CAJUN - LOUISIANE 1928-1939 -
El otro día en una de nuestras innumerables visitas a las expendedurías de música enlatada de nuestra ciudad encontramos en una de ellas este Ofertón, decimos ofertón, porque efectivamente el precio final de venta con relación a su valor inicial se puede considerar más que una oferta, con una presentacion impecable de mini cofre con librito explicativo, de la discográfica Frémeaux et Associés ,SA. de fecha , 1994 , sin entrar más en detalles , sí que queremos sin embargo incidir en el tema del CAJUN., de sobra conocido por todos los aficionados , pero que, pensamos que un repasillo a lo que representó este tipo de denominación merece la pena. Ahí vá .
Los acadianos o cadianos o cajunes (pronunciado /ˈkeɪdʒən/ en inglés; les Cadiens o les Acadiens, /le.(z‿a)kad͡ʒɛ̃/ en francés) son un grupo étnico localizado en el estado de Luisiana (Estados Unidos). Descienden de exiliados de Acadia durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII, tras la incorporación de una parte de los territorios franceses de Nueva Francia a la Corona británica. También comprende a otras personas con las que se unieron después, como españoles, alemanes y criollos franceses. La lengua cajún es un dialecto proveniente del francés. Actualmente, los cajunes forman una comunidad importante al sur del estado de Luisiana, donde han influido notablemente en su cultura. Centros culturales importantes del pueblo cajún son las ciudades de Lafayette y Lake Charles.
En 1980, fueron reconocidos oficialmente por el gobierno estadounidense como grupo étnico.
La música cajún ha ejercido una notable influencia y ha dado lugar a géneros como el zydeco.
CAJUN MUSIC
Cajun music (French: Musique cadienne), an emblematic music of Louisiana played by the Cajuns, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based zydeco music, both of Acadiana origin, and both of which have influenced the other in many ways. These French Louisiana sounds have influenced American popular music for many decades, especially country music, and have influenced pop culture through mass media, such as television commercials.
Cajun music is relatively catchy with an infectious beat and a lot of forward drive, placing the accordion at the center. Besides the voices, only two melodic instruments are heard, the accordion and fiddle, but usually in the background can also be heard the high, clear tones of a metal triangle. The harmonies of Cajun music are simple, basically I, IV, and V, tonic, sub-dominant, and dominant with many tunes just using I and V. The melodic range is just one octave, rising a fifth above the tonic and descending a fourth below. Because the Cajun accordion is a diatonic instrument (do-re-mi or natural major scale) it can only play tunes in a few keys. For example, a "C" accordion is tuned such that the entire C scale is available on the ten buttons (over two octaves) and it can play a tune in the key of C with all the notes of the C scale available (C-D-E-F-G-A-B). A "C" accordion can also play a tune in the key of G, but one note of the G scale will be missing which is F#. So tunes played in the key of G will not have an F# note. A "C" accordion can also play a few Cajun songs in the key of F however the Bb note will be missing. Also it can play in the key of D with a bluesy sound since the F natural note becomes a flat third or minor third in the key of D. However a skilled accordion player can play in these other keys and still make good music whereby the notes missing (because of the limitations of the diatonic tuning) are not needed by the melody. Since an instrument must match the singer's range, much Cajun singing is sung in the singer's upper range. The accordionist gives the vocal melody greater energy by repeating most notes.
Subgenres of Cajun music
See also: History of Cajun music
Traditional Cajun (Before 1930)
Balfa Brothers - J'ai Passé Devant Ta Porte
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An example of a popular Cajun Waltz.
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This style comprises the roots of Cajun dance music, involving only a few instruments such as the Cajun accordion, fiddle, and triangle. This form holds firm to a basic rhythm with staccato style notes, including many fiddle double stops. Each fiddle solo is composed of a major scale riff, repeated between verses. This form has existed since the early 1900s and the waltz and two-step are the most common dances of this Cajun music genre. Many songs that became standards in the Cajun music repertoire were first recorded in this period of the 1920s and 1930s. A number of the most prominent traditional Cajun musicians are featured in the 1989 documentary J'Ai Ete Au Bal. Amédé Ardoin, Canray Fontenot, Wade Frugé, Dewey Segura, Joe Falcon and Cléoma Falcon, and the Breaux Brothers are examples of this genre.
Country and Texas swing Cajun (1934–1941)
Main article: Western swing
This style involves heavy elements of Texas country music influence and a move away from the traditional accordion. This music has more of a "swing" style popularized by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Instead of the music being dominated by the accordion, Cajun swing relies heavily on the fiddle and piano with a swinging tempo. Bands in the 1940s began using the steel guitar, an instrument which also found use in dancehall Cajun music. Dances such as "the jig" are common among this genre of Cajun music. Leo Soileau, J. B. Fuselier, Leroy "Happy Fats" Leblanc, Harry Choates and the Hackberry Ramblers are early examples of this style. The Red Stick Ramblers and The Lost Bayou Ramblers are contemporary bands playing in this style.
