Music for Benjamin January

[brigdh]

I made a fanmix for my new obsession! Well, also for waywardmixes' "Heroes & Villains" round. It is a combination of mostly Classical music and African drumming, which turn out to go surprisingly well together. Let me know if you like it!






Benjamin January is the main character of the Benjamin January Mysteries by Barbara Hambly, a series of books set in New Orleans in the 1830s. Benjamin is very much a hero, repeatedly called on to investigate murders and kidnappings and robberies, not because it's his job, but because he has a strong sense of injustice and a desire not to see others hurt or forgotten. Traits which are not exactly conducive to an easy life, if one is a black man living in the antebellum South. Benjamin is a free man, trained as a surgeon and a professional pianist, and brilliant (I seriously think he speaks like seven languages), but he's often lonely and uncertain, due to a childhood as a slave (where everyone you love could be taken from you at any time) and the death of his first wife. My favorite part of these books is how he comes to build a home and a family- both of blood and of choice- and the complicated love the characters have for one another.

Benjamin's community is rich and detailed and amazingly well-researched. The books have a fantastic sense of a living New Orleans, and I wanted to try and capture that through music. Benjamin and many of his friends work as musicians, and music is fundamental to how he thinks and lives. But though he was trained in Classical European styles, a big part of his world is also music descended from Africa, and still practiced by the slave and free black communities. As often as I could, I used music actually mentioned in the books, and tried to split the fanmix equally between these two sides of Benjamin, with a final song to bring them together. I hope you like it, and I hope more people read these books, because they are fantastic.



1. Djole - Mamady Keita
Always, someone played the drums. Ancient rhythms flowed and leaped through the
American dust, rhythms passed down from mothers or fathers or grandparents
who'd been taken from African shores- even the modern tunes were quirked into
African syncopation.
(Dead Water, 5)

2. Concerto in Mi bemolle maggiore per violino, archi e
clavicembalo "La tempesta di mare" Op. 8 n° 5 (P 415) - 01. Presto - Vivaldi
As a slave-child on a plantation called Bellefleur, Benjamin January had lived
in music as naturally as a fish lives in water. His earliest memories were of
his father whistling in the freezing dark as he washed in the trough behind the
cabin that two families shared: every morning a different tune. Some were those
African tunes men sang in the fields, songs whose meaning had been lost over
the years but whose haunting melodies still moved the heart and the bones. Some
were the bird-bright cotillions heard once or twice, when the Master had company
at the big house and folks would loiter in the yard to listen to the fiddle played
within. January's father could whistle a tune back after hearing it once. When
January grew older- freed by his mother's new master and given proper piano lessons
in the light-handed Austrian mode from an emigre- he was astonished at how many of
those tunes he instantly recognized.
What would Antonio Vivaldi have thought had he known that his "Storm at Sea"
concerto would be whistled by a tall black man with tribal scars on his face,
walking out to the sugar-harvest with his cane-knife in his hand?
(Die Upon a Kiss, 28)

3. La Ballade de Jean Saint Malo - Zachary Richard
The voices of small children rang shrilly from the direction of the cabins, and
from far off came the faint, steady suggestion of the chop of mattocks and hoes,
of voices singing.
"They chased, they hunted him with dogs,
They fired a rifle at him.

They dragged him from the cypress swamp,

His arms they tied behind his back,

They tied his hands in front of him..."
It was a forbidden song, a secret song, about the rebel slave leader Saint-Malo.
Uhrquahr must not be near. January shivered and scratched with a fingernail at
the mortar around the screws.
(A Free Man of Color, 230)

4. Rondo Alla Turca from Sonata No. 11 in A, K. 331 - Mozart
January turned around in the rush-bottomed chair and commenced warming up his
hands with the simplified version of the "Rondo a la Turque" that he used for his
students. In keeping with everything else in the American Theater, the piano was
the best to be had, a massive iron-framed Babcock grand with the heavy action
typical of English instruments.
(Die Upon a Kiss, 48)

