By John R. Murnane

Introduction

International cooperation is an imperative in the 21st century; humanity faces global crises of epic proportions–global warming, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, civil wars and cross-border conflicts, disease and economic uncertainty. Despite the obvious need, international organizations (such as the U.N.) have never been weaker; the forces of Nationalism, separatism, violence and hatred have never been stronger. And while there are many forces that hamper international cooperation, an emphasis of cultural differences and the projection of the “Other” are formidable obstacles standing in the way. The idea that people are very different–ethnically, culturally, ideologically–makes it harder to listen and to understand each other. Viewing people as “strange” and through “us vs. them” lenses makes it easier to ignore the plight of people in other countries and regions of the world and to oversimplify international problems. It is a message reinforced in the media, by political figures, in our schools, and popular culture. The “good vs evil” mindset and all its variations is pervasive.

One way forward is to start building a new “construct” to take the place of the old “us/them” outlook. A new view of history, and culture, a view that stresses the commonalities across cultural lines–from our DNA to the mathematics we use every day, to our common hopes, dreams and emotions to mankind’s common love of musical, artistic and literary expression to the countless other ways that make us similar and bound together–such a narrative of human history is needed now. The next several blog postings below are an attempt to demonstrate commonality across cultures by focusing on the rich results borrowing has had in the field of music.

I chose to explore connections with Jazz, Spanish music, and Arab music in a time of anti-Arab sentiment in the United States. Maybe this will be a step toward correcting the demonizing of the Middle East that has intensified in the wake of 9-11. Jazz, of course, is the quintessential cultural amalgam. Starting as a combination of African rhythms, slave songs and European marches, it has never stopped evolving. Jazz musicians have been borrowing and reshaping musical ideas, adapting ideas from Classical, rock and roll, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music to pop music for decades. And no artist in Jazz typified this process more so than Miles Davis. What follows is a musical journey from Miles to Mecca, tracing the ideas in two of Miles Davis’s recording in 1959 and 1960 to their roots over a thousand years old, ideas in Arab music that predate the rise of Islam in 600 C.E.

I’ve fleshed out the ideas presented in this post more so in an article for World History Connected (click here).

First Stop: Madrid

Music from “Kind of Blue” and “Sketches of Spain”

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Miles Davis biographer Ian Carr called it “one of the seminal albums, and one of the most enduring classics, of jazz,” recorded  in 1959 Kind of Blue featured Miles Davis (on trumpet) John Coltrane (tenor sax), Julian “Cannonball” Adderley (alto sax), Bill Evans (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Jimmy Cobb (drums). A pioneering leap into “modal” jazz, the lead song, “So What,” in particular, has become a Jazz classic. The last cut on the album,”Flamenco Sketches,” gets less attention. However, when seen in the context of Miles’s next project (the concept album called Sketches of Spain, 1959-60) “Flamenco Sketches” takes on more meaning, serving as a bridge from the “cool be bop,” on most of Kind of Blue, and a reworking of traditional Spanish music cords, melodic structures and tempos found on the album Sketches of Spain. However, Miles’s foray into traditional Spanish music was inspired by Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez,” a work written in 1939 that borrows heavily from a deeper musical past, drawing upon a long tradition of Flamenco guitar stretching back hundreds of years, a tradition that, in turn, has Arab musical ideas at its core.

(See “Concierto de Aranjuez” with Narcisco Yepes on 10 string guitar and full orchestra on the Other Resource page of this blog site. )

Next Stop: Cordoba

Music excerpts from “Lamento Andaluz” and “Capricho Arabe,” Pepe Romero on guitar.

