Sara Le Menestrel on desegregating the understanding of French Louisiana music

Desegregating the understanding of music

Sara Le Menestrel challenges long-held stereotypes about Cajun and Creole music in a thorough investigation of music from southern Louisiana. Her historical approach reveals how complex questions of race, identity, and authenticity have shaped a musical culture far more intricate than earlier segregated studies implied.

Reviewed work

Sara Le Menestrel, Negotiating Difference in French Louisiana Music: Categories, Stereotypes, and Identifications, Jackson, MS, University of Mississippi Press, 2015.

New Orleans hosts JazzFest during the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May. Although national and international musicians increasingly fill its stages, the festival continues to feature local performers, especially Cajun and Zydeco groups. For visitors, JazzFest offers a chance to experience the region's musical diversity, often described as a gumbo. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 renewed attention on New Orleans and southern Louisiana, deepening interest in the area's musical heritage. Ten years after those storms, the University of Mississippi Press released French anthropology professor Sara Le Menestrel's book, an extensive scholarly study centered on Lafayette and the surrounding region she calls "French Louisiana." This work represents more than a decade of ethnographic research and twenty years of engagement with southern Louisiana music, both before and after the hurricanes.

Methods

Le Menestrel conducted fieldwork over ten years, relying on participant observation and archival research as her primary methods. Besides attending dances, festivals, concerts, and other community events—where she sometimes participated on fiddle or as a dancer—she interviewed over forty musicians and other figures active in the music scene from 2001 to 2008. She self-reflexively acknowledges that her French nationality gave her the privilege to ask sensitive questions about more than just music itself, particularly when speaking with Black musicians.

Questioning stereotypes

At the heart of the book lies the question of identity. Le Menestrel applies critical and cultural theory to explore race, something central to American society. She writes in her introduction, "I propose to study how social hierarchies and stereotypes based on the notions of race, class, and region shape, and in turn are shaped by, tastes, representations, and musical practices within French Louisiana music" (14). Rather than attempting an exhaustive historical or cultural survey, she focuses on how Cajun and Creole musicians themselves view their music, alongside the influence of institutions, the music industry, and academia on those perceptions. She boldly argues: "I argue for the importance of desegregating the understanding of French Louisiana music by situating it beyond ethnic or racial identifications, bringing to light the other identifications and factors at stake in the perception and practice of French Louisiana music and the complexity of the musical landscape." More succinctly, "This book explores the role of music in constructing, asserting, erasing, managing, and negotiating difference" (15). These statements get to the core of her project: a study of difference constructed along regional, racial, linguistic, ethnic, and class lines, and an examination of how "representations of French Louisiana music tend to conceal the interstices between binary oppositions such as black-white, urban-rural, differentiation-creolization and local-global." In short, Le Menestrel explores how Black and White musicians—Creole and Cajun—share more common ground than the usual social and musical markers suggest.

The theoretical framework is layered, requiring Le Menestrel to carefully untangle received ideas about race and ethnicity. She examines two racialized terms commonly applied to people and cultures of southern Louisiana: "Cajun," conventionally referencing Whites, and "Creole," conventionally referencing Blacks. As she demonstrates, the origins and uses of these terms are problematic. She coins the phrase "French Louisiana music" to cut across racial lines, emphasizing regional identification and exploring how Black and White francophone musical traditions and repertoires overlap. To avoid relying on the problematic labels "Cajun" and "zydeco"—genre terms she documents as invented and manipulated by tourism, government, academia, and the music industry—she brings in other analytical categories. Class also functions within the Cajun community as a marker of identity. "'The 'Cajun' and 'Acadian' labels are thus situated within a narrative of social stratification that has shaped the current registers of identification" (12). Le Menestrel notes that Louisiana banned French in classrooms in 1916, later enshrined in the state constitution of 1921, and describes how "Cajun" became a derogatory term until the francophone and Cajun renaissance of the 1970s.

