Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Workers World "Ho Chi Minh: On Lynching & the Ku Klux Klan
Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh: ‘On lynching & the Ku Klux Klan’
Ho Chi Minh
This May 19 will mark the 125th birthday anniversary of the great anti-imperialist leader, Ho Chi Minh. “Uncle Ho” was a leader of the National Liberation Front, a people’s army that defeated both French and U.S. military invaders in Vietnam. In honor of this legendary figure and the current Black Lives Matter uprising, WW is printing the following excerpts from a report made by this Vietnamese communist at the Fifth Congress of the Communist International gathering held in July 1924 in Moscow during the “National and Colonial Question” session. He died in 1969, six years before Vietnam’s liberation from U.S. imperialism. Go to tinyurl.com/n5nlck6 to read the entire report.
It is well-known that the Black race is the most oppressed and the most exploited of the human family. It is well-known that the spread of capitalism and the discovery of the New World had as an immediate result the rebirth of slavery. What everyone does not perhaps know is that after sixty-five years of so-called emancipation, American Negroes still endure atrocious moral and material sufferings, of which the most cruel and horrible is the custom of lynching.
[Charles] Lynch was the name of a planter in Virginia, a landlord and judge. Availing himself of the troubles of the War of Independence, he took the control of the whole district into his hands. He inflicted the most savage punishment, without trial or process of law, on Loyalists and Tories. Thanks to the slave traders, the Ku Klux Klan and other secret societies, the illegal and barbarous practice of lynching is spreading and continuing widely in the states of the American Union. It has become more inhuman since the emancipation of the Blacks, and is especially directed at the latter.
From 1899 to 1919, 2,600 Blacks were lynched, including 51 women and girls and ten former Great War soldiers.
Among 78 Blacks lynched in 1919, 11 were burned alive, three burned after having been killed, 31 shot, three tortured to death, one cut into pieces, one drowned and 11 put to death by various means.
Georgia heads the list with 22 victims. Mississippi follows with 12. Both have also three lynched soldiers to their credit.
Among the charges brought against the victims of 1919: one of having been a member of the League of Non-Partisans (independent farmers); one of having distributed revolutionary publications; one of expressing his opinion on lynchings too freely; one of having criticized the clashes between whites and Blacks in Chicago; one of having been known as a leader of the cause of the Blacks; and one for not getting out of the way and thus frightening a white child who was in a motorcar. In 1920, there were fifty lynchings, and in 1922 there were twenty-eight.
These crimes were all motivated by economic jealousy. Either the Negroes in the area were more prosperous than the whites, or the Black workers would not let themselves be exploited thoroughly. In all cases, the principal culprits were never troubled, for the simple reason that they were always incited, encouraged, spurred on and then protected by politicians, financiers and authorities, and above all, by the reactionary press.
The place of origin of the Ku Klux Klan is the southern United States. In May, 1866, after the Civil War, young people gathered together in a small locality of the state of Tennessee to set up a circle.
The victory of the federal government had just freed the Negroes and made them citizens. The agriculture of the South — deprived of its Black labor — was short of hands. Former landlords were exposed to ruin. The Klansmen proclaimed the principle of the supremacy of the white race. The agrarian and slaveholding bourgeoisie saw in the Klan a useful agent, almost a savior. They gave it all the help in their power. The Klan’s methods ranged from intimidation to murder.
The Negroes, having learned during the war that they are a force if united, are no longer allowing their kinsmen to be beaten or murdered with impunity. In July 1919, in Washington, they stood up to the Klan and a wild mob. The battle raged in the capital for four days. In August, they fought for five days against the Klan and the mob in Chicago. Seven regiments were mobilized to restore order. In September, the government was obliged to send federal troops to Omaha to put down similar strife. In various other states the Negroes defend themselves no less energetically.
Sunday, June 28, 2020
Useless Covid App hipe exposed
Despite 6 million downloads, the COVIDSafe app is yet to detect any unknown coronavirus contacts
It was sold as the key to unlocking restrictions – like sunscreen to protect Australians from Covid-19 but as the country begins to open up, the role of the Covidsafe app in the recovery seems to have dropped to marginal at best.
