century BC, after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying international forces.
RELATED STORY: Black Music Sunday: For Hanukkah, let’s get pleasure from some kosher gospel with Joshua Nelson
“Hava Nagoya” is a Jewish folks track that’s sung at many festivities, together with Hanukkah, and it has an interesting historical past, detailed by Dr. James Loeffler for My Jewish Studying.
Hava Nagila’s Lengthy, Unusual Journey: The unlikely historical past of a Hasidic melody
If there’s one Jewish track recognized by Jews and non-Jews alike, it’s undoubtedly Hava Nagila (הבה נגילה), which is Hebrew for “let us rejoice.” From its obscure origins in early Twentieth-century Palestine, the track has gone on to turn out to be a perennial favourite at weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and Jewish — and non-Jewish — cultural occasions around the globe. With its quick lyrics and easy but distinctive melody, Hava Nagila has been recorded a whole bunch of occasions by musicians starting from Neil Diamond, the Barry Sisters, and Harry Belafonte to the up to date pop singer Ben Folds and the Serbian Gypsy brass band legend Boban Marcovic. But for all of its widespread reputation, few know the historical past of this international Jewish hit.
Right here’s Harry Belafonte’s model:
One of many musicians I featured in 2021’s “Black and Jewish musicians and songwriters forged musical history—together,” was orthodox Jewish rapper Nissim Black. Black, together with rapper Rami Matan Even-Esh—higher referred to as Kosha Dillz—launched this remix of Adam Sandler’s iconic “Saturday Night Live” hit “The Hanukkah Song” in 2021.
This isn’t Black music or Black musicians, however I’m a Queen fan, so I needed to embrace “Bohemian Chanukah,” a tackle “Bohemian Rhapsody” sung by acapella vocal group Six13.
As Historical past notes, Kwanzaa is america’ latest vacation.
Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor and chairman of Black Research at California State College, Lengthy Seashore, created Kwanzaa in 1966. After the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Dr. Karenga searched for methods to convey African People collectively as a neighborhood. He based US, a cultural group, and began to analysis African “first fruit” (harvest) celebrations. Karenga mixed points of a number of totally different harvest celebrations, reminiscent of these of the Ashanti and people of the Zulu, to type the idea of the week-long vacation. Kwanzaa 2023 begins on Tuesday, December 26, and lasts by means of Monday, January 1, 2024.
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Seven Rules
The seven rules, or Nguzo Saba are a set of beliefs created by Dr. Maulana Karenga. Every day of Kwanzaa emphasizes a distinct precept.
Unity:Umoja (oo–MO–jah)
To try for and keep unity within the household, neighborhood, nation, and race.Self-determination: Kujichagulia (koo–gee–cha–goo–LEE–yah)
To outline ourselves, identify ourselves, create for ourselves, and communicate for ourselves.Collective Work and Accountability: Ujima (oo–GEE–mah)
To construct and keep our neighborhood collectively and make our brother’s and sister’s issues our issues and to resolve them collectively.Cooperative Economics: Ujamaa (oo–JAH–mah)
To construct and keep our personal shops, outlets, and different companies and to revenue from them collectively.Function: Nia (nee–YAH)
To make our collective vocation the constructing and growing of our neighborhood with a purpose to restore our individuals to their conventional greatness.Creativity: Kuumba (koo–OOM–bah)
To do at all times as a lot as we will, in the best way we will, with a purpose to go away our neighborhood extra stunning and useful than we inherited it.Religion: Imani (ee–MAH–nee)
To imagine with all our coronary heart in our individuals, our dad and mom, our academics, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our wrestle.
Right here’s Candy Honey within the Rock singing the “Seven Principles.”
The late, nice soul singer Teddy Pendergrass launched ”Joyful Kwanzaa” in 1998, on the album “This Christmas (I’d Rather Have Love).” The lyrics rejoice the seven rules.
Christmas Eve is well known on Dec. 24, and for many Christians, it’s not simply the day earlier than Christmas—it’s a vacation in its personal proper.