Hybridity and creolization

Throughout her book, Le Menestrel challenges received notions of authenticity, tradition, genre, and the various ways French Louisiana music gets classified, promoted, and marketed—by both insiders and outsiders. The book is dense with content across five chapters, organized chronologically from the early years of the music industry through the spread of New Orleans jazz. The first chapter, "The Early Twentieth Century: A Diverse Landscape," relies primarily on archival research to show how diverse music circulated in the region. Tracking traveling entertainments such as minstrel shows, medicine shows, carnivals, circuses, and Hawaiian music, she notes these sounds could be heard in dancehalls and elsewhere. Bands from out of state and from New Orleans, along with radio, records, and sheet music, contributed to the mix in the 1920s and 1930s. A wide range of American popular music was present. The region even had its own jazz bands capable of collective improvisation. This repertoire influenced the French music ensembles, which already possessed their own style, identity, and catalog. Here, Le Menestrel demonstrates the hybridity and creolization of French music along with the interaction of Black and White musicians.

One surprise is her documentation of Black jazz bands in the region. She writes extensively about several Black and Creole musicians who lived and performed in south Louisiana. It was striking to read about trumpeter Willie Geary "Bunk" Johnson, who played with Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, and Buddy Bolden before moving from New Orleans to New Iberia in 1920 and later staging a comeback during the jazz revival of the late 1940s. These bands—jazz and French music alike—shared instrumentation and played the same genres, including both American popular dances and those associated with francophone Louisiana, both urban and rural: schottisches, quadrilles, and the like. Le Menestrel lists more than four dozen jazz bands active at the time that performed in nearly three dozen venues.

The issue of authenticity

Le Menestrel opens the second chapter with an account of her early fieldwork in Lafayette, which began in 1992. After befriending Christine Balfa, daughter of Dewey Balfa, a major figure in the 1970s revival, Le Menestrel studied fiddle with one of Balfa's former students. By positioning herself as a student fiddler, she explores what constitutes a tradition, then moves into questions of canonization and experimentation. She returns to historical and archival research to interrogate authenticity, examining the role folklorists like John and Alan Lomax played in shaping notions of what was and was not "authentic"—in their view, what they perceived as the surviving music of the original Acadian settlers. With assistance from Irène Thérèse Whitfield, the Lomaxes documented a range of ethnic folk traditions (for instance, English ballads, klezmer, cowboy songs) reflecting Anglo-American influence, the suppression of French, and the impact of mass media, yet they concentrated primarily on music they considered French. Meanwhile, Louisiana State University cultural geography professor Lauren Chester Post promoted his own version of French music when selecting performers and repertoire for the 1936 National Folk Festival in Dallas, Texas. This academic gatekeeping continued into the 1950s with Folksongs of the Acadians, recorded in the second half of that decade, and still persists today.

Academics were not alone in shaping notions of "authentic" French music and Cajun identity. Various industries also played a role in crafting ethnic, class, and musical identities. Le Menestrel traces the beginning of this to the 1920s Louisiana oil industry. She documents how the folk revival of the 1950s inspired a specifically Cajun—or French—renaissance in the 1970s, highlighting musicians like Dewey Balfa, as well as concert and festival organizers and promoters. Ralph Rinzler, who invited Balfa to perform at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, went on to found the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., in 1967. Academic researchers and music festivals function as cultural institutions that heavily influence public perception, both within and beyond music communities. Urban folk revivalists like the New Lost City Ramblers, Le Menestrel notes, helped spread Cajun music to northern and urban audiences through their 1966 recording "Parlez nous à boire." Hence, the issues at stake involve not just authenticity, but also the convergence of commercialism, rural regional traditions, and urban popular music. She also documents the role of music producers such as Arhoolie Records' Chris Strachwitz, who discovered Clifton Chenier and issued Louisiana Cajun Music.

Le Menestrel tackles two difficult subjects: creolization (and its sibling hybridity) and Americanization. She brings in younger scholars who regard Americanization as a process "the object of legitimate analysis instead of being viewed as an assimilationist movement with inevitably damaging consequences" (87). This perspective allows her examine newer genres such as swamp pop and the influence of rhythm and blues, country, and rock on later French music styles.