“This is an important protection for a Covid-safe Australia,” the prime minister, Scott Morrison, said in late April. “I would liken it to the fact that if you want to go outside when the sun is shining, you have got to put sunscreen on.”
“This is the same thing … If you want to return to a more liberated economy and society, it is important that we get increased numbers of downloads when it comes to the Covidsafe app … This is the ticket to ensuring that we can have eased restrictions.”
The health minister, Greg Hunt, tweeted that it was the key to being allowed to go back to watching football.
Vale George Parsons
It is with sadness that I share the email I received from our colleague, Associate Professor David Butt in the Department of Linguistics, and which I have been asked to share with you :
Over 4 decades, one of the wisest and most colourful of our scholars at Macquarie was the historian George Parsons (BA Hons MA Hons U.Syd. PhD Monash; and Hon Birkbeck College, London). Over the last weekend, George passed away in his sleep.
George was the learned and affable person one goes to campus to meet, and with whom discussions of the past, and on the economics and politics of the current moment, were always reasoned and enjoyable. He assisted staff at every level with advice (for which he was often sought out). He was noted also for his candid opposition, when it was deserved.
His network of intellectual contacts concerning Marxist History included one of the giants of C20th history, Eric Hobsbawm. They kept up exchanges even to recent years, and these exchanges illustrated the ideal of mentorship developing into scholarship, and friendship.
George died after months of home care by his partner, Dr. Margaret Hennessy, herself a scholar from Macquarie linguistics - a wonderful teacher, editor, and scholar of French language and culture.
George was an uncompromising scholar, a grand conversationalist, an energetic teacher, and a free spirit.
As many of you, I have had the opportunity for many conversations with George over the past decades and have always enjoyed his joviality and collegiality.
Best, Martina
Professor Martina Möllering
Executive Dean
Over 4 decades, one of the wisest and most colourful of our scholars at Macquarie was the historian George Parsons (BA Hons MA Hons U.Syd. PhD Monash; and Hon Birkbeck College, London). Over the last weekend, George passed away in his sleep.
George was the learned and affable person one goes to campus to meet, and with whom discussions of the past, and on the economics and politics of the current moment, were always reasoned and enjoyable. He assisted staff at every level with advice (for which he was often sought out). He was noted also for his candid opposition, when it was deserved.
His network of intellectual contacts concerning Marxist History included one of the giants of C20th history, Eric Hobsbawm. They kept up exchanges even to recent years, and these exchanges illustrated the ideal of mentorship developing into scholarship, and friendship.
George died after months of home care by his partner, Dr. Margaret Hennessy, herself a scholar from Macquarie linguistics - a wonderful teacher, editor, and scholar of French language and culture.
George was an uncompromising scholar, a grand conversationalist, an energetic teacher, and a free spirit.
As many of you, I have had the opportunity for many conversations with George over the past decades and have always enjoyed his joviality and collegiality.
Best, Martina
Professor Martina Möllering
Executive Dean
Permanent increase to JobSeeker and Youth Allowance must be enough to cover the basics
As reported today, the Government is considering a permanent increase to the old Newstart rate ($40 a day) of $10 a day, which would come into effect for people on JobSeeker, once the Coronavirus Supplement, which effectively doubled the old rate to $80 a day, is set to finish in September.
Australian Council of Social Service CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie said:
“We need to raise the rate of JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and other income support payments for good so that everyone has enough to cover the basics of life, like a roof over their head and food on the table.
“While we welcome that the Government is planning a permanent increase, it must allow people to cover the basics and we know that an increase of $10 a day won’t go far enough.
“We need to let people know we have their backs. We must adequately raise the rate of JobSeeker and Youth Allowance for good so that people can cover the basics they need to get by – a $10 a day increase to the old, low Newstart rate won’t be enough to allow people to cover their housing costs, food, bills and transport.
“As we handle the COVID-19 health crisis and confront the economic crisis, more people than ever before will struggle to find paid work. Just in the last week we’ve seen thousands of job losses.
“It’s clear to everyone, including the Government, that we can’t turn back to where we were when people were struggling to survive on $40 per day. This is not enough to live, let alone to cover the basics.
