The musician and union educator Joe Glazer, known as “labor’s troubadour”, made significant contributions to work and union songs through his composition, performance, study, and recording from the 1940s to the 2000s. Although not as widely recognized outside labor circles as Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger, Glazer played a crucial role in documenting and providing a soundtrack for many of the 20th century U.S. labor movement’s struggles. Glazer, who referred to himself “an agitator for all good causes”, recorded more than 30 albums, wrote a book about labor music, and recruited a new generation of protest singers.
Born in Manhattan on 19 June 1918, Glazer was the son of a tailor in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Growing up in the Bronx, he admired crooners like Gene Autry, and often played along with them at home on his guitar. He later joined the textile workers as an assistant education director and capitalized on his boss’s suggestion to use the guitar as a tool to inspire and rally workers. During his travels, Glazer encountered an early version of the song We shall overcome at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, which he later recorded with the Elm City Four in 1950. The version he first heard had been adapted from Black tobacco union workers who first sang it on a picket line in 1946.
In 1950, Glazer wrote Too old to work, a protest song inspired by the United Auto Workers’ campaign for occupational pensions. Just four days after Chrysler workers in Michigan adopted the song, the manufacturer capitulated to the union’s demands. The song quickly became a powerful tool for organizers, educators, politicians, and musicians, cementing its place as one of the most influential pension songs in the U.S. labor movement.
This according to “Too old to work: Joe Glazer, labour music, and occupational pensions” by Simon H. Buck, (Comparative American studies 18/3 [2021] 281–301; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-10611).
Listen to Solidarity forever and The give away boys by Joe Glazer below.
On March 1, 1954, the U.S. military detonated Castle Bravo, its most powerful nuclear bomb, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Marshallese residents were evacuated to a nearby atoll two days later without their consent. For the next 75 years, Marshallese music has responded to the profound impacts of U.S. nuclear militarism on their homeland. This music reflects their religious, cultural, and political struggles to make visible the devastating consequences of nuclear violence. Marshallese singing in particular has become a powerful means of addressing the literal silencing of their voices, affected by radiation, as well as the broader suppression of information about the human radiation study.
U.S. Navy building new homes for Marshall Islands residents on Rongerik in 1946.
Composed during and after the nuclear testing era, Marshallese radiation songs offer insight into the processes of imperial ruination, rupture, and fragmentation by reflecting the pervasive impact of radioactive decay. Radiation songs reveal how radiation can be made sensible, illuminating the ways in which the U.S. nuclear project can be considered in terms of imperial ruination. U.S. geopolitical strategies have relied on systematically displacing the Marshallese from their indigenous agency, which is deeply rooted in their matrilineal culture. The performances of women from the Rongelapese community embody the presence of radiation, both in the lyrical content and the affective resonance of their music. These performances trace vocalized moments of decay, conveying how the physical and emotional aftermath of nuclear devastation is embodied and shared within their community.
This according to Radiation sounds: Marshallese music and nuclear silences by Jessica A. Schwartz (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2021-4549) and “Listening to radioactive rubble: Vocal decay, gender, and nuclear ruination in the Marshall Islands” by Jessica A. Schwartz (Twentieth-century music 19/2 [2022] 200–208; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-3395).
August 29 is the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The image at the beginning of the post is of the Baker explosion, a nuclear explosion test conducted by the U.S. at the Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands in 1946.
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Throughout her life, ethnomusicologist Helen Myers dedicated herself to exploring the connections between local East Indian music genres in Trinidad and their counterparts in northern India. Her research produced invaluable documentation of traditional songs and shed light on the rich musical heritage of these communities. In the 1970s, Myers focused on the music of elderly women of Indian descent in Felicity, central Trinidad, leaving a lasting impact on the descendants of those she interviewed. Her commitment to the Indo-Trinidadian community endured over the decades, culminating in a notable tour of India in 2005 with local chutney singers. Her work continues to be fondly remembered by those she engaged with and the broader community she studied. Myers once described herself on social media as a “Democrat, grandmother of 6 and mother of 3 sons, author of 5 books, and lover of reading. 7 cats.”
