The Negro has cultivated, like all races, songs and dances. As we said of the Russian, his song is sad and full of tragedy, but the dance is gay, wild and primitive. From the dance of the Negro we borrowed the rhythm formerly called ragtime, which is now jazz. The principle of the Negro rhythm is syncopation, that is, the accent is shifted to the unaccented part of a measure or of a beat, like this,—
,
,
. All sorts of combinations are possible in this rhythm, and it is this variety that is fascinating in a good jazz tune.
The banjo is the instrument of the southern plantation Negro, and when a crowd gathers for a “sing” or a dance, the hands and feet take the place of drums and keep time to the syncopated tune and is called, “patting Juba.”
A curious dance was the “shout” which flourished in slave days. It took place on Sunday or on prayer meeting nights and was accompanied by hymn singing and shouting that sounded from a distance like a melancholy wail. After the meeting the benches were pushed back, old and young, men and women, stood in the middle of the floor and when the “sperichel” (or spiritual) was started they shuffled around in a ring. Sometimes the dancers sang the “sperichel” or they sang only the chorus, and for a distance of half a mile from the praise house the endless thud, thud of the feet was heard.
In the beautiful Spiritual, the song of the Negro, we see also the syncopated rhythm. The religious song is practically the only song he has, and he sings it at work, at play, at prayer, when he is sick and his friends sing it after he is dead. To our ears the words are crude and homely, but always reveal a fervent religious nature as well as a childlike faith.