“There must be an adequate, permanent increase, which ensures people do not lose their homes. Even with the Supplement, only 1.5% of rentals are affordable for people on JobSeeker, Australia-wide. We know that with the Coronavirus Supplement people have been struggling to cover their rent. People are telling us they need every single dollar they are getting now with the doubling of JobSeeker in order to cover the essentials.
“Making sure people have enough to cover the basics is not only the right thing to do but the smart thing to do for the economy. A $75 per week permanent increase to the old rate is effectively a $200 per week cut to the current rate. Cutting the incomes of almost 2 million people by $200 per week in September would not be what businesses and the economy need to rebuild.
“To get through this crisis, we need to support each other, so everyone has access to the basics to rebuild their lives,” Dr Goldie said.
Media contact: Australian Council of Social Service, 0419 626 155
Australian Council of Social Service CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie said:
“We need to raise the rate of JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and other income support payments for good so that everyone has enough to cover the basics of life, like a roof over their head and food on the table.
“While we welcome that the Government is planning a permanent increase, it must allow people to cover the basics and we know that an increase of $10 a day won’t go far enough.
“We need to let people know we have their backs. We must adequately raise the rate of JobSeeker and Youth Allowance for good so that people can cover the basics they need to get by – a $10 a day increase to the old, low Newstart rate won’t be enough to allow people to cover their housing costs, food, bills and transport.
“As we handle the COVID-19 health crisis and confront the economic crisis, more people than ever before will struggle to find paid work. Just in the last week we’ve seen thousands of job losses.
“It’s clear to everyone, including the Government, that we can’t turn back to where we were when people were struggling to survive on $40 per day. This is not enough to live, let alone to cover the basics.
“There must be an adequate, permanent increase, which ensures people do not lose their homes. Even with the Supplement, only 1.5% of rentals are affordable for people on JobSeeker, Australia-wide. We know that with the Coronavirus Supplement people have been struggling to cover their rent. People are telling us they need every single dollar they are getting now with the doubling of JobSeeker in order to cover the essentials.
“Making sure people have enough to cover the basics is not only the right thing to do but the smart thing to do for the economy. A $75 per week permanent increase to the old rate is effectively a $200 per week cut to the current rate. Cutting the incomes of almost 2 million people by $200 per week in September would not be what businesses and the economy need to rebuild.
“To get through this crisis, we need to support each other, so everyone has access to the basics to rebuild their lives,” Dr Goldie said.
Media contact: Australian Council of Social Service, 0419 626 155
Friday, June 26, 2020
Ralph Samuel
The book is composed of a series of essays that were collected together to mark the ten year anniversary of Samuel's death in 1996. They describe the development of the British Communist Party in the 1940s and the experience of being a member of it from the vantage point of the 1980s.All of the three essays in the work were published by the New Left Review between 1984 and 1987.
The book engages with a number of different aspects of Communism in Britain, for example the way in which the party was organised on a top-down basis that was founded upon direction by the Comintern and that had elements of the Leninist idea of a 'vanguard party' centred on a small group of professional revolutionaries.
The book also examines the state of left-wing politics in the UK in the challenging environment of the Thatcherite 1980s and, in the case of the British Communist party of the time, the way in which it was divided between an 'old guard' faction and the younger forces aligned around Marxism Today at the time.[5] Samuel himself had left the organisation thirty years earlier. One of his overall assessments of the movement was that it embodied a "doomed, flawed but noble faith"
Raymond Williams
I come come from Pandy . . .” The first words spoken by Raymond Williams in Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review (1979) may not have quite the rolling loquacity of the opening line of Saul Bellow’s Adventures of Augie March – “I am an American, Chicago born . . .” – but in their brisk way they bespeak a similar confidence.
Bellow’s narrator immediately situates his experience in the heart of America; Williams announced one of his main concerns in the title of his first novel, Border Country (1960). Borders – how they are constructed and recognised, how they impede and are crossed – are central to his thought. In contrast to March’s unequivocal belief (“I am an American”), Williams, whose work concentrated on the English literary and cultural tradition, came to identify himself as “a Welsh European”, emphasising what lay either side of a presumed centre, both locally and within an international context.