Helen Myers, the renowned American ethnomusicologist, passed away at the age of 78 on 24 June 2024.
– written and compiled by Mu Qian, Editor, RILM
As a tribute to Myers, a selection of her research from RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is presented below.
Myers, Helen, ed. Ethnomusicology. I: An introduction (United Kingdom: Macmillan, 1992). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1992-38948]
Abstract: This guide to ethnomusicology provides a comprehensive overview of the discipline, encompassing its history, scope, theory, and methodology. The guide is structured in two parts: one focusing on developments before World War II and the other on advancements since the war. It includes up-to-date reports and covers key areas such as ethnography, transcription, musical style analysis, and organology. Helen Myers contributed significantly to this work, authoring three chapters on ethnomusicology, fieldwork, and field technology. Other contributors include John Blacking, Bruno Nettl, Anthony Seeger, Mark Slobin, and Stephen Blum.
Myers, Helen, ed. Ethnomusicology. II: Historical and regional studies (United Kingdom: Macmillan, 1993). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1992-38948]
Abstract: This sister volume to the previous guide focuses on historical and regional studies within ethnomusicology. It features an introduction and includes seven chapters written by Helen Myers, covering a diverse range of topics, including British American music, Native American music, African American music, Latin American music, British American folk music, European American and Asian American music, and music of the West Indies. The volume provides an in-depth exploration of musical traditions and influences across these regions, representing an expanded field of ethnomusicological research. Other contributors include Max Peter Baumann, Theodore Levin, and David W. Hughes.
Myers, Helen. Music of Hindu Trinidad: Songs from the India diaspora (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1998-51243]
Abstract: In the early 19th century, Indian residents who were sent into slavery or indentured servitude in the West Indies brought their native songs with them to the sugar plantations of Trinidad. Through these songs and dances, they managed to preserve their Hindu culture and socioreligious identity. Today, these traditional songs continue to be performed at festivals and weddings, even though many of the participants no longer understand the literal meanings of the lyrics. The ongoing transformation of these songs becomes evident when researchers try to locate the original versions in India, where they sometimes no longer exist.
Myers, Helen and Umesh Chandra Pandey. Storytime in India: Wedding songs, Victorian tales, and the ethnographic experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-32038]
Abstract: This exploration into the narratives that emerge from ethnographic fieldwork focuses on how the authors’ research into Bhojpuri wedding songs intertweaves with their personal stories, collaborative work, and shared experience of reading Anthony Trollope’s The Eustace diamonds. As the narrative weaves through these interconnected stories, readers gain insight into the Bhojpuri wedding tradition through songs performed by Gangajali, along with access to the original song recordings and their translations. Interspersed with these musical explorations, Pandey reads and interprets The Eustace Diamonds, engaging with themes of colonialism and its pervasive influence on India and ethnographic research. The study combines everyday experiences with the highs and lows of fieldwork, blending the stylistic features of Victorian novels with the narrative structure of traditional Indian village tales, where stories unfold within stories. It challenges how ethnography is presented and what we learn in the field. Ultimately, the authors argue that scholarly writing is itself a form of storytelling and art, like the traditions it seeks to document.
Myers, Helen. “Indian, East Indian, and West Indian music in Felicity, Trinidad”, Ethnomusicology and modern music history, ed. by Stephen Blum, Philip Bohlman, and Daniel M. Neuman (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1991) 231–241. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1991-3053]
Abstract: The East Indian community in Felicity, Trinidad, has actively sought to reconnect with Indian musical traditions of their homeland, deliberately choosing to maintain their cultural heritage rather than borrowing from local styles. Their goal has been to revitalize Indian musical traditions in response to Western influences. The evolution of such musical practices in the community is traced from 1845 to 1991.
