Collective Difference: The Pan-American Association of Composers

In music this cultivation often involved experimentation with Mexican,
Caribbean, or South American rhythms (such as the habanera or huapango) and
percussion instruments. As in early portrayals of Native American cultures, some of these
experiments were based on generic or invented Afro-Caribbean sounds. John J. Becker’s
Abongo: A Primitive Dance calls for nine drums of varying size, tin pans, small and large
barrels, timpani, cymbals, a large gong, and the hand clapping and voices of a dance
chorus, but it does not contain specific local rhythms or styles of drumming. William
Russell (1905-1992), a more ethnographically-minded musician and a student of Cowell,
tried to reproduce Haitian rhythms and drumming in his Ogou Badagri: A Voodoo Ballet
after a trip to the island in 1932. He attempted a similar experiment in 1935: a set of
studies on Cuban rhythms scored exclusively for Afro-Cuban percussion.
Russell is primarily known today as a tireless collector of jazz records, for making
the first recordings of a New Orleans brass band, and for having been the first curator of
the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University in 1958. His contribution to the percussion
ensemble literature, however, is also substantial. Cowell and Cage both championed
Russell’s percussion works. These pieces, eight altogether, were performed on at least
fifteen concerts between 1933 and 1961, an enviable frequency considering that Russell
was disinclined to promote his own works.
Russell was born as Russell William Wagner in Canton, Missouri. To avoid
association with Richard Wagner when Cowell published his Fugue for Eight Percussion
Instruments in 1933, he changed his name to William Russell. 21 The new sounds of the
jazz band captivated Russell at an early age. When at ten years old he expressed an
interest in playing drums, his mother encouraged him to instead take up the violin, which
he did. He graduated from Culver-Stockton College in 1926 with a certificate in music
education. After spending a year teaching at a high school and a small college in
Yankton, South Dakota (at which he had the college orchestra perform Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue), Russell moved to New York City to attend Columbia University
Teachers’ College. At the same time, he took violin lessons from Max Pilzer,
21 Unless otherwise indicated, biographical information on William Russell is taken from Southern
Quarterly 36/2 (Winter 1998), which is dedicated to the composer. The most pertinent article to the present
discussion is Don Gillespie’s “William Russell: American Percussion Composer” (35-55).
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