“It happened that in a predominantly urban and industrial Britain I was born in a remote village, in a very old settled countryside, on the border between England and Wales.” This is the account Williams gives of his origins in The Country and the City (1973), the simple facts of the matter beginning to unfurl and expand in the recognisable style of his analytical writing: an authority that draws power from a suggested hesitancy; the unhurried accumulation of material and argument; a continual elaboration and deepening of meaning. While Williams was proudly conscious of the convolutions of his own method and mode – “all my usual famous qualifying and complicating, my insistence on depths and ambiguities” – a former student, Terry Eagleton, remembers his lecturing style as that of “somebody who was talking in a human voice”.
Eagleton was struck also by the way that although Williams’s background might, by Cambridge standards, have been regarded as humble, it was also sufficiently “privileged” to give him “a sort of stability, a rootedness and self-assurance, and almost magisterial authority”. It gave him the confidence, while still an undergraduate – albeit an undergraduate who had served in the war – to stand up and insist, after a talk in which L C Knights claimed that a corrupt and mechanical civilisation could no longer understand neighbourliness, that he knew “perfectly well, from Wales, what neighbour meant”.
Confidence counts for little unless it is allied with determination. Combining this with an Orwellian sense “of the enormous injustice” of the world, Williams had the resources to develop his early critical and theoretical project – one that stressed the importance of shared experience and common meanings – in comparative isolation. In the process of becoming articulate in the language of a new and expansive kind of cultural history he also, in Raphael Samuel’s words, “constructed a conceptual vocabulary of his own”. The vocabulary was the cerebral expression of a temperament shaped by a particular geography and history. In Border Country Harry Price is “waiting for terms he could feel”. You could almost say he is waiting for the author to coin his most famous term, “structure of feeling”. Where Williams came from was inextricably linked with what he came to say.
Thursday, June 25, 2020
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1931 - 1954) Thu 26 Sep 1935 Page 11
Perhaps the most extraordinary South African incident resulted from an overnight jaunt, when he failed to arrive on the expected hour at a township where he was due to appear in the evening.
Ada Crossley and the rest of the party walked to the edge of the township anxiously scanning the surrounding veldt with binoculars.
Minutes passed and then quite unexpectedly a group of ferocious-looking Zulu warriors bounded over the horizon with Percy happily jogging along behind them. He wanted to invite his new friends to the concert, but had second thoughts when it was pointed out to him that such an action could have the entire party ignominiously drummed out of the country and possibly start another Boer War into the bargain.
Grainger in South Africa
John Bird p.88
Ada Crossley and the rest of the party walked to the edge of the township anxiously scanning the surrounding veldt with binoculars.
Minutes passed and then quite unexpectedly a group of ferocious-looking Zulu warriors bounded over the horizon with Percy happily jogging along behind them. He wanted to invite his new friends to the concert, but had second thoughts when it was pointed out to him that such an action could have the entire party ignominiously drummed out of the country and possibly start another Boer War into the bargain.
Grainger in South Africa
John Bird p.88
Professor John Blacking --- Grainger and the Complexity of Folk Music
Percy Grainger's emphasis on the complexity of folk music and the potential musicality of ordinary people, and his belief in the value of widely differing kinds of music have been upheld by the work of ethnomusicologists. Attempts to trace the evolution of the musical art from simple to complex, from one-tone to twelve-tone music and beyond, and to fit all the music of the world into such schemes, have proved fruitless.
Musical systems are derived neither from some universal emotional language nor from stages in the evolution of a musical art: they are made up of socially accepted patterns of sound that have been invented and developed by interacting individuals in the contexts of different social and cultural systems. If they have been diffused from one group to another, they have frequently been invested with new meanings and even new musical characteristics, because of the creative imagination of performers and listeners.
Role distinctions between creator, performer and listener, variations in musical styles and contrasts in the apparent musical ability of composers and performers, are consequences not of different genetic endowment, but of the division of labour in society, of the functional interrelationship of groups and of the commitment of individuals to music-making as a social activity.
Distinctions between music as 'folk', 'art', or 'popular' reflect a concern with musical products, rather than with the dynamic processes of music-making. Such distinctions tell us nothing substantive about different styles of music, and as categories of value they can be applied to all music.
