Everyday Music: Exploring Sounds and Cultures

Alexander H. Moore: Barrelhouse Blues, Dallas

Alexander H. Moore Barrelhouse Blues, Dallas On Tuesday afternoon at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in South Dallas, Alex Moore holds court. A group of elderly African American men gathers around him, laughing loudly at his stories and jokes, before they move into the activity room to play dominoes. Four of the men sit in metal folding chairs on each side of a small square table, and the others cluster around the perimeter. Moore Driving to South Dallas, Texas, May 2, 2011 Barrelhouse Blues, Dallas \ 63 studies the other players, trying to anticipate their next move. When he scores a point, he slaps his black and white domino tile onto the table and roars. The game over, Moore stands up slowly and ambles over to the upright piano in the corner of room. He lowers himself slowly into his chair and scoots forward; his long bony fingers improvise a melody but then pounce on the piano keys in a loud crescendo. Conversations stop, and everyone is poised to listen. The notes of his piano blues rush forward in a fluid run and then dip down in intensity as he sings with a throaty voice. Moore loves having an audience, and my presence in the room seems to energize him, even though the other senior citizens aren’t sure what to make of me. I do my best to show respect to the people around me and only photograph those who consent. If someone waves me away, I focus in another direction. Just about everyone at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center knows that Moore is a celebrity of sorts who frequently performs in nightclubs around Dallas . “We’re used to people coming around here looking for ole Alex,” one man says to me as I walk past the table where he’s playing cards. “They can’t get enough of him.” The Martin Luther King Jr. Complex, Dallas, Texas, April 16, 2011 64 / Alexander H. Moore A lexander Herman Moore was born November 22, 1899, in an area of Dallas known as Freedmantown, where emancipated slaves were given a place to live. During Reconstruction, African Americans built a thriving community with schools, churches, cafes, and other small businesses. But life was hard. Racism and discrimination made it extremely difficult to find good jobs. Blues music answered a need for a release from the pressures of everyday life. The blues is intensely personal music that originated among the first generation of African Americans born out of slavery. It identifies itself with the feelings of the listener—suffering, hope, economic failure, the breakup of families, and the desire to escape reality by traveling and relocating. With its emphasis on the experience of the individual and his or her successes and trials, blues re- flects Western concepts. Yet, as a musical form, the blues shows little Western influence. The traditional three-line, twelve-bar, A-A-B verse form of the blues arises from no apparent Western source, although some blues does incorporate Anglo-American ballad forms, which have six-, ten-, or sixteen-bar structures. Early blues drew on the sources available at the time of its creation: field hollers Alexander H. Moore playing dominoes, Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center, Dallas, Texas, 1984 Barrelhouse Blues, Dallas \ 65 and shouts, which it most closely resembles melodically; songster ballads, from which it borrowed some imagery and guitar patterns; and church music, which trained the voices and ears of black children. These, with the exception of the ballad, were the descendants of African percussive rhythms, syncopation, and call-and-response singing. The first blues that Moore heard was at his cousin’s house around 1906 when he was six or seven years old. “He played piano while I was playing marbles,” he said. “They danced and sang while he played the piano.” Moore taught himself to play the piano in white people’s homes where he delivered groceries as a boy. “Every time I’d walk by, I’d pluck one note,” he said, “and every day it would be a different note. That’s the way I learned to play the piano.” As he got older, he heard black piano players at house parties who performed a distinctive style of blues that brought together elements of boogie-woogie with ragtime and stride. Characteristic of boogie-woogie is the use of recurring bass patterns that lay the foundation...