5. Mississippi Jailhouse Groan - Rube Lacy
'Rodus's voice rose in the work-chant, and the slaves took it up as they threw
their weight on the capstan-bars:
Mama brought me coffee- uhn!
Mama brought me tea- uhn!
Mama brought me evvythin'
'Ceptin' the jail-house key- uhn!
On the capstan-bar before them January picked out the bent back of Jubal Cain,
heavy shoulders standing out like pink-stained marble between the black and
whip-scarred backs on either side. He took up the song; a moment later Mr. Byrne
the gambler, heaving the bar between Quince and Weems, added his.
Turn me over easy- uhn!
Turn me over slow- uhn!
Turn me over easy, lord,
'Cause de bullets hurt me so- uhn!
(Dead Water, 139)

6. Beggar Boy - The Baltimore Consort
“Don't he play a treat, though? Last night, with that little thing he plays-
da-da-deeee-da" -she made a stab at getting the tune known as 'The Beggar
Boy'- "he made old Railspike cry."
Railspike kicked her suitor- a bearded Irish bargee- bloody-mouthed into the
street. She began picking up teeth from the dirt floor and pitching them after
him, screaming curses all the while.
(Fever Season, 294)

7. Djansa - Madu Diakite, Drissa Kone, Sedu Balo, and Fasiriman Keita
The drums knocked and tripped, dancing rhythms. Fairly close to the house,
he thought. This far above Canal Street the lots in the American suburb of St.
Mary were large, and few had been built on yet. Ten feet from kitchen, yard,
and carriage house grew the native oaks and cypresses of the Louisiana swamps,
as they had grown for time beyond reckoning. January picked out the voices of
the drums, as on summer nights like this one in his childhood he'd used to tell
frog from frog. That light knocking would be a hand drum no bigger than a vase,
played with fast-tripping fingertips. The heavy fast thudding was the bamboula,
the log drum- a big one, by the sound. The hourglass-shaped tenor spoke around
them, patted sharply on both sides.
(Graveyard Dust, 14)

8. Fledermaus-Quadrille, Op. 363, piano arrangement ("La Pantalon")
- Johann Strauss Jr.
Lucien flourished into the opening bars of ‘Le Pantalon’. It was time to get
back to work.
[...]
For the next twenty minutes, January devoted the whole of his attention and
the whole of his heart to the light-hearted glitter of chasses, jetes, rigadoons
and emboittes; to the soft swish of silk petticoats and the light pat of dogskin
slippers on the waxed parquet of the ballroom floor. And within seconds, all
other concerns vanished. There were times when he missed the sense of helping
people that he’d had, in his days as a surgeon; the joy of seeing a woman walk
out of the Hotel Dieu alive, whose life had been despaired of, or of hearing the
voices of a family clustered around the bed of an injured child as that child
woke once more to life....
The sense that he had acted, for a brief space of time, truly as a servant of God.
But God dwelled in music, too.
And there was nothing that gave him greater joy and so deep a peace of heart.
(Ran Away, 55)

9. Calinda - Clifton Chenier
The drums seemed to have reached an understanding. One could hear it, like the
pounding of a lust-quick heart. A banjo joined in, sharp as crickets in summer trees,
and a makeshift flute called a nightbird's rill.
"Calinda, calinda!" called out someone. "Dance the calinda! Badoum, badoum!"
It was nothing like Rossini, nothing like Schubert. Nothing that had to do with Herr
Kovald or Paris at all.
(A Free Man of Color, 133)

10. Peggy-O - Giovanni Tiroldi
In the clear silver light of the gibbous moon, the girl strode out to the rocks along
the stream, and January heard a man's soft whistle:
What will your mother say, Pretty Peggy-o,
What will your mother say, Pretty Peggy-o?
What will your mother say when she finds you've gone away...?
(Days of the Dead, 290)