Myers, Helen. “The remembered rhythms of Trinidad: Bhojpuri chutney 2005 and its antecedents”, Remembered rhythms: Essays on diaspora and the music of India, ed. by Shubha Chaudhuri and Anthony Seeger (Kolkata: Seagull Books, 2010) 197–237. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2010-23417]
Abstract: Many Trinidadians of Indian descent maintain a nostalgic connection to their distant homeland. Chutney, a lively musical genre that originated in the West Indies with roots in South Asian culture, gained popularity in the 1980s by blending musical elements of various Trinidadian communities in innovative ways. Despite English being the primary language of the younger East Indian Trinidadians, chutney songs are predominantly performed in Hindi or Bhojpuri. The musical history of chutney in Trinidad highlights several key issues. Firstly, musical change was intentional and deliberate, with villagers actively discussing their musical choices. Secondly, different repertoires within a musical tradition evolve in distinct ways. In this context, the pace of change can be swift, especially with the emergence of new forms. Furthermore, terminology for describing music changed and became a topic of local debate. Some traditions, like certain wedding songs, did disappear entirely. Finally, living traditions are continually being reformed and reformulated.
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Chicago, the third largest in the United States, was not always the bustling metropolis it is today. It was originally a pristine prairie inhabited by Indigenous peoples, including the Potawatomi people, who referred to the area in their native language as Chigagou (or “wild garlic place”). The city’s modern history began in the 1780s when Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a trader of African descent, established a trading post along the Chicago River at the southern end of Lake Michigan.
A drawing of Chicago from 1868.
Located at the crossroads of major railroads, Great Lakes shipping routes, and more recently, air travel, Chicago’s unique musical heritage reflects its role as a central hub in the United States. The city, often seen as the unofficial capital of the Midwest, which is considered the nation’s heartland due to its agricultural and industrial history, has a rich and diverse musical landscape. While Chicago’s affluent communities have long supported a vibrant array of orchestral, choral, and operatic institutions, the city is perhaps best known for its pivotal role in the development of blues, jazz, and house music.
Sones de México Ensemble
Additionally, Chicago’s immigrant communities have contributed a variety of folk and traditional music genres, adding to the city’s rich and multifaceted musical identity. The diverse folk and traditional music genres of Chicago are significant for two main reasons: first, they reflect the vibrant cultural practices of the city’s many immigrant communities, and second, Chicago played a crucial role in formalizing and preserving these traditions. Throughout much of the 19th century, a substantial portion of the city’s population (between 40 and 50 percent) was foreign-born, predominantly from European countries. Many folk music performances and events by immigrants took place at the Hull House, a major settlement house on the near west side of Chicago, founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr.
Hull House (circa 1905)
Chicago also has long been home to residents of Asian and Latino descent, with the first Chinese immigrants arriving in the 1870s following the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The foundations of today’s Chinatown can be traced back to the 1910s. Additionally, a vibrant Mexican community has been present since the early 20th century. An example of this cultural exchange is found in Silvano Ramos and Daniel Ramirez’s 1929 recording of El corrido de Texas in Chicago, which narrates the story of a migrant worker leaving his girlfriend in Texas to seek employment in Chicago and Indiana. The city’s Asian and Latino populations saw significant growth after the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy in 1965, leading to a flourishing of musical activities rooted in various cultural traditions. The Chinese Fine Arts Society, established in 1984, plays a key role in promoting Chinese music and dance, while the Sones de México ensemble, founded in 1994, has emerged as a leading performer of Mexican music in the United States.
A young Chuck Berry performing in Chicago (April 1956).