The color of music

The third chapter, titled "The Color of Music," opens with accordionist Horace Trahan in 1996. Trahan, who is White, began playing with an integrated band and, Le Menestrel states bluntly, crossed the color line by incorporating zydeco into his music. Similarly, Black musicians like accordionist Geno Delafose cross the color line by playing Cajun music. These examples demonstrate how "music categories, tastes, and representations are ingrained in the racial imagination" (148). Le Menestrel shows that Cajun music has been linked to country and western, and zydeco to R&B. She deconstructs this by returning to the history of the record industry, which created the "race music" category in the 1920s as a catchall for African American music. Rural music was marketed as "hillbilly," later replaced in the 1930s by "country and western," just as "race music" gave way to "rhythm and blues" in 1949. Le Menestrel documents the influence of key label owners and collectors in categorizing and marketing French Louisiana music along racial lines, offering insights into American race relations. "The rise of white ethnicity and black nationalism favored claims for cultural legitimacy based on 'racial' criteria" (153). She argues that during this period, the broader category "French music" split along racial lines into "Cajun," "Creole," and "zydeco" in ways it had not been during the early twentieth century. She also chronicles the CREOLE INC. movement among Black Creoles in southwestern Louisiana.

Ironically, Le Menestrel argues, "French Louisiana music scholarship and publications have contributed significantly to the segregation of music styles, while also celebrating the notion of creolization and the impact of black Creoles on Cajun music." In this chapter she sets out to re-inscribe Black Creoles into the history of French music in the region, offering Creole musician Amédé Ardoin, who played with Dennis McGee, as one example. She is not alone, as she acknowledges, in identifying racial stereotypes in the historiography of French music. Still, she works to uncover differences in Black and White performance practice and repertoire without resorting to racial essentialism, relying on her informants' understandings of what distinguishes Cajun from Creole style. Her interview with Cedric Wilson is especially revealing about the versatility of French music musicians and the shared repertoire and performance approach between Cajun and Creole players.

Rural character

As much as language, race, and ethnicity define the music and its practitioners, the marker that may act as a master signifier is the rural heritage and character of French music. In her fourth chapter, "Homegrown and Lowdown," Le Menestrel tackles the notion of ruralness. Perceptions of Cajun and Creole musicians overlap with outsider views—those of folklorists, academics, festival organizers, northern urban revivalists, and others. Reinforcing the rural character of zydeco, she cites journalist Sheila Dewan on zydeco trail rides. Le Menestrel suggests zydeco as a productive site for further fieldwork. Careful not to overgeneralize, she documents particular aspects of rural Black Louisiana and Texas life, contrasting sharply with American popular culture's general view of Black musical culture as overwhelmingly urban, evident in genres like hip-hop, rap, and urban contemporary.

Transplants and outsiders

The final chapter, "Choosing French Louisiana Music," examines those who come to southwestern Louisiana as cultural tourists or transplants drawn by love of the music. Some return home. Le Menestrel reappears as a fiddler, now sixteen years later with a newborn. Her position as a native French speaker, a European who was not initially drawn to the music, informs her analysis of how outsiders have influenced the music's history and development. She ambitiously treats musicians, fans, and collectors, focusing especially on northern California. These transplants to southwest Louisiana "vividly illustrate the essential role played by non-natives in the validation, circulation, and remapping of French Louisiana music." They have become part of the local music scene. She begins by describing the northern California Cajun and zydeco scene, a region where Creoles and southern Blacks migrated during the 1940s through 1970s. Many musicians pursued careers there—Queen Ida, for example—and Chris Strachwitz founded Arhoolie Records in that region. French folk musicians in the 1970s began discovering south Louisiana music, creating a group of "Francadiens," defined as "French Louisiana music fans in France, Europe, and Louisiana." These Francadiens organize concerts, workshops, and festivals. English, Danish, and other Europeans, including journalists and producers, also participate. The 1990s Roots Music movement added further outside interest. As in earlier chapters, Le Menestrel interviewed many of these transplants, providing a fresh perspective on music, culture, and identity in the region—one standing in contrast to New Orleans. The official city draws migrants and tourists annually with its legendary jazz history and live scene. It was particularly illuminating to read about the French music jam scene in southwestern Louisiana as Le Menestrel describes it.

A concluding assessment

Readers looking for a simple, segregated history of Cajun or zydeco music that avoids issues of race, class, or the problematic ways both musics have been shaped by scholars, folklorists, tourist agencies, and outsiders would be well served by a weekend at the JazzFest fairgrounds and a trade magazine. Those who want a deeper understanding of French music in southwestern Louisiana—as practiced historically and today by both Blacks and Whites, locals and transplants—should read Le Menestrel's book while listening to the recordings she discusses (many available through streaming audio and video platforms). This is a nuanced, layered, and sometimes provocative study. As ethnographer, participant-observer, and a former member of the community, Le Menestrel has produced work that is informative, authoritative, and unmatched.