Dancehall Cajun (1946–1960)
This style, Dancehall Cajun is often known in South Louisiana as "Fais do-do" music because it is commonly played at fais do-dos; this in turn comes from the local practice of couples bringing their children with them to the dance hall. This period is defined as such due to the fact that more bands moved from the house dances to large halls, as well as, electrical amplification of instruments to cut through the noise of the crowd. It is similar to traditional Cajun music with added accompaniment such as the bass guitar, drum kit, steel guitar, and rhythm guitar, electric or acoustic. The same abrupt, staccato feel can be felt as in traditional Cajun. This style originated in the post-war era of the late 1940s and continues up until the present in small town dancehalls. Electrification of the dance venues allowed the fiddle to be played in a smoother style, alternating leads with the accordion. The steel guitar also adds remarks. Typically in dancehall Cajun performances the melody is played by the accordion followed by a bridge, a vocal verse, a leading line by the steel guitar, a leading line by the fiddle, then a leading line by the accordion player again followed by a bridge. This is followed by the next vocal verse, and so on. Lawrence Walker, Aldus Roger, Nathan Abshire, Iry LeJeune, and Sidney Brown are examples of this musical period. The characteristics of dancehall Cajun can be seen in current artists such as Jesse Légé, and The Basin Brothers Band.
Cajun "renaissance"
Drawing on elements of the earlier traditional, Texas swing, and dancehall periods, the Cajun "renaissance" also incorporates more modern elements of folk, blues, jazz and swamp pop, and bluegrass styles. The fiddle players relax, involving a more legato feel to the solos. The quick fiddle action and double stops are missing, replaced by dominant blues chords and jazz slides.
Pioneers such as BeauSoleil with Michael Doucet, Zachary Richard, Jambalaya Cajun Band, Bruce Daigrepont, and others broke new ground, while other musicians such as Eddie LeJeune, Irvin LeJeune, Homer LeJeune, Robert Jardell, Les Frères Michot, the Pine Leaf Boys, and others brought energy to older, more traditional forms.
Contemporary Cajun music
This style involves Cajun music with a heavy influence of rock, R&B, blues, soul, and zydeco, producing a less traditional, more contemporary sound. Although led by the accordion, the electric guitar, washboard, and keyboard are all present in this form. Since the 1940s, musicians such as Wayne Toups, Roddie Romero and the Hub City Allstars, Lee Benoit, Damon Troy, Kevin Naquin, Trent LeJeune, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys have popularized this modern form of Cajun music.More recently the Lost Bayou Ramblers have been experimenting mixing traditional instruments with cutting edge technology as showcased on their last two records, Mammoth Waltz (2012) and Kalenda (2017). The sound has been dubbed “Heavy Cajun Psych”
Doug Kershaw recorded "Louisiana Man," an autobiographical song that he had written while in the army. The song sold millions of copies; over the years it has come to be considered a standard of modern Cajun music.[4] The song was eventually covered by more than 800 artists. Atchafalaya was active cajun group from 1982 to 1986.
Lyrics
The unaccompanied ballad was the earliest form of Cajun music. The narrative songs often had passionate themes of death, solitude or ill-fated love — a reaction to their harsh exile and rough frontier experience, as well as celebrations of love and humorous tales. Ballads were ritually sung at weddings and funerals, and sung informally for small groups of people at house parties as the food cooked and young children played.
The early songs were mixtures of la la, contra dances, reels and jigs and other folk influences from black, white and Native American traditions. Early song lyrics were entirely in Cajun French. Though French-language songwriting is still common, some Cajun music today is sung in English with younger singers and audiences.
Instruments
Traditional Cajun instruments: tit-fer, Cajun accordion, and a fiddle.
In earlier years, the fiddle was the predominant instrument. Usually two fiddles were common, one playing the melody while the other provided the séconde, or back-up part. Twin fiddling traditions represent the music in its purest form, as it was brought to Louisiana with the early immigrants and before popular American tunes mingled with it.
Gradually, the Cajun accordion emerged to share the limelight.
In the early 1930s, the accordion was pushed into the background by the popular string sounds of the time. Piano and other string instruments joined fiddle to create a jazzy swing beat strongly influenced by Western Swing of neighboring Texas. The Cajun fiddle was a well established instrument which had been somewhat eclipsed by the German accordion fad, which had similar effect in French Canada. But in the Depression era the tide turned, and, according to Stricklin et al., it had never been eclipsed.