Chicago’s greatest contribution to rock ‘n’ roll lies in the influence of Chicago blues on early rock musicians. Additionally, the city played a significant role in shaping the genre through its prominent record labels. In 1955, Chuck Berry, inspired by Muddy Waters, recorded his breakthrough hit Maybellene at Chess Records in Chicago. Bo Diddley, another product of the Chicago blues scene, made a substantial impact on rock music in the 1950s with his innovative sound. Vee-Jay Records, a notable Black-owned label, emerged as a major competitor to Chess Records, achieving success with a diverse array of R&B, doo wop, blues, jazz, and rock records.
Read the full featured article on Chicago and its rich musical history in MGG Online.
Below, Muddy Waters performs at the 1981 Chicago Fest.
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Luigi Russolo’s contributions to art and music extend beyond his well-known manifesto, L’arte dei rumori (The art of noises). While he has been celebrated for his theoretical and practical advancements in noise music, his role as a painter and his impact on futurist art are equally significant. As one of the signatories of the futurist painting manifesto (1910), Russolo was deeply involved in the early development of futurism, an artistic and social movement that celebrated modernity, technology, and the dynamism of contemporary life. His painting Treno in velocità (Speeding train), a pivotal work that reflects the futurist fascination with speed and technological progress, exemplifies this enthusiasm for capturing movement and modern machinery.
House+Light+Sky (1913)
In his paintings from this period, Russolo explored the themes of motion, not just through the depiction of machines like trains and automobiles, but also by capturing the energy of crowds of protesters and other dynamic urban scenes. This exploration extended well beyond visual art into the realm of sound, culminating in his manifesto on noise, where he argued for a broader appreciation of the everyday sounds of industrial and urban life.
Synthèse plastique des mouvements d’une femme (Plastic synthesis of a woman’s movements, 1912)
Russolo’s invention of the intonarumori (noise instruments) was a direct extension of his artistic principles. These instruments were designed to produce a variety of noises, challenging conventional notions of musicality and embracing the sounds of the modern world. His compositions for these instruments anticipated future developments in experimental music and had a lasting influence on composers like George Antheil, Edgard Varèse, and John Cage. Russolo’s work represented an innovative fusion of visual art and sound, reflecting the futurist ideals of embracing the new and the dynamic. His influence extended into music and remains a testament to his innovative spirit in both the visual and auditory domains.
This according to “Pasajes sonoros [y ruidistas] de la ciudad futurista” by Juan Agustín Mancebo Roca (Ausart aldizkaria: Arte ikerkuntzarako aldizkaria/Journal for research in art/Revista para la investigación en arte 9/1 [2021] 127–142; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-16831). Also find the entry on Luigi Russolo in A dictionary of the avant-gardes (2001). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
The image at the beginning of this post is Russolo’s Dinamismo di un’ automobile (Dynamism of a car, 1913).
Below, the musician Mike Patton and Luciano Chessa test out reconstructed futurist noise machines based on intonarumori for an exhibit.
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The steel drum, or steelpan, developed in Trinidad in the late 1930s, is not a drum but a tuned idiophone, akin to a tuned gong. Unlike membranophones, the steel pan does not have a vibrating membrane. Its creation process involves hammering the lid of an oil drum into a concave shape and denting different sections to produce various pitches. While tuned gongs have a long history, this innovative technique of converting an oil drum into a musical instrument is a relatively recent development.
During British colonial rule, the steel drum was banned throughout Trinidad because the colonial government believed that Africans living on the island would communicate secretly using the drums and create an uprising. This led musicians to seek alternative instruments. They created tamboo-bamboo bands by beating bamboo tubes with mallets and supplemented their ensembles with bottles, tin pots, garbage can lids, and car brake drums. The steel drum’s development can’t be attributed to a single individual, but Trinidadian drummers such as Ellie Manette, Winston Spree, and Neville Jules made significant contributions to its musical development in the 1940s.
Building a steel drum involves several precise steps: cutting a barrel to a specific length, hammering the lid into a concave shape, marking the positions for each note, hardening the metal, and then carefully tuning and shaping each section. Steel drums are played using rubber-headed mallets of various thicknesses and lengths. While the arrangement of the individual notes is not standardized, tuning typically involves intervals of thirds, fourths, fifths, and sixths, with major or minor seconds being less common. Performers of the steel drum are known as panmen, though by the 1990s, women comprised about 15 percent of steel drum musicians.
