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... Harlem Renaissance was the exhaustion of artistic production. When you look at the type of art and literature that was being produced you see that they are about being black. At first that was fine because they were beginning to explore who they were, but there is a point where there is nothing more to say, you have told everything and now everyone is having the same views and feelings. In the end it lead some writers to produce works that were not up to the quality of work that they and others around them were used to. The Harlem Renaissance reached a natural end but was able to further other developments in the 1930 s and further in the future.
The single accomplishment of the Harlem Renaissance composers and musicians was to achieve a two tiered mastery Spencer believes that their work draws on the mood and spirit of African American folk music while mastering the forms and techniques of the European classical tradition. To master to the men such as James Weldon Johnson, and Locke was to court the white patrons, become proficient in the music and style that they were used to and have them come to associate it with the music of blacks. They were writing to make the whites happy and interested in their works. The white patrons were demanding for the traditional sound from the plantation and even back to Africa. Many such as Charlotte Mason were insistent that blacks get rid of the white culture, and go back to their roots. On the other side of that Spencer expresses how they came to use the two tiered mastery to their benefit.
This type of two tiered mastery was quite evident throughout the readings and in other readings on Harlem. Blacks were expected to sing their spiritual songs, songs that they sung back in the slave days and share those with their audiences, and the audiences that most wanted to hear those were the white audiences. A perfect example is out of When Harlem was En Vogue, white listeners were happy to hear a black choir on the radio because they could not tell that they were black (pg. 163). Jon Michael Spencer is currently the Tyler and Alice Harness Professor of American Studies, and Professor of must at the University of Richmond, he has written dozens of books about blacks, multiculturalism, and music.
He is academically sound, credential wise. The research for the book was astounding in facts and those that helped him to gather all of the information. He worked with many archivists, at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. He has thorough discussion on each of his points and research to back everything up that he brings to point in the reading.
Spencers book has sound argument and good points yet there is severe repetition in what he is saying, the points in the book never seem to really connect together, often skipping from one subject to another, he tells you that they tie in but the obvious is never there. If not for him pointing out the fact that yes he has just explained a reason for what has been going on you would not have know and kept on reading. The other texts on this topic are much better written I feel, to give better explanation rather than the vague and often tiring same comments. The content of the book was not his own words rather then just large excerpts and pieces of the peoples work, never explaining much about what was going on just throwing the occasional comment in on the end of a paragraph.
Spencer should have integrated more of what Huggins and Lewis wrote rather than bashing on what he felt their ideas were. It gives the reader no clue about what he is opposing other than the words that Spencers uses to describe the views that Lewis and Huggins write about. Spencer says that his goals are to rebut the failure of the Harlem Renaissance, the great role that music held, and when the length of the Renaissance really ended, but throughout the book there is really no in depth on these topics, other than the music which is just pieced together and you are left to either be puzzled, or take the answer that he gives you which is music played a great role. So much more could have come out of this book, there were very good points brought up.
It could have been my inability to understand all that was being said but there was much to be desired in explanation and further delving into topics that Spencer brought up. In learning about the role that music played in the Harlem Renaissance you will be left dry, if you want to learn about little known talent from the renaissance then you will be happy, but the main focuses of this book were not addressed in any depth. Because Spencer has such strong beliefs he did not make strong cases for each of his arguments, rather gave you bits and pieces that you could not piece together so that you thought that his arguments were right. I feel that they need to be more closely examined, there is a lot of extra that is of no substance in the book that can be removed to make it more useful. This book is definitely not for those that have no understanding of the Harlem Renaissance, without a greater understanding of the topic you will not get any information out of this book. It is thoroughly confusing, to the readers.
If Spencer would take more time to put things in order, take the time to relate them to the articles, and books that he is so against rather than throwing statements out there saying how absurdly wrong the other author is this book could have some value. The New Negroes and their Music: The Success of the Harlem Renaissance has made no real contribution to the understanding of the Harlem Renaissance and the role that music played, which is what Spencer set out to do. Bibliography:
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