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African slaves imported their instrument
of four strings (one of which was short and high pitched)
in the eighteenth century. The music of the plantation
blacks was novel and exciting, and caricatured by
white men who performed in blackface and outrageous
costumes beginning in the 1840's. Dan Emmett (the
author of Dixie) and Joel Walker Sweeney
(who may have added a bass string to the instrument)
were early practitioners of the Minstrel show tradition,
and the word “banjo” found its way into
American usage. The banjo was a fretless five string
instrument played with a stroke technique, now known
as “clawhammer” (single note drop
thumb frailing), and was an essential instrument
in this indigenously American form of popular entertainment.
By the 1870’s the banjo gained adherents in
rural and urban areas, began to be manufactured, and
played in a fingerstyle similar to classical guitar
in homes, on college campuses and in theaters and
concert halls. By the 1890’s, most banjos were
fretted and had gut strings and a silk and steel fourth.
Performers such as Horace Weston, A. A. Farland and
others attained considerable proficiency and
gave concerts throughout this country and abroad.
American folk and minstrel tunes, marches, polkas,
popular, classical and characteristic pieces, and
the new craze, ragtime, were all played on the banjo.
Vess Ossman, Parke Hunter, Fred Van Eps and Fred Bacon
were among the most prominent of the pioneer recording
and performing virtuosos until the advent of the jazz
age after World War I.
In England meanwhile, Joe Morley, Olly Oakley, Emile
Grimshaw and others played and composed for the five
string banjo, while expatriate Brooklynite A. D. Cammeyer
promoted the “zither-banjo”, which was
strung with three wire and two gut strings, and had
an altered pot assembly and greater sustaining power
than the standard banjo. These men kept classic fingerstyle
banjo in greater force abroad than at home.
Parallel with the urban developments of banjo technique,
a rich rural folk tradition grew in the United States.
Folk music of the British Isles and many other cultures
blended with Afro-American influences in the melting
pot of America's folk heritage. Minstrel shows. the
railroads, camp meetings, and later the medicine shows
no doubt brought the five string banjo and new songs
to rural areas.
In early 20th century America, jazz bands required
the volume, sturdier construction, steel strings,
and, for rapid single note passages, the viola tuning
of the four string tenor banjo. For chord melody,
the plectrum banjo, tuned like the five string banjo
without a fifth string, was preferred. Both were played
with a flat pick, or “plectrum”, and supplanted
the five string banjo. Harry Reser was an exemplary
tenor and plectrum banjoist whose compositions, arrangements,
and recordings show a style more reminiscent of the
best five string players than the later reliance on
tremolo, rhythmic chording and virtual abandonment
of rapid linear passages by Eddie Peabody and his
followers. Joe Roberts, whose recorded output is sadly
very small, was reputed to be the greatest plectrist
of his era. Perry Bechtel’s superb individual
style has been a tremendous influence for today’s
plectral banjoists. Today, Bud Wachter has mastered
the Reser, Bechtel and Peabody techniques and with
others is constantly furthering plectral banjo music.
Uncle Dave Macon is a central figure
in the saga of the banjo and American music. His music
drew from the minstrel era and rural sources, and
incorporated techniques of the urban fingerstyle banjo
players. He represents a bridge between the 19th and
20th centuries, and was there at the genesis of commercial
country music. He played on the Grand Ole Opry from
1926 to 1952.
Also on the Opry, an exciting new
fingerstyle appeared in 1945 as Bill Monroe was defining
his new form of acoustic country music which he called
“bluegrass” music. The bluegrass banjo
styles of Earl Scruggs, Don Reno, Don Stover, Ralph
Stanley, Allen Shelton, and J.D. Crowe and Bobby Thompson
kindled a resurrection of interest in the five string
banjo among rural as well as urban enthusiasts.
Pete Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Billy
Faier, the Tarriers’ Eric Weissberg, Paul Prestopino,
Dick Weissman, the Kingston Trio’s Dave Guard,
The New Lost City Ramblers and scores of others brought
folk banjo to urban audiences during the folk music
boom of the early 1960’s. Across “the
pond”, Celtic plectral tenor banjo, usually
tuned an octave lower than a violin, continued a folk
tradition which likely began as early as the minstrel
era, when Sweeney, Emmett and other minstrel groups
visited Ireland.
The innovative, ingenious contributions of Bill Keith
were featured with Bill Monroe in 1963. Keith discovered
and popularized a technique of playing scale patterns
and fiddle tunes note for note on consecutively different
strings, using typical bluegrass banjo rolls (right
hand patterns), rather than running two or more notes
of a scale or melody on one string. The Keith method
has the additional
feature of sounding pianistic or harp-like because
notes aren’t stopped immediately after being
played and can ring. Some have called this arpa
technique.
At the early part of the 21st century, all these playing
styles are flourishing among lovers of the instrument.
Countless players have contributed their talents to
preserving and expanding the body of banjo music.
All over the world, the envelope is being pushed,
and the best is yet to come. The African antecedents
of the banjo are being revealed as never before. Many
others continue with innovative
explorations into traditional instrumental music.
The stroke technique (minstrel and clawhammer) banjoists
are greatly expanding their repertoires and exploration
of historical traditions. Plectral (i. e. played with
a flat pick) banjoists in jazz, popular and Celtic
music continue creating and innovating into many musical
areas. For fingerstyles at the cutting edge, Pat Cloud
astounds us with his phenomenal jazz banjo, and Béla
Fleck has made inroads with his jazz fusion band,
the Flecktones and with concerts and his album of
classical music. And the solid bluegrass continues
to be played. Earl Scruggs’ legacy of superb
timing, tone and intonation is a standard against
which nearly all players in that category have set
themselves. Today, the contributions of Bill Keith,
Alan Munde, Tony Trischka, Bob Black, Dennis Caplinger,
Walt Koken, Alison Brown, Bill Evans, Scott Vestal,
John Bullard (classical music) and a host of others
continue to add to the legacy of the banjo.
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