THE LUTES OF WEST AFRICA
Copyright © 2006 Shlomo Pestcoe. All rights reserved.
By
Shlomo Pestcoe
Copyright © 2006 Shlomo Pestcoe. All rights reserved.
With special thanks & appreciation to
Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta, Ulf Jägfors,
Dena J. Epstein, Eileen Southern, Nick Bamber, Ben Nelson, Paul Oliver, Ken
Gourlay, Eric Charry, Gerhard Kubik, Francis Bebey, J.H. Kwabena, John Miller Chernoff, Joseph Hill,
Thomas A. Hale, Michael Coolen, Hans Nathan, CeCe Conway, James Bollman, Samuel Charters, Ephraim McDowell, Ed Britt, Paul Sedgwick, Dr.
Joan Dickerson, Sule Greg Wilson....
and, of course, Pete Seeger,
the pioneering banjoist who started me on my quest.
"The instrument proper to them is the banjar, which they brought hither from Africa...."
-- Thomas Jefferson on African American music, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781)
A personal take on the search for the banjo's West African roots and an outline of the main issues explored.
Banjo Ancestors Detectives: Daniel Jatta & Ulf Jägfors-- An introduction to two leading figures in the search for the West African archetypes of the banjo: Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta, a Jola scholar/musician from Mandinary, Gambia who pioneered the research and documentation of the different kinds of Senegambian folk lutes such as the Jola akonting and the Manjak bunchundo; and Ulf Jägfors, a Swedish banjo historian who was one of the first to seriously explore and document the connection between the earliest forms of the banjo and the many different kinds of West African folk and non-griot artisan lutes.
The Early Banjo in the New World-- A look at the various gourd banjos of the enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and Colonial America from their origins in the 17th century until the emergence of the 5-string banjo in the 1840s.
West African Lutes in a Nutshell-- An overview of West Africa's big and diverse family of plucked lutes.
The Origin of West African Lutes-- One theory of when, where, and how West African plucked lutes originated.
The First West African Lutes: Gourd-Bodied?-- Thoughts on a central issue in the ongoing debate on the banjo's West African roots.
From Ancient Egypt to West Africa: The Lute Connection--An exploration of the possible link between the plucked lutes of Pharonic Egypt and those of West Africa.
Griot Lutes-- The characteristics of those lutes that are exclusive to the griots, music artisans and wordsmiths who are members of a social caste that's unique to certain West African traditional societies.
The Emergence of the Griot Lutes-- A perspective on the mysterious origins of this major limb of the West African lute family tree.
West African Folk & Artisan Lutes-- Revisiting the "other" limb of West Africa's lute family tree which has been hitherto overlooked.
The Akonting & Other Folk Lutes of West Africa's "Rice Coast"-- Introducing the Jola akonting and other similar folk lutes-- such as the Manjak bunchundo Balanta kisinta and Papel
Two Gourd Lutes from the Bijago Islands of Guinea Bissau A report by English banjoist/historian/field researcher Nick Bamber on his discovery in August 2006 of two gourd-bodied folk lutes-- Bujogo (Bijago) ngopata and the Balanta kusunde-- that were previously unknown in the ongoing search for the banjo's West African ancestors.
Supplemental:
Illustration Credits:
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Folk Lute, Nigeria, circa 1970 (Collection of Shlomo Pestcoe)
A 4-string gourd banjar
in one of the oldest known depictions of an early gourd banjo in America.
The Old Plantation (detail), anonymous folk painting, circa 1790. (The
Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, VA)
