Sam Haile's "African Musicians"

Sam Haile's African Musicians (1939)

(A reproduction of African Musicians is available to view on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/samuel-haile)

What is most striking about African Musicians (1939) is how unlike his other paintings it is – how its bright colours contrast with the dark, sombre tones found in works such as Dry Bones and Non Payment of Taxes, Congo, Christian Era (both painted in 1937). Perhaps even more significant is the difference in subject matter. Haile frequently painted as a means to articulate his political views, including in the latter two paintings I mentioned, in which he expresses outrage and devastation towards the Spanish Civil War, and the Belgian exploitation and colonization of the Congo, respectively, and contain horrific, even violent imagery.

African Musicians, however, is apparently free of this devastation and violence more typical to Haile's paintings, representing musical performance and projecting a positive aura. One reason for this shift in style and subject matter is certainly that this is the only painting of Haile's that was a commission. It was to be part of a mural decorating the walls of a New York jazz club. In this context, African Musicians becomes extremely interesting.

Up until and during the 1930s, Americans commonly thought of jazz as “dance music” rather than as a serious art form. However, it was beginning to be taken more seriously and 1938 saw a swing jazz band perform in the Carnegie Hall (one of America's most prestigious concert halls) in New York, for the first time. Backstage, before performing, the band's trumpeter, Harry James, amusingly remarked that he felt like “a whore in a church”, a statement that reflected his understandable discomfort and the massive significance of the coming performance. However, despite any apprehensions Harry James and the rest of the band may have had, the performance was well-received, as shown in a 1950s recording of the concert and the Carnegie Hall continued its role as host to a number of jazz musicians in the coming years. A number of bars and nightclubs endorsing the jazz scene were also opening around this time, including Café Society in 1938, where Billie Holiday first performed the now-familiar “Strange Fruit”, and Lenox Lounge in 1939, which also served as a venue for popular jazz musicians, including Miles Davis and, again, Billie Holiday.

The attitude towards jazz as mere “dance music” can be seen in the 1922 book cover illustration for Fitzgerald's “Tales of the Jazz Age”, featuring a number of lively dancing couples as well as two musicians, both of whom are white males, in contrast to Haile's musicians who are given an African identity, evident in the title of the piece, although not so much so in the painting itself. Although there are features which could be identified as African, such as the drums and the wavy hair of the figure to the left, I could not pick out any features that were exclusively African. For instance, the skin colour of each musician is different and the facial features are identical to those found in Haile's Ancient Greek-influenced painted pottery.

Again, we can compare African Musicians to Non Payment of Taxes, Congo, Christian Era in which the main figure's race can be more easily determined which, to me, suggests that Haile deliberately chose to portray the musicians' race as ambiguous in the painting, despite assigning them an African identity in the painting's title, though the artist's reasons for this can only be guessed at. As I briefly touched upon before, in discussing Non Payment of Taxes, Congo, Christian Era, Haile was in opposition to colonialism and in particular to its exploitative nature. Although very little is known about the nature of the commission for African Musicians, I thought perhaps he was chosen for his progressive political views, as well as for his skills as an artist. With this in mind, one interpretation could be that Haile was wanting to depict a scene in which various races of people could be united by music, another that he wanted to produce a painting which people of all races could easily relate to, and there are likely many, many more.

The thing I found most puzzling about African Musicians was the artist's inclusion of “Pan”, Greek god of rustic music – why should he be inserted into a scene depicting African musicians? Why was he included, rather than Apollo, the Greek god of music (as opposed to specifically rustic music)? A significant amount of Haile's pottery was also inspired by mythology, indicating that this was a personal interest of his. But while the references in his pottery are often obscure, the inclusion of the word PAN in African Musicians tells us that he wanted viewers to identify the ascending figure in the upper left as Pan. Once the idea is put into our heads we may be able to see the goat's legs take form, but without the inclusion of the text this would be an unlikely step to take. The fact that Pan, rather than Apollo, is depicted here may be assigning a particular status to jazz music, which fits with the “earthly” qualities that Haile admired in the music and that he expresses in the scene's plant life, some of which seems to meld into one of the instruments.

Another interpretation, which may or may not have been intended by the artist, is that of a relation to Pan-Africanism – a double meaning, if you like. Very briefly, Pan-Africanism is, in the words of Minkah Makalani, “a belief that African peoples, both on the African continent and in the Diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny.” Emphasis is placed on the solidarity and unity of those of African descent all over the world. It was in 1937 (two years prior to African Musicians' completion) that the Council on African Affairs was formed in New York – an organization promoting Pan-Africanism and anti-colonialism. Given Haile's anti-colonialist views, it's possible that he sympathised with such views and that this meaning was intended, but by no means definite.

While we cannot be sure of Haile's intentions regarding this piece it is clear that his hatred for colonialism, although expressed differently in African Musicians from other works, has been a major influence in his portrayal of the musicians. Instead of depicting the reality and horrors of colonial exploitation, he has presented us with an image of what could be – an image in which people are unified and not categorised so easily by labels such as “black” or “white”.

References

“African Musicians by Sam Haile” (1939), York Art Gallery

(Art and Music exhibition: 23 June - 31 December, 2012)

“Council on African Affairs”: http://africanactivist.msu.edu/organization.php?name=Council+on+African+Affairs (accessed 06/01/2013)

Makalani, Minkah, “Pan-Africanism”: http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/essay-pan-africanism.html (accessed 06/01/2013)

“Sam Haile - Dry Bones (1937)”, Leicester Galleries Online Archive and Image Library: http://www.leicestergalleries.com/19th-20th-century-paintings/d/dry-bones/10644

(accessed 06/01/2013)

“Sam Haile - Non Payment of Taxes, Congo, Christian Era (1937)”, Leicester Galleries Online Archive and Image Library: http://www.leicestergalleries.com/19th-20th-century-paintings/d/sam-haile/10645 (accessed 06/01/2013)

“R. J. Washington”: http://www.rjwashington.co.uk/biography.htm (accessed 06/01/2013)

Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/JohnHeld_Tales_of_the_Jazz_Age_1922.jpg

(accessed 06/01/2013)

Teachout, Terry, “Jazz,” The Wilson Quarterly, Vol.12, No. 3 (1988)