After World War II, the accordion regained its popularity in Cajun music. Also, in the late 1930s and 1940s, country music became the dominant influence on Cajun music, and steel guitar and bass were introduced.
Modern Cajun music began taking on the influence of jazz and modern country music, resulting in a more polished sound. The acoustic guitar was added, mostly as a rhythm instrument, and the triangle provided a traditional percussion. Modern groups sometimes include drums, electric bass, electric guitars and amplified accordion and fiddles.
Dance and festivals
Cajun music, born from ballads, has transformed to dance music—with or without words. The music was essential for small get-togethers on the front porch, an all night house dance known as a "bal de maison", or a public dance in a dance hall called a fais do-do.
There are several variations of Cajun dance: a Cajun one step, also called a Cajun Jig, a Cajun two step, also called a Cajun Jitterbug, and a Cajun Waltz. In mild contrast, zydeco dancing is a syncopated two-step or jitterbug. A Cajun dancer will cover the dance floor while the zydeco dancer will primarily dance in a smaller area.
Cajun music can be found predominantly at Louisiana festivals and dance halls, in addition to weddings in Acadiana.
Cajun music has its roots based in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada, and in country music
Joe Falcon's last accordion, a pre-WWII German "Eagle" brand
The first form of traditional cajun music began before the 20th century in south Louisiana. When the Acadians came from New Brunswick & Nova Scotia to Louisiana in 1764, they brought with them many beautiful ballads that told stories of bygone years. Many of these songs can be traced back to France and many songs from France drifted to the bayou and the prairie region via Nova Scotia and New Orleans. These ballads are not widely performed today, but were the basis of what is now accepted as cajun music.
In the late 19th century, affordable accordions were introduced into Louisiana and were adopted by both Cajun and Creole musicians. Cajun and Creole musical styles at this time grew in parallel: mostly two-steps and waltzes meant for dancing, played by accordion and fiddle.[2]
Some of the first accordions imported in America were "Lester", "Pine Tree" and "Bruno" brands, but they were bulky, cheaply made and hard to play. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that Buegeleisen & Jacobson of New York City brought in from Rudolph Kalbes of Berlin, Germany the "Monarch", then the "Sterling", in the key of C and D.[3] These were assembled in Klingenthal, Saxony, Germany by several different families. They were "les 'tit noirs", meaning "the little black ones". They were a bit smaller than some of the older brands and were all black with pewter trim. They were the best ever at that time. The Sterling family bought the factory in about the 1920s, and then the Eagle family operated the factory, but both instruments were virtually the same as the Monarch, except for the name. During World War II, the Nazi government focused on building its war machine and closed down the accordion factories. Eventually, the factories were bombed by the allies, effectively ending the production of these accordions. Today, they are collectables.
Early recording era (1920s through 1940s)
Musicians in Crowley 1938
The first recorded Cajun song, "Allons à Lafayette" ("Let's Go To Lafayette") was recorded in 1928 by Joe Falcon and Cléoma Breaux. Standard versions of songs started to emerge due to the increase in the availability of phonographs. Some of the earliest recordings of Cajun music that exist were done in Louisiana during the late 1920s by noted historian and American folklorist Alan Lomax.
Notable musicians during the time period include Falcon, Breaux, Amédé Ardoin, Breaux Brothers, Segura Brothers, Leo Soileau accompanied by accordionist Mayuse (Maius) Lafleur or Moise Robin, and Dennis McGee accompanied by fiddler Sady Courville or Ernest Frugé.
By the mid-to-late 1930s, a large influx of English speaking people came for the oil fields in Southwest Louisiana. Also, a large migration of French speaking Cajuns expanded to Texas. It was common for performers to sing in both French and English and borrow heavily from the popular country music and Texas swing music on the radio.
Harry Choates recorded the first national Cajun hit song,"'Jolie Blonde", in 1946. Other groups from the 1930s and 1940s that were able to garner national attention include Leo Soileau and His Four Aces, the Hackberry Ramblers, Happy Fats and the Rhythm Boys, the Alley Boys of Abbeville, the Dixie Ramblers, and J. B. Fuselier and His Merrymakers. Choates' "Jolie Blonde", and Hank Williams' "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", which both used the melody of the Cajun song "Grand Texas", spawned regional and national interest in the music, opening the door to Nashville country music careers for Cajun musicians including Jimmy C. Newman, Rufus Thibodeaux, Doug Kershaw, and Jo-El Sonnier.
The return of the accordion (1940s through 1970s)
Dewey Balfa playing in Bordeaux, France in 1977
This era is named for the cultural "Cajun Renaissance" movement of the late 1960s to the present, a period in Louisiana of burgeoning pride in the local Cajun and Creole culture and interest in preserving the French language and uniquely Louisiana traditions.