For a lot of Christians, it’s a day to recollect the occasions across the beginning of Jesus. Some individuals, particularly Roman Catholics, attend a midnight mass at church. Historically, the midnight mass began at midnight, simply as Christmas Eve ended and Christmas Day began. Nonetheless, now might church buildings maintain this church service within the late afternoon or early night of Christmas Eve.
Many Protestant church buildings additionally maintain particular companies on Christmas Eve. These are sometimes candle-lit and could also be very solemn. Some embrace the presentation of a crib scene depicting the holy household, with statues or actors representing Mary, Joseph, the child Jesus, the shepherds and numerous animals regarded as current within the secure the place Jesus was born.
The vacation is well known as Noche Buena in lots of Spanish-speaking international locations.
My all-time favourite R&B tribute to the holy night time is The Temptations’ model of “Silent Night.” Journalist and writer Neely Tucker wrote about listening to it for the primary time for The Washington Submit in 2004.
A Motown ‘Silent Night time’ That Echoes Down the Years
The unique 5 members of the Temptations had grown up within the Deep South and within the church, by which I imply the Protestant black church — Baptist, actually, of the sort the place it’s pronounced “Babdist” — and it was at all times one of many group’s hallmarks that the gospel affect of their youth had infused the voices of their grownup years.
However this was one thing else completely. This was gospel emotion over a Motown beat with the lyrics of a basic European hymn. “Silent Night” was written almost 200 years in the past by a Austrian priest and a composer. The primary time it was performed was on Christmas Eve, 1818, in Oberndorf. By 1900 it had turn out to be a sacred basic, narrating the beginning of the Christ little one, God’s son on Earth.
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“It was like magic,” recollects Gil Askey, the veteran Motown composer, in an e-mail from his residence in Australia. “If you’ve ever been in the Holiness Church, and seen those sisters scream when they’re filled with the Spirit, you will know how I felt, or shall I say how the Temptations felt. They didn’t want to stop, just grooved on out.”
Pay particular consideration to baritone Melvin Franklin.
No dialogue of Christmas Eve and Black music could be full with out the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Her 1986 “Oh Holy Night” duet, carried out on David Brennan’s “Nightlife” present with bandleader Billy Preston, is a basic.
And onto Christmas Day. I’ve been looking dozens of lists rating the prime soul, R&B, jazz, blues, or pop Christmas songs. Ultimately, I did a coin toss to decide on only one track. My former classmate at Howard College, Donny Hathaway, received.
From the Grammy Awards:
How Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” Turned An Everlasting Vacation Basic
Solely 5 months after his broadly adored debut album, Every part Is Every part, Hathaway launched “This Christmas” as a single in December 1970. Although it has touched hearts all around the globe, the observe notably feels prefer it faucets into the core of the Midwestern Christmases of Hathaway’s childhood: the heat of gathering with family members round a chimney fireplace, the twinkle of a particular somebody’s eye beneath the mistletoe, the streetlights reflecting off the mounds of snow out the window. “Fireside is blazing bright/We’re caroling through the night/And this Christmas will be a very special Christmas for me,” Hathaway smiles because the horn part roars to life.
This Christmas” was especially important for the distinct leap forward the song took for Christmas music released by a Black artist. “Up till then African American music wasn’t represented in Christmas,” percussionist Ric Powell advised the Chicago Solar-Occasions in 2009. “There was Nat King Cole and Charles Brown‘s ‘I am going to Be House For Christmas.’ Throughout the mid-Sixties, James Brown was additionally slicing vacation tracks like ‘Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto,’ however they have been extra within the self-contained funky spirit of the Godfather of Soul than Christmas.”
Have a pay attention and benefit from the healthful music video.
New Yr’s Eve closes out December, the 12 months, and this installment of “Black Music Sunday.” I’ll go away you with my mother’s all time favourite feminine jazz vocalist, Ella Fitzgerald, singing “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve.” The track, written by Frank Loesser in 1947, and I are the identical age.
I look ahead to listening to your vacation favorites, so be a part of me within the feedback and share them! Over time, I’ve written over 20 tales right here at Each day Kos that includes Christmas music and celebration. I’ll be sharing them under as properly.
Joyful holidays to every person!
