Creolizing Contradance in the Caribbean - Temple University
Creolizing Contradance in the Caribbean - Temple University
Creolizing Contradance in the Caribbean - Temple University
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18 Peter Manuel<br />
m<strong>in</strong>uet, were all performed alongside contradance variants, often with no particular<br />
prom<strong>in</strong>ence given to <strong>the</strong> latter; <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> early decades of <strong>the</strong> twentieth<br />
century, <strong>the</strong>se could be supplemented by <strong>the</strong> American-derived fox-trot or twostep.<br />
12 It may be assumed that most of <strong>the</strong>se pieces were of foreign composition,<br />
although many would have been written by obscure local composers.<br />
Many such pieces became thoroughly <strong>in</strong>digenized <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> sense of be<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>corporated<br />
<strong>in</strong>to local folk performance formats, as with <strong>the</strong> odd mazurka be<strong>in</strong>g<br />
played by a Puerto Rican jíbaro (peasant) music ensemble. Never<strong>the</strong>less, it<br />
may be said that <strong>the</strong>y were never celebrated as national creole musics per se, as<br />
was <strong>the</strong> case, for example with <strong>the</strong> early-twentieth-century vals criollo (“creole<br />
waltz”) and “ fox trot <strong>in</strong>kaico” (“Inca fox-trot”) <strong>in</strong> Lima, Peru (see Lloréns Amico<br />
1983). Similarly, <strong>Caribbean</strong>-composed waltzes never achieved more than local<br />
or ephemeral popularity, nor did <strong>the</strong>y play sem<strong>in</strong>al roles <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> evolution of subsequent<br />
commercial popular genres.<br />
Understand<strong>in</strong>g <strong>Caribbean</strong> contradance and quadrille variants as musical<br />
entities <strong>in</strong>volves attention to <strong>the</strong>ir melodic aspects, <strong>the</strong>ir rhythms, <strong>the</strong>ir ensemble<br />
formats, and <strong>the</strong>ir manner of execution—which may all, <strong>in</strong> fact, differ significantly<br />
<strong>in</strong> style. For example, look<strong>in</strong>g at <strong>the</strong> score of a quadrille viol<strong>in</strong> melody<br />
from Dom<strong>in</strong>ica, one might <strong>in</strong>fer that <strong>the</strong> piece is wholly <strong>in</strong> conventional, nondescript<br />
European style, but only through actually hear<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> piece performed,<br />
with its syncopated rhythms played on frame drum, scraper, and shaker, would<br />
one appreciate <strong>the</strong> extent to which it has become creolized and effectively<br />
Afro-<strong>Caribbean</strong>ized. Accord<strong>in</strong>gly, several n<strong>in</strong>eteenth-century chroniclers testified<br />
to <strong>the</strong> dist<strong>in</strong>ctively creole manner of play<strong>in</strong>g contradances on piano and to<br />
<strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>ability of European pianists to play <strong>the</strong>m properly (Alonso [1849] 2002:<br />
15; Dueño Colón [1913] 1977: 22; Ramírez 1891: 69). Similarly, <strong>in</strong> look<strong>in</strong>g<br />
at <strong>the</strong> piano score of a Cuban contradanza of <strong>the</strong> 1850s we are unable to get<br />
much sense of how it would have sounded when performed by a contemporary<br />
dance band, not to mention precisely how and <strong>in</strong> what spirit it was danced. 13<br />
As Cuban musicologist Natalio Galán artfully observed, <strong>the</strong> task of <strong>the</strong> historian<br />
<strong>in</strong> confront<strong>in</strong>g such scores is ak<strong>in</strong> to try<strong>in</strong>g to discern <strong>the</strong> scent of a violet<br />
found between <strong>the</strong> pages of a grandmo<strong>the</strong>r’s book, while not confus<strong>in</strong>g its fa<strong>in</strong>t<br />
odor with that of <strong>the</strong> paper or <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>k (1983: 42).<br />
On <strong>the</strong> whole, <strong>in</strong> terms of <strong>the</strong>ir melodic and harmonic aspects, <strong>the</strong> <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
contradances and quadrilles are predom<strong>in</strong>antly ma<strong>in</strong>stream European <strong>in</strong><br />
style. Hence, for <strong>in</strong>stance, <strong>in</strong> Cuban contradanzas one would seldom hear <strong>the</strong><br />
Andalusian harmonies (e.g., <strong>the</strong> A m<strong>in</strong>or–G–F–E cadence) that characterize<br />
such genres as flamenco or <strong>the</strong> Cuban punto carvalho, nor does one encounter<br />
<strong>the</strong> dist<strong>in</strong>ctively ambiguous tonicity, with its cadences “on <strong>the</strong> dom<strong>in</strong>ant,”<br />
that pervades so many Lat<strong>in</strong> American genres, from <strong>the</strong> Venezuelan joropo to<br />
<strong>the</strong> Mexican jarabe (see Manuel 2002). Also absent <strong>in</strong> <strong>Caribbean</strong> contradances<br />
and quadrilles are <strong>the</strong> sorts of African modal melodies that dist<strong>in</strong>guish such<br />
genres as <strong>the</strong> Cuban rumba columbia (see Manuel and Fiol 2007). Ra<strong>the</strong>r,