238 PART 2 | FROM THE CIVIL WAR THROUGH WORLD WAR I
Euro-American and African American traditions was Will Marion Cook. Born
in 1869 in Washington, D.C., Cook graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory in
Ohio, studied violin in Berlin, and undertook advanced study at the National
Conservatory during Dvorˇák’s time there. At the World’s Columbian Exposition
in Chicago in 1893, he directed the performance of excerpts from his opera Uncle
To m’s C a b i n , now lost, with Harry T. Burleigh as one of the soloists. Despite these
achievements, Cook found the classical sphere closed to him because of his race.
Turning to show business, Cook lavished his skills on New York shows with black
casts that, though now forgotten, contain music still worth hearing. In Dahomey
(1903), the fi rst black-produced show to run at a regular Broadway theater, made
an international impact. After a warm reception in New York, it played for seven
months in London, then toured England and Scotland before returning to the
United States for more performances.
According to his contemporary James Weldon Johnson, Cook “believed that
the Negro in music and on the stage ought to be a Negro, a genuine Negro,”
rather than a minstrel stereotype. And in that spirit, “Swing Along,” a number
from In Dahomey whose text Cook also wrote, uses syncopation and dialect to
celebrate black folk culture:Come along, Mandy, come along, Sue,
W hite folks watchin’ an’ seein’ what you do,
W hite folks jealous when you’se walkin’ two by two,
So swing along, Chillun, swing along!Well-a swing along, yes-a, swing along
An’-a lif’-a yo’ heads up high,
Wif pride an’ gladness beamin’ from yo’ eye!
Well-a, swing along, yes-a, swing along,
From a early morn till night,
Lif’ yo’ head an’ yo’ heels mighty high,
An’-a swing bof lef’ an’ right.Though the stage Negro dialect may strike present-day ears as demeaning,
“Swing Along” works within the conventions of its time to project an image of
African Americans as justifi ably proud, confi dent, and in possession of cultural
achievements that could be the env y of white folks.SCOTT JOPLIN
Of the remarkable generation of black musicians born shortly after emancipa-
tion, the one who most successfully brought music from the black folk tradition
into the popular sphere was Scott Joplin. Born in 1867, Joplin would have heard
traditional African American music as he grew up, the son of an ex-slave and his
freeborn wife, near the Texas-Arkansas border, but he also took piano lessons
from a local German-born music teacher. Joplin traveled in his early years as a
minstrel troupe member, and in 1893 spent time in Chicago during the World’s
Columbian Exposition. Though evidence is sketchy, this gala celebration has
often been cited as crucial in introducing the music soon to be called ragtime to
a large audience. W hen the fair ended, Joplin traveled to St. Louis and from there
to Sedalia, a central Missouri town where he lived from 1894 to 1901.K Will Marion Cook
(1869–1944) brought the
skills of a classically trained
musician to an African
American musical theater
that boomed in New York
from the mid-1890s until
the early 1910s.172028_10_231-253_r2_mr.indd 238 23/01/13 10:26 AM