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The composer of “Lamento Andaluz'” is unknown, the song, nevertheless, typifies the Flamenco tradition. Francisco Tárrega composed “Capricho Arabe” in 1880 as an acknowledgment of the Moorish influence on Spanish music. Played here by the virtuoso guitarist Pepe Romero, they are rich with the syncopated rhythms and melodic ideas of Flamenco and traditional Spanish music from the south of Spain–areas under Muslim control for nearly 700 years (755-1492 CE). This connection with the past is embodied in Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.” Rodrigo’s best-known work, it was inspired by the gardens at Palacio Real de Aranjuez, the spring resort (or palace) and gardens originally built by Philip II in the 16th century. Rodrigo hoped to capture “the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds and the gushing of fountains” in the gardens of Aranjuez. The musical ideas in both Rodrigo’s and Francisco Tárrega’s work and Flamenco music in general can be traced back even further, however–to a time when Cordoba was at its height, when Spain was a “conduit” between Europe and the vast learning and cultural sophistication of the Islamic world. The similarities in traditional Spanish music and traditional Arab music are reminders of this historic process and the tremendous value of cultural exchange. The connection from traditional Flamenco (found in the excerpt of “Lameto Andaluz”) to Tarrega’s attempt at blending and highlighting the Arab influence on Spanish music (in Capricho Arabe) to Concierto de Aranjuez (at once a Classical piece, a link to the past and the central theme in Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain) complete the journey from Miles to Cordoba, so to speak. Next stop: Mecca.

Final Destination: Mecca

Excerpts from “Layali Kurd,” “Sawt Shami” and “Taqsim Maqam Hijaz Kar Kurd,” compiled and recorded by Habib Hassan Touma for his book The Music of the Arabs (Cambridge: Amadeus Press, 1996).

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Arab music makes use of the “Maqam Phenomenon.” According to Habib Hassan Touma “characteristic of maqam performances are the long pauses that split up melodic lines into several melodic passages.” This technique certainly sounds like Miles Davis’s approach to improvisation–the long pauses that made Davis so famous. But that’s getting ahead of the story.

Many of the ideas of Arab music (the patterns of notes, the syncopated rhythms) predate Islam. This earlier music focused on vocals by singer-servant women called “qaynah.” These women put traditional Arab poetry to music. And although Arab musical ideas were probably influenced by contact with Persia, Byzantine, Egypt and Ethiopia, few records remain. The first two selections here are reminiscent of that early, pre-Islamic tradition , with their haunting melodic lines and sense of time. The third selection –“Taqsim Maqam Hijaz Kar Kurd”–is from the Hijaz style, also called the Early Arabian Classical school (it was developed during the Abbasid Era, 750-1258 CE). Hijaz era musicians added more instruments during performances. The Hijaz school was followed by the Andalusi style of Arab music, which began in the early 800s and spread to Cordoba, Seville, Toledo, Valencia and Granada, where it clearly influenced Flamenco and southern Spanish traditional music (as seen above). The similarities in melodic patterns, rhythm and cords are unmistakable.

The wistful, melancholy sense in both Arab and traditional Spanish clearly lends itself to the kind of “cool” Jazz of Miles Davis. In each case, be it Arab, Spanish or Jazz music, borrowing across cultural lines has had rich results. Such borrowing serves as a reminder of our common connections–of our common humanity. It can be clearly seen in a journey from Miles to Mecca and the various stages and “destinations” in between.

Conclusion

The PBS documentary Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers is subtitled “the Powerful Journey into Mankind’s Universal Search for Meaning and Connection.” It underscores something that seems to have been lost in the postmodern debate on college campuses over the last few decades: humans have been choosing to tell stories with a purpose for millennia. Recognizing the various ways that these stories have been used to manipulate and support a political agenda is only half the story—albeit a very important part of the process of mitigating the dangers inherent in concepts such as the idea of the “Other.” As the historian T.H. Von Laue recommended, however, we need to pick from the past that which is useful in the present, especially where the stakes are so high. And while the Us/Them outlook (or what Jerry Z. Muller has recently called “ethnonationalism”) is likely to endure, this does not mean that an alternate narrative should not be attempted.  An inclusive story needs to begin somewhere. Academics have a role to play. But they need to write about topics with a broader appeal. The insight of the postmodern debate can be put to good use (particularly the idea of the malleability of narratives or the construct), but not if the public does not know about them. Music is highly accessible and the connections to be made highlight a profound point: we are more similar than different; opening our minds to other cultures is a powerful and rewarding experience. Doing so may actually lead to our collective survival in the decades ahead. A brief listen to Sketches of Spain makes these common connections clear. It is a reminder of the rewards of learning from and borrowing from other cultures.

See sidebar for more resources and connections to other music.