Under the bamboo tree

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Under the Bamboo Tree is a pop song written by Bob Cole (music) and brothers James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson (lyrics) and published in 1902. The Tin Pan Alley number became the biggest hit of the songwriter trio.

background

Bob Cole and the Johnson brothers wrote the song for the Broadway music show Sally In Our Alley , where Marie Cahill introduced him. The song Under the Bamboo Tree was one of the numbers with which the African-American entertainer and singer Bob Cole (1861-1911) appeared in vaudeville theaters, including in front of white audiences.

The music is strongly influenced by ragtime and thus turned away from the then popular Coon song ; the main melody was adapted from the well-known spiritual Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen . The lyrics take up the jungle style that was popular at the time , on the wave of enthusiasm for Africa prevailing in the USA :

Down in the jungles lived a maid,
Of royal blood though dusky shade,
A marked impression once she made,
Upon a Zulu from Matabooloo;
And ev'ry morning he would be
Down underneath the bamboo tree,
Awaiting there his love to see
And then to her he'd sing ...

In an attempt to establish a common culture to overcome the prevailing stereotype of Afro-American people in popular culture at the time , the Johnsons wrote Under the Bamboo Tree, a kind of “light music” derived from African-American originals, which gave them greater recognition as a “form of art “Hoped. TS Eliot adapted parts of the song in his poem Fragment of an Agon , part of an unfinished jazz piece.

Under the bamboo
Bamboo bamboo
Under the bamboo tree
Two live as one
One live as two
Two live as three
Under the bam
Under the boo
Under the bamboo tree
Marie Cahill

First recordings and later cover versions

Among the musicians who were the first to cover the song in 1903 were xylophone player J. Frank Hopkins (Edison Gold Molded Record 8396), Arthur Collins & Byron G. Harlan (Columbia, 1902), Arthur Collins (as a soloist), Mina Hickman ( Victor) and the duo Harry Macdonough & John Bieling ( Berliner Gramophone 263). Marie Cahill recorded Under the Bamboo Tree in 1917 (Victor 45125).

The discographer Tom Lord lists a total of 45 (as of 2015) cover versions of the song in the field of jazz , u. a. by Kid Ory 's Creole Jazz Band (1945, sung by Bud Scott), Ken Colyer , Arne Bue Jensen , Chris Barber , George Lewis / Don Ewell , Eubie Blake and a number of Dixieland bands. Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien sang it in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).

The song should not be confused with Under the Yum Yum Tree by Andrew B. Sterling and Harry Von Tilzer.

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b Michael Lasser: America's Songs II: Songs from the 1890s to the Post-War Years . 2014
  2. ^ Philip Furia, Laurie J. Patterson The American Song Book: The Tin Pan Alley Era. 2015, p. 38.
  3. ↑ Another popular song from the revue was the Congo Love Song . See American Popular Music: The nineteenth century and Tin Pan Alley by Timothy E. Scheurer, 1989, p. 89.
  4. ^ Edward A. Berlin: Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History , 2002, p. 37.
  5. ^ David Gilbert: The Product of Our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan . 2015, p. 68.
  6. ^ David E. Chinitz: TS Eliot and the Cultural Divide . 2005, p. 114.
  7. ↑ S. Wilson: Rt Melting Pot Modernism Z . 2011, p. 95.
  8. ↑ Harold Bloom: Langston Hughes
  9. ↑ Edison Gold Molded Record 8215
  10. ↑ Tom Lord: Jazz discography (online)
  11. ^ Stanley Green: Hollywood Musicals Year by Year . 1999, p. 130.
  12. ↑ Don Tyler: Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era . 2007