'Popular' music as a general category of value, is music that is liked or admired by people in general, and it can include Bach, Beethoven, the Beatles, Ravi Shankar, Sousa's marches and the 'Londonderry Air' .
Far from being a patronising or derogatory term, it describes positively music that has succeeded in its basic aim to communicate as music. The music that most people value most is popular music; but what that music is varies according to the social class and experience of Composers, performers and listeners. Similarly, as Grainger Pointed out, 'folk' musicians strive for artistic perfection. As Eric Gill said, 'It isn't that artists are special kinds of people.'
Musical systems are derived neither from some universal emotional language nor from stages in the evolution of a musical art: they are made up of socially accepted patterns of sound that have been invented and developed by interacting individuals in the contexts of different social and cultural systems. If they have been diffused from one group to another, they have frequently been invested with new meanings and even new musical characteristics, because of the creative imagination of performers and listeners.
Role distinctions between creator, performer and listener, variations in musical styles and contrasts in the apparent musical ability of composers and performers, are consequences not of different genetic endowment, but of the division of labour in society, of the functional interrelationship of groups and of the commitment of individuals to music-making as a social activity.
Distinctions between music as 'folk', 'art', or 'popular' reflect a concern with musical products, rather than with the dynamic processes of music-making. Such distinctions tell us nothing substantive about different styles of music, and as categories of value they can be applied to all music.
'Popular' music as a general category of value, is music that is liked or admired by people in general, and it can include Bach, Beethoven, the Beatles, Ravi Shankar, Sousa's marches and the 'Londonderry Air' .
Far from being a patronising or derogatory term, it describes positively music that has succeeded in its basic aim to communicate as music. The music that most people value most is popular music; but what that music is varies according to the social class and experience of Composers, performers and listeners. Similarly, as Grainger Pointed out, 'folk' musicians strive for artistic perfection. As Eric Gill said, 'It isn't that artists are special kinds of people.'
The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982) Sat 5 Jan 1935 Page 14
Percy Grainger
ILLUSTRATING "tuneful percussions,"
a French version of a Java gong band
will be translated into the original Java-
nese during the course of a lecture-re-
cital by Percy Grainger to be broadcast
by all States on Sunday, January 6. The
composer, Debussy, was so much im-
pressed by the gong band engaged for
the recent Paris exhibition that he com-
posed "Pagodas" for it.
With a curious array of percussion in-
struments, Grainger proposes to show, in
effect, how Debussy sounds in the origi-
nal. The lowest notes of a grand piano
are to be struck by gong sticks to pro-
duce a soft percussion note, and oriental
effect will be enhanced by the celesta,
dulcetone, and marimba.
On Thursday, January 10, this notable
series of lecture-recitals will be closed
with illustrations of musical progress.
Percy Grainger proposes to give examples
of gliding tones, irregular rhythms, dis-
cordance harmony, intervals closer than
half tones, and "free" music of his own
composition.
—G.M.
ILLUSTRATING "tuneful percussions,"
a French version of a Java gong band
will be translated into the original Java-
nese during the course of a lecture-re-
cital by Percy Grainger to be broadcast
by all States on Sunday, January 6. The
composer, Debussy, was so much im-
pressed by the gong band engaged for
the recent Paris exhibition that he com-
posed "Pagodas" for it.
With a curious array of percussion in-
struments, Grainger proposes to show, in
effect, how Debussy sounds in the origi-
nal. The lowest notes of a grand piano
are to be struck by gong sticks to pro-
duce a soft percussion note, and oriental
effect will be enhanced by the celesta,
dulcetone, and marimba.
On Thursday, January 10, this notable
series of lecture-recitals will be closed
with illustrations of musical progress.
Percy Grainger proposes to give examples
of gliding tones, irregular rhythms, dis-
cordance harmony, intervals closer than
half tones, and "free" music of his own
composition.
—G.M.
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Adolphe Sax
Percy Grainger was a great admirer of Jazz and the saxophone and when he joined the US Army in World War 1 was teaching the instrument to the delight of his students.