Steel bands first gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s in the slums of Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. During this time, rival gangs often clashed in the streets, which negatively affected the reputation of steel bands. The calypso musician Mighty Sparrow famously captured this sentiment in a song, highlighting the stigma associated with steel band musicians:
“If your sister talk to a steel-band man The family want to break she hand Throw she out, lick out every tooth in she mouth, Pass! You outcast!”
Despite these early challenges with the image of steel bands, they were eventually embraced during carnival celebrations and came to symbolize national identity, especially during the independence movement of the 1950s.
Celebrate World Steelpan (Steel drum) Day on August 11 by reading the entry on steel drums in MGG Online.
Watch an energetic live performance by the captivating BP Renegades Steel Orchestra from Trinidad below.
Bernward Halbscheffel’s Lexikon Progressive Rock: Musiker, Bands, Instrumente, Begriffe provides more than 500 articles that feature not only classics of prog rock such as Procol Harum, The Nice, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, and King Crimson, but also more recent groups like Dream Theater, Gazpacho, Glass Hammer, Porcupine Tree, Shining, Spock’s Beard, and Grand General. Representatives of progressive metal are also included, among them Opeth, Symphony X, and Epica. Although British and American prog mainstream is dominant, the lexicon also offers articles on obscure bands like Ozric Tentacles and The Legendary Pink Dots; progenitors of art rock like Roxy Music and 10cc; and the Canterbury scene with Delivery, Soft Machine, Henry Cow, and Caravan.
Halbscheffel features currents of retroprog, neoprog, and new artrock. The 2013 edition replaces some earlier articles on foundational musical terms with new articles that are specifically relevant for progressive rock, such as the entry on polyrhythmics. New articles focus on current bands like Nosound, Knight Area, and Flying Colors. Halbscheffel aptly summarizes this all-encompassing approach in the article Progressive rock, where he focuses on the history of the genre less as a stylistic history than as a history of a functionally oriented inventory of rock techniques and processes.
As pioneers of electropunk and techno, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF, which means German-American Friendship) are regarded as one of the more innovative bands in new German music. Their song lyrics were provocative and minimal, featuring unusual synthesizer sounds set to cool drum beats and rejecting common song structures. The duo was founded in Düsseldorf in 1978 by Robert Görl and the Spanish-born Gabi Delgado-Lopez. The two had met a year earlier through the local punk scene. Together with three other musicians, they released their first LP Ein produkt der DAF in 1979. The album featured the sound that DAF became known for: electronic minimalism, which led the group to be associated with contemporary acts like the U.K.’s Throbbing Gristle and New York City’s Suicide.
DAF’s music became even more rhythmic on their second album Die kleinen und die bösen (1980). This was followed by the provocative single Der Mussolini (probably DAF’s best-known work to date) featuring lyrics that emphasized confrontation and minimalist beats that reduced the stiff marching style and thundering speech of reviled fascist dictators to a novelty dancefloor craze. Visually, their homoerotic leather outfits fit in well with the early synthpop duos of the day (OMD, Soft Cell, Blancmange, Cabaret Voltaire, Wham!) even though they never belonged to that scene. Overall, DAF’s style proved to immensely popular and made them one of the five biggest-selling acts in Germany in 1981.
By 1982, the group was finished. DAF’s final album Für immer was released after they disbanded–although today both Delgado-Lopez and Görl claim they never formally disbanded. The reason for ending the group was musical, explained Gabi-Delgado in an interview, and in his estimation the minimalist concept for the band had run its course. In the mid-1980s, however, the electronic music scene came to be dominated by DAF epigones. Their influence outlived their existence and inspired entire electronic (sub)genres like Detroit techno, Chicago house, German techno, industrial, and electronic body music (EBM).