11. Wade in the Water (ft. The Nyahbinghi Livity Choir) - African American
Choral Ensemble
Then, in mid-song, the words changed, weaving themselves around a different tune:
'Wade in the water, wade in the water, children,
Wade in the water,
Angel's gonna trouble the water...'
As swiftly as he could without drawing attention to himself, January retreated
into the woods, till he came to the bayou he'd passed a half an hour before.
'Wade in the water' - no matter what verses of the Bible it had been taken from
- meant only one thing, when sung by the field hands: they've got the dogs
out after you, brother. Whoever you are, whyever they're after you, wade in the
water, till they lose your scent.
(Dead and Buried, 178)

12. Scotch Reel: Bonny Highland Laddie - Spare Parts
After the students departed January remained in the parlor, playing the pieces
that pleased him, Bach and Haydn and von Weber, letting the music roll from the
instrument as dusk gathered in the little cottage and slowly, unwillingly, the
day's heat withdrew. In time Hannibal appeared, waxen and shabby as usual- without
saying a word about it, Livia had begun including him at her dinner table now
that entertainments in the town were growing thin. He unpacked his violin and
slipped into accompaniment, the fiddle like a golden fish in the dark strong waters
of the piano's greater voice: jigs and reels and sentimental ballads, and snatches
of melody from the Montmartre cafes that had been popular in Paris two years ago.
Dominique came in, and then Livia, simply sitting and listening as the evening
deepened and the crickets began to cry.
(A Free Man of Color, 301)

13. Nan Pwen Lavi Anko / Lamize Pa Dous (ft. Ti Roro & Ti Marcel) - Issa
El Saieh
The hammer-and-lift of the drumming, the wailing, the dance filled the Square:
bone-deep, groin-deep, soul-deep. Pain and memory, loss and hope, weariness and
exultation at having survived another day.
"What are they doing, Mama?" asked a child.
"They're dancing, dear. That's how Negroes dance."
Men stripped to bandanna loincloths, bells jangling around their ankles, turning
the women under their arms. Graceful movements, serpentine as those of the woman
on the boxes, absolutely alien to the waltz or the Lancers or the bright beauty
of contredanse. Others danced alone, feet planted, bodies swaying, or stepped gaily,
highly, in patterns half-remembered, half-invented, faces intent with relief or
release, or beaming with joy. Eerie, wailing, the voices rose and fell like storm
wind over the Atlantic, like the far-off jangling of chains.
"Why do they dance like that, Mama?" The little boy was probably thinking about
his own experiences with stern-voiced teachers and white gloves and pumps that pinched.
They dance that way to forget that they have to step off the banquette to let YOU
pass, Young Massa.
They dance that way to forget that they, or those they love, can be sold off like
two-year-old colts and taken someplace to be worked to death if their new owner chooses,
for no better reason than that their owner wants a new buggy.
They dance that way so they don’t kill themselves from despair. Sir.
(Graveyard Dust, 127)

14. Fur Elise - Beethoven
After supper Hannibal, to impress his new in-laws, played the violin. Mozart and
O'Carolan, jigs and shanties and sentimental ballads. Some of the men got up in the
firelight and danced, with the Taos girls who - hearing the music - walked up from
Seaholly's in their jingling poblana finery, or with each other in the
time-honored frontier fashion, the 'lady' scrupulously marked with a red bandanna
knotted around a hairy wrist. As the music flowed out like a shining rainbow over
the meadows, January saw them gather in the darkness beyond the light of the fire,
as Prideaux had predicted: traders and engages from the Hudson's Bay camp, independent
trappers and representatives from half a dozen Indian tribes. Most who came hauled
along contributions to the feast: grouse, pronghorns, a bighorn sheep...
Most also brought liquor. [...] Everyone seemed to accept this except yellow-bearded
Jed Blankenship, who was stupendously drunk himself and was finally removed by
Prideaux and Shaw for a non-consensual bath in the river. Manitou Wildman, also drunk,
burst into bitter tears when Hannibal played 'Fur Elise' and retired to the meadows
to howl at the moon.
(The Shirt on His Back, 84)

