[JPL] 1st Nations & jazz?

[ANTNYBROWN at aol.com]

Bobby and Larry, 
Donald Harrison, Jr. is (at least) a second generation Mardi Gras Indian, 
tracing Native American ancestry; just worked with him in NOLA in October for the 
Smithsonian CultureFest. He brought on an incredible group of young musicians 
playing everything jazz from 1890s-today. Then, Donald dressed in his Mardi 
Grad Indian regalia, came out and took us all home with some killer "Hey 
pocka--way."

Also, we cannot forget Max "Chattahoochee Red" Roach (Columbia, 1981), 
particularly his work GHOST DANCE scored for chorus, orchestra and M'Boom (1991, 
Mesa/Bluemoon). 

Roach, originally from North Carolina, like many blacks from the Carolinas 
and the deep south, can trace First Nation ancestry through a history of 
cross-culturation with the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminoles, 
primarily because of the so-called "Assimilation Plan" for these "Five Civilized 
Tribes," instituted after the Revolutionary War by Washington. This plan brought 
great numbers of African Americans into contact with these American Indians, 
who were encouraged to become "civilized" by adopting European modes of dress, 
language, religion, and farming. Their   communal lands were divided up and 
model plantations complete with slaves were set up on Indian land as an example 
of what they should aspire to.* My unpublished paper for the Smithsonian 
Institution, African Influences in Native American Music: Vestiges of Slavery Among 
Southeastern Native Americans (1990), commemorated this little known chapter 
of our history on the centennial of the first field recording of Native 
Americans by the Library of Congress. 

You will find many African Americans claiming American Indian ancestry (e.g., 
Jimi Hendrix), and I believe many of them are correct. My father, from 
Sumter, South Carolina, was a Geechie of Choctaw/Cherokee ancestry. My brothers and 
I were raised to embrace our African-American Indian heritage (in addition to 
my mother's Japanese ancestry).


(*The failure of this Fifty-year Assimilation Plan to integrate these Indians 
into the mainstream resulted in their removal from their lands, their forced 
assembly into camps, and forced march (TRAIL OF TEARS) in the dead of winter 
of 1835-36 to the Midwest reservations; one-third of the over 16,000 evacuees 
did not complete the journey. The US concentration camp policy was revived for 
the Japanese Americans in WWII. Also, not well known, is that Hitler claimed 
his concentration camp policy was inspired by the American policy for Native 
Americans.)


Anthony Brown, Ph.D.
Director
Asian American Orchestra,
Fifth Stream Music, Inc.
www.anthonybrown.org
1253 Haskell Street
Berkeley, CA 94702
(510) 428-2126



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