Important musicians in the years after World War II brought back the accordion as the lead instrument, following the string band era of the late 1930s and 1940s when the accordion was not featured on recordings. During the 1970s and beyond the trend continued, sometimes with elements of country-western music of the day and rock added to the sound.
A performance by Dewey Balfa, Gladius Thibodeaux and Vinus LeJeune at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival was one major reason behind a revived interest in traditional Cajun music in the mid-1960s.[10] In 1972, the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana started an annual festival that came to be known as Festivals Acadiens.
When bands like the Balfa Brothers, Octa Clark and Hector Duhon, and the black Creole band Bois-Sec Ardoin and Canray began to appear and perform at prestigious national folk festivals like the Newport Folk Festival, the University of Chicago Folk Festival, and the National Folklife Festival, they inspired renewed interest in Louisiana in Cajun and Creole music, leading to the contemporary Cajun music scene.
Musicians of note from the classic period of the 1940s through the 1960s include Iry LeJeune, Nathan Abshire, Lawrence Walker, Aldus Roger, Austin Pitre, Joe Bonsall, Adam Hebert, Robert Bertrand, Phil Menard, The Sundown Playboys, Badeaux and the Louisiana Aces, Rodney LeJeune, Belton Richard, and many others. Musicians such as Walter Mouton, Paul Daigle, Sheryl Cormier, Johnny Sonnier, Ed Gary, and Jackie Callier continue the tradition.
This style of Cajun music is well documented by regional records producers such as Floyd Soileau (Swallow), J.D. Miller (Feature, Fais Do-Do), Eddie Shuler (Goldband), Lee Lavergne (Lanor), Carol Rachou (La Louisianne), and George Khoury (Khoury, Lyric). Jukeboxes, radio programs and TV spots in Cajun French helped publicize a band's work, making it easier to get jobs performing on the dancehall circuit in southwest Louisiana and East Texas.
Contemporary era
By the 1980s, a new sound of cajun music mixed with elements of rock, blues and R&B was introduced to south Louisiana with Wayne Toups and Zydecajun.
A new respect for Cajun culture developed in the 1990s. Among the most well-known Cajun bands outside of Louisiana is the multi-Grammy-winning BeauSoleil, who have joined several country music artists in the studio, and served as an inspiration to the Mary Chapin Carpenter hit, "Down at the Twist and Shout".
Today
"Modern traditionalist" Cajun band the Lost Bayou Ramblers
Today, all forms of Cajun music can be heard, including those considered "modern traditionalists" who draw on a variety of elements from the broad history of Cajun and Creole music. From the 1990s to the present, artists such as Lee Benoit, Cory McCauley, Jason Frey, Mitch Reed and Randy Vidrine, Balfa Toujours, Ray Abshire, the Lost Bayou Ramblers, the Pine Leaf Boys, and Chris Miller have been popular with contemporary audiences while maintaining a connection with traditional forms.
On June 7, 2007, the Recording Academy (NARAS) announced a new Grammy category, Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album, in its folk music field.
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The Hackberry Ramblers (also known as the Riverside Ramblers), a Grammy Award-nominated Cajun music band based in Hackberry, Louisiana, formed in 1933. Since its heyday in the late 1930s it has become one of the most recognized names and influential groups in Cajun music.
The group, which continues to tour and perform, has one of the longest histories of a musical group in the United States of America, and while its lineup has changed many times since its conception, its founders — fiddler Luderin Darbone and accordionist Edwin Duhon — led the band until Duhon's death in 2006. (Darbone died November 21, 2008.) While the roots of the band lie in its Cajun music repertoire, the Ramblers perform a broad swath of American music, from Western swing to blues and rockabilly, and much of their sound blends them all.
Early years
In 1930 Luderin Darbone met a guitarist called Edwin Duhon and together they formed the nucleus of a band they named the Hackberry Ramblers in honor of their hometown. By 1933 they were on the radio and signed with RCA Bluebird Records. In 1936, they recorded "Jolie Blonde", "Oh Josephine, Ma Josephine", "One Step De L'Amour" and "Faux Pas Tu Bray Cherie".Darbone and Duhon were the first musicians to bring electronic amplification to area dance halls, running a public address system off the idling engine of Darbone's Model-A Ford.
The band performed at festivals, including FitzGerald's American Music Festival in 1997.
Their eclectic repertoire included Cajun music, country music and Western swing, jazz music, and blues music. Due to a sponsorship deal with Montgomery Ward, the band adopted the name "The Riverside Ramblers". In 2002, Darbone and Duhon received a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the Folk Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Country Music Hall of Fame has honored the group; it holds enshrined many of the founding members' instruments.
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