Tune Req: God's Trombones (James Weldon Johnson)

Subject: RE: Music for 'God's Trombones'?
From: Haruo
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 03:01 AM

Wish I'd seen it (though, being at most two years old, I probably wouldn't have got a lot out of it). Do you recall, Don, if the music was the Roy Ringwald setting, which appears to be the one that was alluded to on BaptistLife.com? (Located by John Core at the Hymn Society board.)

Haruo

PS to Azizi, I was looking for a combination of info on music for God's Trombones and info on JWJ's religious affiliations.

Subject: RE: Music for 'God's Trombones'?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 12:47 AM

I saw that. Absolutely fantastic!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music for 'God's Trombones'?
From: Deckman
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 09:39 PM

I was a minor player in the Seattle production of "God's Trombones," as directed by the late Keve Bray and performed by "The Contemporary Players." I'm guessing that this was around 1955-56. We performed all seven sermons, and as I remember we had a "church choir" that sang in several of the sketches. Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Music for 'God's Trombones'?
From: Azizi
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 06:31 PM

Oh is it music you want?

Well, how 'bout this little tidbit? Included in a list of famous African Americans from Jacksonville, Florida-along with "James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) early civil rights activist and Harlem Renaissance author" and his younger brother "John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) musical composer, brother of James Weldon"...is "Arthur "Blind" Blake (1893-1933) influential blues singer and guitarist, "The King Of Ragtime Guitar."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacksonville,_Florida

-snip-

That combination of spirituals and blues would make for an interesting program.

Subject: RE: Music for 'God's Trombones'?
From: Haruo
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 05:40 PM

Ah, but was he Baptist agnostic, an AME agnostic, or some other kind of agnostic ;-)? The Swedes are looking for Baptists...

I gather that the first performance of "Lift every voice and sing" was at a Baptist academy, but I also gather that Johnson's undergraduate collegiate career was at schools of Methodist origin.

In any event, I'm definitely interested in seeing what sort of music there is for "God's Trombones".

Thanks, Azizi.

Haruo

Subject: RE: Music for 'God's Trombones'?
From: Azizi
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 05:27 PM

Here's one reference I found to James Weldon Johnson being an agnostic:

"Johnson, himself an agnostic, used religious themes freely in his earlier poetry, but God's Trombones evokes black religious fervor using only straightforward African American speech..."
http://www.gale.com/free_resources/bhm/literature/gods_trombones.htm

Subject: RE: Music for 'God's Trombones'?
From: Azizi
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 05:07 PM

Haruo, here's some information that I gather you probably have read which does not specifically anwer Cathy's question but makes for interesting reading anyway:

"The work for which Johnson is most remembered is God's Trombones, which caused a sensation when it was published in 1927. Impressed with the power of the imagination and speech of the Irish peasantry, Johnson wished to create a similar monument—and literary movement—for his own race. God's Trombones consists of seven sermons by a black preacher. Though Johnson did not use dialect, his free-verse paragraphs are in the rhythms of this indigenous oratory and his imagery caught the simplicity and grandeur of the preacher's imagination, nurtured on the Bible:

And now, O Lord--
When I've done drunk my last cup of sorrow—
When I've been called everything but a child of God
When I'm done travelling up the rough side of the mountain--
O--Mary's Baby—
When I start down the steep and slippery steps of death—
When this old world begins to rock beneath my feet—
Lower me to my dusty grave in peace
To wait for that great gittin' up morning.

The use of the redundant auxiliary ("done"), the biblical, concrete imagery ("cup of sorrow"), the anaphora ("When I've . . . When this . . ."), and the allusion to well-known spirituals ("Mary Had a Baby, Yes, Lord" and "In Dat Great Gittin' up Mornin'") are typical of Johnson's style in this work. In an actual church sermon the last line would be a signal to the congregation to break into singing the spiritual."
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/johnson/creation.htm
-snip-

"[James Weldon] Johnson's most famous literary effort was God's Trombones published in 1927. God's Trombones are a collection of poetic sermons written in free verse. It is said the Johnson considered the voice of the black preacher to be a musical instrument "not a piano... or trumpet but a trombone"
http://www.nathanielturner.com/godstrombones.htm

-snip-

Also, see the words to The Creation" (from God's Trombones, 1927) along with the editor's note [without accompanying references] to Johnson being an agnostic:

"5. How can one justify the author's use of the compensatory Christian ethic in "Lift Every Voice," "Bards," "Listen Lord"--a prayer--and the sermons in Trombones, when he himself is an agnostic? (Refer to outside sources for the latter two poems.)

http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/jwjohnson.html

Subject: Music for 'God's Trombones'?
From: Haruo
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 03:56 PM

In a thread on "Baptist songwriters" at BaptistLife.com, "Cathy" asks, "who did the musical arrangements/score for God's trombones that was popular in the last mid century era[?]"

I see several references to James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones (text courtesy of UNCCH) in the Mudcat forum, but they all seem to refer to recitation/declamation of the text as verse; I don't see any thing about musical settings or accompaniments. A cursory googling doesn't bring it to the top, either.

Does anyone know the answer to Cathy's question, or have leads on any other music for this piece?

The occasion of the "Baptist songwriters" thread is a Swedish church choir planning a concert on that theme. Any additions to what we have so far provided them would be welcome, it doesn't have to be on Johnson.

Haruo