Is Jazz Music Urhobo? IV

Is Jazz Music Urhobo? IV

If Jung were alive, my one question to him would be: do musical archetypes exist? If George-Spencer-Brown were alive I would ask him the same question. An archetype of Urhobo music would be the basis for these questions.

When I listen to Urhobo music as Uhuoro ojevwu, the music of the rascal, discussed in Part 1. I can grasp its unique archetype. Its sound and feel are sensible. This same archetype is replicated across a lot of jazz music. What I hear so often is the archetype. The arguments of subjectiveness (my personal view) or apophenia (seeing patterns where none exist) may be thrown at me. My response is simple, let’s be empirical about it.

My hypothesis is rhythm analysis would show that beats and rhythms of Uhuoro ojevwu would match those often found in jazz music. The mere ear could pick up these similarities and matches. Blue Bossa by Joe Henderson and written by Kenny Dorham, Toro by Art Ensemble of Chicago, Oumou by Joshua Redman are some candidates I would suggest for testing. We then leave the answers to the discussion of the test. If funding were available for such research, a comparison between Urhobo music and American jazz music can be undertaken. Delta State University, Abraka would be the ideal place to carry out the research.

While this is no cop out I doubt whether rhythm alone would capture a musical archetype all by itself. A keen knowledge of the forms of archetype must be well understood first.

In the world of music Urhobo music is very obscure. Only Urhobo people (five million and not all of them) and people who live in Urhobo land listen to this music. But to its small audience it is well grounded and has a long history.

This raises the question, does jazz as we know it today have an archetype? And what form does it have?  My answer is I do not know. Yet, Uhuoro’ ojevwu does have a distinct archetype. So, the question is how it found itself in so much jazz created and developed thousands of miles away across the ocean in America?

The same archetype keeps popping up in music across the Americas. A good example of the presence (and absence) of the archetype is seen in the Bond movie Live and Let Die.You find it in the scenes of the late-night voodoo festival revels in the Caribbean. It was absent from the movie’s funeral march scenes which is the foundation of New Orleans jazz. Those familiar with the importance of New Orleans in jazz history would find such intriguing.

Why?

It suggests that jazz is a wholly American invention by African Americans without an African influence of any kind. Lester Bowie and Miles Davis will disagree with that assertion; jazz originated in Africa they would say. We must not assume that Africans completely lost their memories when they arrived in America. Africans actually tried hard to preserve their way of life and culture in anyway they could. So, how do you explain the gap in transmission of music forms between Africa and America?

Or what musicologists call jazz disregards the archetype altogether. That is like serving the cocktail snakebite black without cider. Beer on its own is a great drink anyway, but don’t call it snakebite. Uhuoro ojevwu is what it is, complete.

This is where Jung’s archetypes and Spencer-Brown’s forms can help.

Archetypes are patterns within the unconscious that replicate themselves in human action. Each has its distinct features. Some archetypes are common, the lover, the king, the sage, the orphan. These are replicated in stories around the world. They show up in human experience. Uhuoro ojevwu is an obscure archetype made universal though largely unrecognized around the world through jazz music. Thus, the quest to reveal the archetype must go on. It’s a job worth doing.

George Spencer-Brown wrote the monumental Laws of Form, creating a new understanding of mathematics and forms. Spencer-Brown’s work was adapted in Story and Structure by Leon Conrad who uses six core narrative patterns to explore and analyse the forms and structures of story. I wonder if form theory concepts can be used to analyse archetypes and especially that of music.

Since Leon Conrad is alive and well. I will probably choose to have a chat with him. Who knows we might get closer to understanding archetypes, even more obscure ones. If archetypes of music exist, what other obscure traditions might be shaping world music without recognition?

Grimot Nane