On October 25, 1932, Percy Grainger invited Duke Ellington and his orchestra to perform “Creole Love Call” as part of a music lecture at New York University. It was the first time any university had invited a jazz musician to perform in an academic context. That meeting of Grainger and Ellington is a prism refracting the broader story of the music academy’s slow and reluctant embrace of jazz. This story is, in turn, a cultural reflection of the broader African-American freedom struggle.
Duke Ellington, Percy Grainger, and the status of jazz in the music academy
On October 25, 1932, Percy Grainger invited Duke Ellington and his orchestra to perform “Creole Love Call” as part of a music lecture at New York University. It was the first time any university had invited a jazz musician to perform in an academic context. It has been argued that the meeting of Grainger and Ellington is a prism refracting the broader story of the music academy’s slow and reluctant embrace of jazz. This story is, in turn, a cultural reflection of the broader African-American freedom struggle.
Ellington had come to embody the cultural prestige now enjoyed by jazz. He appears on Washington DC’s state quarter, and his statue stands at the northeast corner of Central Park in New York City. In 1932, however, Ellington was known to official music culture only as the leader of a popular dance band and the writer of a few catchy tunes. Although he was already a celebrity, few white people outside of jazz fandom considered Ellington to be a serious artist.
That year, he received his first favorable review from a classical critic, followed by endorsements from Percy Grainger and a few other figures from the music establishment. This praise was unusual at the time. Most cultural authorities of that era held jazz in low regard, relegating it to the same position occupied by hip-hop today: undeniably popular, vibrant perhaps, but deficient in musical quality, and even, according to some critics, a threat to the nation’s morals.
Ellington’s ascent in stature parallels the social and political gains made by African-Americans in the twentieth century generally. Grainger’s role in the story is more complicated. He was prescient in his admiration for Ellington, and for jazz generally, but this admiration was coupled with condescension and lack of understanding.
Grainger was a an eccentric, and his ideas do not neatly map onto the music academy generally. Nevertheless, he is a useful reference point for the partial embrace that universities have made of jazz, and African-American diasporic music generally.
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born on April 29, 1899. He grew up in a middle-class family in Washington, DC, which at the time had the nation’s largest urban black population (Tucker, 1990). His maternal grandfather had been born a slave, and his father was a butler in Warren Harding’s White House. Most middle-class black families at the time had a piano; the Ellington household had two.
Ellington attended the all-black Armstrong High School, whose principal, Carter G. Woodson, was a historian and the founder of The Journal of Negro Life and History. Woodson insisted that the curriculum put a strong emphasis on black history at all grade levels, and the school culture was one of black pride. Ellington studied harmony in high school and took private piano lessons, but he was not a dedicated student. He began performing in professional settings as a teenager, and by age 20, was leading his own band.
By 1932, Ellington had established himself as a major figure in jazz. He had released recordings of some of his most iconic compositions, including “East St Louis Toodle-oo” (1927), “Mood Indigo” (1930), and “Rockin’ in Rhythm” (1931). His performances at New York’s Cotton Club were broadcast nationally on NBC.
He had also been featured in one of the earliest musical short films, Black and Tan (1929). Sound in movies was still a technological novelty at the time, and RKO Radio Pictures produced Black and Tan to showcase their new Photophone system. It is worth examining this film in detail, because it so clearly illustrates the social position occupied by Ellington and his music at the time of its release.
On October 25, 1932, Percy Grainger invited Duke Ellington and his orchestra to perform “Creole Love Call” as part of a music lecture at New York University. It was the first time any university had invited a jazz musician to perform in an academic context. That meeting of Grainger and Ellington is a prism refracting the broader story of the music academy’s slow and reluctant embrace of jazz. This story is, in turn, a cultural reflection of the broader African-American freedom struggle.
The saxophone is only a few instruments in wide use today known to be invented by a single individual. His name is Adolphe Sax: Hence the name saxophone.
Adolphe Sax (1814 - 1894) was a musical instrument designer born in Belgium who could play many wind instruments. His idea was to create an instrument that combined the best qualities of a woodwind instrument with the best qualities of a brass instrument, and in the 1840s he conceived the saxophone. His invention was patented in Paris in 1846.