15. Walk on Guilded Splinters - Marsha Hunt
Always there was dancing, the men turning the women under their arms, leaping and
slapping their feet, wriggling in doubled and quadrupled rhythms, styling to show off
what they could do. Ankle-bells jangled, hands clapped. Voices shouted encouragement,
and when the sun glanced low over the slate roofs of the pastel town and flashed like
a burning sword blade on the river, then Mamzelle Marie would come- Marie Laveau, the
Queen of all the voodoos- and dance with her snake, and sing the songs of her power
and her triumph.
At the gates of the paling fence that circled Congo Square, Benjamin January stood
watching the voodoo queen dance in the twilight. [...]
I walk on pins,
I walk on needles,
I walk on gilded splinters;
I want to see what they can do...
(Dead Water, 6)

16. Canon - Pachelbel
St.-Denis Janvier had sent him to study with an Austrian music master, a martinet
who had introduced to him the complex and disciplined joys of technique. Music had
always been the safe place to which his soul had gone as a child: joining in the
work-hollers, picking out harmonies, inventing songs about big storms or his aunt
Jemma's red beans or the time Danro from the next plantation had fallen in love with
Henriette up at the big house. All of this, Herr Kovald had said, was what savages
did, who knew no better. Kovald had played for him that first time the Canon
of Pachelbel- and January's soul had entered onto that magic road, that quest for
beauty that had no end.
(Graveyard Dust, 24)

17. Marie Laveau - Papa Celestin
Twilight transformed the sky to a shining topaz. Cicadas roared, and the earth gave
back its scents in a deep musk of wetness and sweet-olive. In the wild firelight Marie
Laveau the voodooienne appeared, stepping up on a platform of boxes, a tall, handsome
woman in a skirt made of red bandannas, her head adorned with a tignon worked into
seven points, like flames around her dark, Indian-boned face.
Men shouted, and sang her song: Oh, yes, yes, Mamzelle Marie / She know well the
Grand Zombi....
And in Laveau's arms the Grand Zombi was lifted up, a seven-foot king snake with a
darting tongue and wise copper eyes that seemed, in the firelight, to be more than the
eyes of a reptile.
(Wet Grave, 90)

18. Improvisations on Mozart Violin Concerto #3, Third Movement's
Cadanza (ft. Zagreb Soloists) - Gilles Apap
But behind him he heard music, the light sweet embroideries of a single violin, playing
a Mozart air in the dark.
And he turned back.
A white man was sitting on a bollard about halfway between the wharf's end and the
levee behind them, a thin man of medium height whose long dark hair hung straggling
over his shoulders like a disheveled mermaid's. He played like an angel, dismissed from
the Heavenly Choir, for drunkenness, perhaps, because a squat black bottle of gin sat on
the wharf-planks at his feet. He didn't look up as January came back toward him out of
the night, only embellished the little dance-tune till it sparkled, calling secret rhythm
and resonance from it until it seemed to speak of all joy, all light, all life.
(Days of the Dead, 7)

19. Jin-Go-Lo-Ba - Babatunde Olatunji
Along the starboard promenade, the men were singing, their voices rolling out across
the water:
Ai, tingwaiye, at tingwaiye...
And from the women's side of the boat, two or three voices at first, then on the next
round more, replied,
"Ah waiya, ah way."
African words, learned by rote from mothers who'd sung them long ago. Even those who
hadn't known them before took them up, drawing comfort from the sound, from the memory
of the quarters of their childhood, and the villages on the other side of the ocean,
beneath the hot African moon.
Day-zab, day-zab, day koo-noo wi wi,
Day-zab, day-zab, day koo-noo wi wi....
(Dead Water, 112)

20. "Souvenir de Porto Rico" (Marche de Gibaros) Op. 31, D. 147
- Louis Moreau Gottschalk
And that, he thought, was home.
Not Africa, nor Paris, but here, this place where he’d grown up. Sitting at the piano
again he let his hands wander, sketching a tune he’d heard in the fields of Bayou Chien
Mort, an echo of older tunes, and Hannibal’s violin trailed and threaded around it
like a skein of gold.
Dominique looked up, smiled, and said, “That’s pretty, Ben. What is it?”
He only shook his head. In his mother’s household, he thought, it wouldn’t be
considered at all respectable.
(A Free Man of Color, 304)

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