#1 "Cherokee" (5:43)

by Ray Noble (Recorded Feb. 25, 1955)

Performed by Clifford Brown (t), Max Roach (d),Harold Land (ts), Richie Powell (p), George Morrow (b).

Alone Together: Clifford Brown and Max Roach

Verve 314 526 373-2

In the popular imagination, the music of the North American Indian is little more than a cliched stereotype. This tune by Ray Noble has nothing ostensibly to do with Indian music or the music of the Cherokee nation, yet the opening would create an image of American Indians for many listeners in the United States because it uses musical devices associated with Indians since the late nineteenth-century. Considering its prevalence, it is amazing that the four note groupings used in this musical cliché rarely, if ever, appear in Indian music. Indian music makes use of two and three beat patterns or a type of non-metrical pulse that responds to text and formal concerns without being organized into a recurring pattern of strong and weak beats. Do you hear anything at all "Indian" in this tune after the opening?

#2 "Dirge," Movement IV from Suite No. 2 [Indian] (6:05)

Edward MacDowell (1861&emdash;1908)

Performed by the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic

Charles Anthony Johnson, conductor

Albany Troy 224 ©1997

Edward MacDowell began using Indian musical themes around 1889? using Theodore Baker's dissertation for the University of Leipzig, Uber die Musik der Nardamerikanischen Wilden (1882). Baker was an American studying in Germany. MacDowell had no direct contact with Indians or Indian music, but used the themes transcribed in Baker's work as a starting point for several tone poems, both for orchestra and within solo piano works. This music presents a romanticized notion of the American Indian as a pure, uncorrupted "proto-European." For many American Indianist composers, Indian melodies were considered a primitive or authentic version of what the unknown roots of the European musical tradition would be. A sort of musical Darwinism, this concept cast Indian music as a preliminary stage in the ultimate progress and perfection of the art that resulted in the European classical tradition. When adopted by EurAmerican composers Indian melodies became a signifier of the universal and a marker of a sensibility of "primitive" integrity. This movement is a Dirge and is supposedly about a mother's lament for her son who has died in battle. The original melody is from Baker's dissertation, but it has no association with mourning.

#3&emdash;4 "Chattering Squaw" (1:08) and Scalp Dance (0:46)

from Lyrics of the Red-Man, Op. 76, Book II (1903/4)

by Henry Worthington Loomis (1865&emdash;1930)

DarioMüller, piano

American Indian Music Nuova Era (Italy) 6821 ©1992

Around the turn of the twentieth century, several white Euramerican composers created repertories of songs, piano works, and choral pieces based upon the research of ethnomusicologists who transcribed and recorded Indian song. Frequently these adaptations were arrangement of Indian melodies with a European accompaniment and triadic harmonization. Many of these composers were motivated by a preservation instinct to record and inscribe native melodies in musical notation. It is difficulty to balance the goals of American musical nationalism and advocacy for a group of Americans deprived of life, liberty, and property. Despite their altruistic motives, much of this music merely perpetuates accepted stereotypes, not only of Indians, but of European gender categories such as the chattering woman and the triumphant (male) warrior.

#5 "Navajo War Dance," from From Mesa and Plain (????)

Arthur Farwell (1877&emdash;1952) [1:54]

Dario Müller, piano

The American Indianists Marco Polo 8.223715

Listen particularly to the harmonies and form of this work. Farwell was one of the leading American musical nationalists / American Indianist composers. He founded a music publishing company called the Wa-wan Press, named after an Omaha ceremony. This company sought to publish the work of American composers and, not coincidentally, published the work of several Indianist composers.

#6 "Half Breed" 2:43

writted by Mary Dean and Al Capps

performed by Chér

"Half Breed" is an example of the way clichés and stereotypes of Indian culture have been appropriated by non-Indian American pop singers as a gimmick. According to ethnomusicologist Tara Browner, Cher has no Indian blood, but nevertheless created this hit performance of the early 1970s. The text and musical imagery contributes to Cher's aura of the exotic (and erotic). Half Breed is not unusual in Cher's output, as she does not appear to ever write her own material. This was not unusual for female rock singers in the 1970s. Recording companies often did not trust them to compose their own material.

#7 "?" 3:46

by Black Lodge Singers

Canyon Records CR-7054

I won't give you the title of this tune right away, but you can write it in after you figure it out. (The title is the name of the primary male character in the lyrics.) As you listen, you'll quickly perceive the irony in this song: revenge is sweet. Here an Indian group has appropriated a symbol of American mass culture: the text includes the phrases, "Mickey Mouse Minnie Mouse" and "They're all movie stars at Disneyland, They all work at Disneyland." This song is sold as a children's song, but, like cartoons, its message cuts across generational lines.

#8 "Custer Died for Your Sins" 2:59

Written and performed by Floyd Westerman

"Custer Died for Your Sins" Red Crow Productions Inc. ©1982

Based on a book by Vine Deloria, Jr. entitled "Custer Died for Your Sins," this song gives voice to active resistance and is one of the classics of American Indian popular song. Westerman is from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota (Sioux) Nation.

#9 "Frybread" (2:44)

by Keith Secola and the Wild Band of Indians

Wild Band of Indians Akina 202, n.d.

Secola's message here is about unity. Frybread has made inroads into American culture, appearing on Children's television shows and as an entrée at Ann Arbor's Zanzibar, a trendy café with a penchant for synthesizing a wide range of ethnic cuisine.

Food makes a powerful symbol of identity and universality. Breads such as frybread/ pumpernickle bread, pita, bagels, sopapilla, even Wonder bread, create a sense of cultural difference within a common human practice of cooking and eating. Secola's lyric, "a mile long frybread line, cause, we're all the same inside" conveys the same sentiment.

#10 "Mack Chi" from Blood on the Fields (1994)

Ulali

Music Masters 67113

Basically a Native American gospel-styled trio (not all that different in sound and sentiment from Sweet Honey in the Rock. In Indian language, round.

#11 "Willin' 2 Die" (1996)

By Litefoot and ALT

Performed by Litefoor, Frost, O.G.enius

Good Day to Die Red Vinyl Records RVR9607 ©1996

Indian rap, many of the same rhetoric and values as rap &emdash; community / violence/willingness to die/ affirmation of culture and history.

#12 "Yeha-Noha" (1994)

Sacred Spirits

Sacred Spirits Yeha-Noha Virgin Records 7243 8 42067 2 7 ©1994

New age religion, mixed for a mass market. A percentage (unamed) from each sale is donated to the Native American Rights Fund.