Duke Ellington, Percy Grainger, and the status of jazz in the music academy
On October 25, 1932, Percy Grainger invited Duke Ellington and his orchestra to perform “Creole Love Call” as part of a music lecture at New York University. It was the first time any university had invited a jazz musician to perform in an academic context. It has been argued that the meeting of Grainger and Ellington is a prism refracting the broader story of the music academy’s slow and reluctant embrace of jazz. This story is, in turn, a cultural reflection of the broader African-American freedom struggle.
Ellington had come to embody the cultural prestige now enjoyed by jazz. He appears on Washington DC’s state quarter, and his statue stands at the northeast corner of Central Park in New York City. In 1932, however, Ellington was known to official music culture only as the leader of a popular dance band and the writer of a few catchy tunes. Although he was already a celebrity, few white people outside of jazz fandom considered Ellington to be a serious artist.
That year, he received his first favorable review from a classical critic, followed by endorsements from Percy Grainger and a few other figures from the music establishment. This praise was unusual at the time. Most cultural authorities of that era held jazz in low regard, relegating it to the same position occupied by hip-hop today: undeniably popular, vibrant perhaps, but deficient in musical quality, and even, according to some critics, a threat to the nation’s morals.
Ellington’s ascent in stature parallels the social and political gains made by African-Americans in the twentieth century generally. Grainger’s role in the story is more complicated. He was prescient in his admiration for Ellington, and for jazz generally, but this admiration was coupled with condescension and lack of understanding.
Grainger was a an eccentric, and his ideas do not neatly map onto the music academy generally. Nevertheless, he is a useful reference point for the partial embrace that universities have made of jazz, and African-American diasporic music generally.
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born on April 29, 1899. He grew up in a middle-class family in Washington, DC, which at the time had the nation’s largest urban black population (Tucker, 1990). His maternal grandfather had been born a slave, and his father was a butler in Warren Harding’s White House. Most middle-class black families at the time had a piano; the Ellington household had two.
Ellington attended the all-black Armstrong High School, whose principal, Carter G. Woodson, was a historian and the founder of The Journal of Negro Life and History. Woodson insisted that the curriculum put a strong emphasis on black history at all grade levels, and the school culture was one of black pride. Ellington studied harmony in high school and took private piano lessons, but he was not a dedicated student. He began performing in professional settings as a teenager, and by age 20, was leading his own band.
By 1932, Ellington had established himself as a major figure in jazz. He had released recordings of some of his most iconic compositions, including “East St Louis Toodle-oo” (1927), “Mood Indigo” (1930), and “Rockin’ in Rhythm” (1931). His performances at New York’s Cotton Club were broadcast nationally on NBC.
He had also been featured in one of the earliest musical short films, Black and Tan (1929). Sound in movies was still a technological novelty at the time, and RKO Radio Pictures produced Black and Tan to showcase their new Photophone system. It is worth examining this film in detail, because it so clearly illustrates the social position occupied by Ellington and his music at the time of its release.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Monday, June 22, 2020
Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge
Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge Exclusive: prehistoric structure spanning 1.2 miles in diameter is masterpiece of engineering, say archaeologists Dalya Alberge Published
15:00 Monday, 22 June 2020 Follow Dalya Alberge A circle of deep shafts has been discovered near the world heritage site of Stonehenge, to the astonishment of archaeologists, who have described it as the largest prehistoric structure ever found in Britain.
Four thousand five hundred years ago, the Neolithic peoples who constructed Stonehenge, a masterpiece of engineering, also dug a series of shafts aligned to form a circle spanning 1.2 miles (2km) in diameter. The structure appears to have been a boundary guiding people to a sacred area because Durrington Walls, one of Britain’s largest henge monuments, is located precisely at its centre. The site is 1.9 miles north-east of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury, Wiltshire. Prof Vincent Gaffney, a leading archaeologist on the project.
A circle of deep shafts has been discovered near the world heritage site of Stonehenge, to the astonishment of archaeologists, who have described it as the largest prehistoric structure ever found in Britain.
