The song was first performed on 15 September 1857 at Ordway Hall in Boston by the minstrel performer Johnny Pell. Mahar that “‘the real essence of minstrelsy was burlesque,’” I shall demonstrate that the song emerged from a practice that began on the northern minstrel stages of Boston and New York around 1853, in which a popular sleigh narrative that embeds a courting ritual became the target of burlesque. My goal here is to demonstrate a methodology that engages with popular and visual culture and examines both the performative traces and some typical performance texts of blackface minstrelsy to offer a more rigorous study of a much-romanticized song. Footnote 4 The song's veiled history as part of the antebellum blackface minstrel tradition demonstrates the problems that arise when the singular event comes to dominate discussion of performance practice. Davis asks that we recalibrate our historical understanding of a performance tradition by looking more closely at performative “accretions of practice,” emphasizing that we avoid privileging a singular event (such as one performance, or, in this case, an act of writing) over a study of repertoire. The key question that has so far eluded inquiry is this: “Where was it first performed?” The legacy of “Jingle Bells” is, as we shall see, a prime example of a common misreading of much popular music from the nineteenth century in which its blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history.
Since Hoover staked her claim, the question “Where was it first written?” has enabled the historiography of the song to remain localized and be given only seasonal and superficial attention, none of which engages with its origins in blackface performance. Hoover's polite euphemism for the unspoken blackface tradition associated with Foster is a good example of how the racial history of the song has remained hidden behind its local and seasonal affection. Yet, Hoover draws a clear line in Pierpont's catalog when she describes “‘Jingle Bells’, the little New England folksong” as if it stood outside of the minstrel tradition. In an article published in the Daily Boston Globe on 22 December 1946, Gladys Hoover was the first to stake Medford's claim when she wrote explicitly of Pierpont's practice of writing “Songs for Minstrels.” Footnote 2 She identified his songs as being in the “style of Stephen Foster, of whom Pierpont was a contemporary” and lists some of the well-known minstrel troupes for whom he wrote.
Commemorative plaques can be found in both cities, and this musical North–South discord carries on to this day. This essay confronts one of the most popular Christmas carols of all time: “Jingle Bells or, The One Horse Open Sleigh,” whose history has usually been told in relation to a singular event-“Where was it first written?” The answer depends on where you ask, since both Medford, Massachusetts and Savannah, Georgia lay claim to being the song's city of origin. However, cracks have begun to form in the beloved “Jingle Bells” narrative, and as with many such sentimental stories, we find there is always more to uncover. Since it is written in bronze and mounted on stone, the story seems fixed and immovable. The narrative works extremely hard to convince through evidence: we have a date, an eyewitness, and the events that inspired the song's conception.
“Jingle Bells” tells of the sleigh races held on Salem Street in the early 1800's. Pierpont had the song copyrighted in 1857 while living in Georgia. Otis Waterman, who later verified that the song was written here. Xato.On this site stood the Simpson Tavern, where in 1850 James Pierpont (1822–93) wrote the song “Jingle Bells” in the presence of Mrs.
MIS 3371 Summer 2014 Parks Exam 1 Answers
0 kommentar(er)
