Sound Of History: Nicole Taylor
A classical soprano renders the music of oppression and slavery in America for audiences in Amman -- to excellent effect.
Words by John Lillywhite.
AS PART OF AFRICAN American History Week, on February 2, Julliard-trained soprano Nicole Taylor treated a packed audience at the Al Hussein Cultural Center to a night of American spirituals.
Rather euphemistically described by the American Embassy as a “form of music specific to the religious and social experience of Africans and their descendants in the United States,” spirituals were religious folk songs born primarily out of the hardships of life on the plantations, in the sugar or tobacco fields.
More simply put, they are the sound of slavery. The use of repetitive lyrics, the distinctive dialect, the sense of weariness and incomprehension all speak to the spirituals' earthly origins.
“They treat me so mean here, Lord,” was a lyric from one of the night's songs, repeated three times (at least) before the conclusion: “I wish I never was born / Lord, how come me here?”
The performance in Amman seemed geared not just to impress with the beauty of the music, but to evoke its history -- and despite Taylor's operatic voice and shimmering dress, it did go some way toward achieving this end.
Engaging and self-effacing, the soprano described how for many of the enslaved music became the only way to lament their fortune and preserve their culture: few if any could write, with many forbidden from communicating with one another in their own language. Referencing the biblical imagery of almost all the songs, she spoke of how much of what slaves read in the Bible served to give them comfort, and of how the religious attitudes which at times justified slavery at other times opposed it.
These short explanations were appreciated by the audience, intercut as they were with uplifting songs such as “He's Got the Whole World in His Hands,” or “This Little Light of Mine.” But there were also far darker songs in evidence, like “Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray” and “My Lord What a Morning,” which looks toward the end of the world.
All in all, it was a surprisingly intellectual and unassuming performance, which avoided the all-too-common kind of vapid pronouncements about peace and love, in favor of explaining and translating a culture of worship, song, hope and tragedy that took place in the shadow of night and remained hidden to slave owners, white settlers and even, until recently, many a history book.