Four thousand five hundred years ago, the Neolithic peoples who constructed Stonehenge, a masterpiece of engineering, also dug a series of shafts aligned to form a circle spanning 1.2 miles (2km) in diameter. The structure appears to have been a boundary guiding people to a sacred area because Durrington Walls, one of Britain’s largest henge monuments, is located precisely at its centre. The site is 1.9 miles north-east of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Prof Vincent Gaffney, a leading archaeologist on the project, said: “This is an unprecedented find of major significance within the UK. Key researchers on Stonehenge and its landscape have been taken aback by the scale of the structure and the fact that it hadn’t been discovered until now so close to Stonehenge.”
Liberals have cut $2.2 billion from Australian universities, and increased university fees and student debt.
The Liberals have cut $2.2 billion from Australian universities, and increased university fees and student debt.
Labor believes access to university should be determined by your ability and willingness to work hard, not your bank balance. But every day Scott Morrison is putting universities more out of reach for students.
Will you sign our petition and join the campaign to stop the Liberals’ attack on universities?
Dr Herbert Vere Evatt (1894-1965)
Dr Herbert Vere Evatt (1894-1965) realised many of the labour movement's highest ideals, as a scholar, lawyer, High Court Judge, and the Attorney General and Minister for External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs) in the Curtin and Chifley governments, and as the Leader of the Opposition during the 1950s.
He was one of the great innovators of the labour movement, influencing Australian public policy and society to this day. His achievements and uncompromising stand for just principles in public life will always be remembered.
Dr Evatt initiated Australia's first independent foreign policy and became widely recognised around the world as a supporter of the right of the smaller nations to peaceful development and equality.
As leader of the Australian delegation to the meeting that founded the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945, he took the step of including a woman in the delegation. The woman was Jessie Street. This was a brave move for a political leader in those days, when women in politics were not highly regarded by most male politicians.
At the San Francisco Conference, Dr Evatt spoke to the Great Powers on behalf of the other nations of the world with a voice that commanded universal respect. After three months of diplomatic struggle, the Charter of the United Nations was adopted; a Charter that had become more humane and larger in scope, now containing provisions for the poor, the weak and the oppressed, provisions that had never been envisaged by the Great Powers. Alan Renouf characterised Evatt's performance as
"of virtuoso quality: for sheer brilliance in an international forum there is nothing in Australia's diplomatic annals to surpass it. For the public, he was one of the outstanding personalities (newspaper representatives voted Harold Stassen of the United States and Evatt as the most impressive delegates). Abroad, he was loaded with praise ...
The reputation Evatt won for himself as the voice of Australia long endured in the United Nations. It brought great credit to his country; more than any other national leader, Evatt made Australia known universally and made it known as a country of courage, responsibility and liberalism ... Deprived throughout the war of the say to which Evatt thought Australia was entitled, he had his reward at San Francisco, where Australia was heard as never before. What was of more lasting value was that when it was heard, it had something worthwhile to say."
In 1948 Dr Evatt was elected President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the only Australian to have ever held the position. He presided over the adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the cornerstone of human rights protection throughout the modern world. "It was the first occasion on which the organised community of nations had made a declaration of human rights and fundamental freedoms", Evatt reflected, "millions of people, men, women and children all over the world would turn to it for help, guidance and inspiration."
After Labor lost office in 1949, the Doc's fights for freedom continued. Against all odds, in 1950 he contested the Communist Party Dissolution Act introduced by the Menzies government in the High Court and won, saving Australia from a serious blot on its democracy.
Doc Evatt and his wife Mary Alice were also great patrons of the arts and gave encouragement to struggling young Australian artists, including Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan, purchasing many of their paintings and drawings and donating them to galleries and local councils around the country.
Faith Bandler, the leader of the 1967 referendum that formally recognised Indigenous Australians and one of Dr Evatt's greatest admirers, paid tribute in a speech to the inaugural meeting of the Foundation in 1979.
Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin
Join ACTU Secretary Sally McManus and ALP President Wayne Swan for this commemoration of John Curtin’s life and legacy as a union activist and wartime prime minister on the 75th anniversary of his death. We will also be launching the new biography of Curtin, Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin (Melbourne University Publishing 2020) by Liam Byrne.
5 July 2020, 6-7pm AEST. You can register for this special online event
Sunday, June 21, 2020
Saturday, June 20, 2020
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