American Music

Crossing day 2 is almost over. When I returned to my stateroom I found my “official shellback” certificate. I have successfully crossed the equator and shed my pollywog status. It’s a nice 8x10 printed on a blue-grey stock suitable for framing!
Our theatre performance tonight was a magician. He was a mediocre performer who did a little too much running/dancing [?] around to disguise his sleight of hand. I fear he is doomed to perform in second-rate gambling clubs and on cruise ships [that might not be so bad].
It’s now 8AM on our 3rd crossing day. Everyone has slept in. I am sitting in the Lido having breakfast and there are only about a dozen others. Was there a party last night? The pool is choppier than the sea. It is a very cleaver design, the pool. It has a series of platforms that overhang the previous one that contain the waves in the pool. I don’t know why the hot-tubs don’t react to the roll of the ship; they never seem to have waves.
One more day at sea and then we dock at Banjul, The Gambia. I am very excited about setting foot in Africa particularly Senegal & Gambia where so much of our American musical culture was born. I am not downplaying the horrible consequences of what went on here and both Senegal and The Gambia have done remarkable jobs in researching, archiving and presenting this great lapse in human sanity. There was slave trade in Africa before the Europeans took over and it doesn’t diminish the fact that it was inhuman even on a small scale, but to compare the two is like comparing a guy who makes his own moonshine to BevMo. Between the 16th and 19th century some 20 million Africans were captured as slaves. Perhaps half that number died on route and nearly half that number died within a few years. The survivors, the strongest, most resilient Africans in North and South America tried to maintain aspects of their cultures through chant, storytelling, dance and drumming. This became the basis for the Blues, Samba, Ragtime, Bossa Nova, Boogie-woogie, Salsa, Jazz, Merengue, R&B, Mambo, Soul, Rumba, Rap, Hip-Hop…American Music. The Afro-Cuban rhythms that have permeated our music for over a century have made their way back to Africa. I just read that throughout the Senegambia there are “Cuban” style music scenes, reinventing that hybrid once more. I hope to discover some of this music in my next two stops. I hope they have a “Chuck & Edna Boyle’s Music CD Emporium” there. One stop shopping is the way to go.