This according to Das ist DAF: Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft: Die autorisierte biografie by Miriam Spies and Rüdiger Esch (Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2017; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2017-46785). Also find the entry on Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft in Das Gothic- und Dark Wave-Lexikon: Das Lexikon der schwarzen Szene (2003) in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
The Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos is considered one of the foremost Latin American composers of the 20th century. He was deeply interested in Brazil’s folk music traditions and was instrumental in setting up the country’s music education system, emphasizing native songs. His interest in Brazilian folk music resulted from visiting with different communities and listening to their music during his travels to various regions of Brazil as a young cellist. While living in Rio de Janeiro, Villa-Lobos began playing guitar and performing with popular musicians around the city. His mother disapproved of the company he kept, and as a result, he left home to pursue an itinerant life traveling around Brazil while supporting himself by playing cello and guitar. He also continued to learn about the folk music of the areas he visited.
Villa-Lobos later distinguished himself as a conductor, bringing several modern works to the attention of his audiences and consistently composing. His output of over 2,000 works includes everything from chamber music to the larger forms. His lack of formal academic training, far from hampering his development, compelled him to create a truly distinct and original technique.
Villa-Lobos’s prolific output includes the Bachianas brasileiras suites, a group of pieces based on original melodies patterned after the folk songs and Brazilian Indigenous tribal chants treated in a Bach-like fashion on Latin American instruments. The aria is arranged in an AABA form, with the first and last sections performed by a soloist and the repeated first section by the wind instruments followed by the chant:
“Lo, at midnight clouds slowly pass by, rosy and lustrous,
O’er the spacious heaven with loveliness laden,
From the boundless deep the moon arises wondrous,
Glorifying the evening like a beautiful maiden.
Now she adorns herself in half unconscious duty,
Eager, anxious that we recognize her beauty,
While sky and earth, yes, all nature with applause salute her,
All the birds have ceased their sad and mournful complaining:
Now appears on the sea in a silver reflection, Moonlight softly waking
The soul and constraining hearts to cruel tears and bitter dejection.”
Read the entry on Heitor Villa-Lobos in Band music notes (1979). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
Below is a performance of Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras, no. 5 by the Spanish cellist Antonio Martín Acevedo and the Argentinian guitarist Marisa Gómez.
A bagpipe is an aerophone instrument with one or more sounding pipes, each with a single or double reed. The pipes are made to sound by air from a wind container in the form of a bag, which is pressurized by the arm of the player (usually the left one). The wind container is fed either directly from the player’s lungs via a blowpipe or indirectly via bellows. In many languages the bagpipe is simply referred to as a pipe, such as the northern Italian piva (pictured above), Celtic bagpipes such as pìob mhór (large pipe), or the Estonian torupill (reed pipe).
The origins of the bagpipe are mostly unclear. Some have claimed that the instrument originates in western Asia, referencing similar instruments in Nebuchadnezzar‘s orchestra in ancient Babylon or mentioned by Aristophanes in Lysistrata(instruments with a wasp-like sound). Others have suggested that bagpipes originate in the hornpipes of North Africa and the Middle East—for instance, the Arabian instrument mizmār al-girāb, which dates to the 11th century.
A torupill player from Estonia.
European bagpipes were alluded to in texts as early as the 9th century, but certainly by beginning of the 12th century in German manuscripts. The earliest bagpipes typically consisted of a bladder made from whole sheepskin (or goatskin) cut, shaped, and sewn together. Iconographic representations of bagpipes became more common from the 13th century onward, and bagpipes were played in both court and urban areas of England, Ireland, Wales, France, and Germany.
Bagpipe Appreciation Day is on July 27, celebrate it by reading the entry on bagpipes in MGG Online.
Below are videos featuring performances by an ensemble featuring the Estonian torupill bagpipe and the Celtic pìob mhór by Ali Turner.
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