Zydeco originally evolved from Cajun, an Old World-rooted style of music brought over from Europe more than years ago. Cajun is composed of syncopated, a cappella religious songs, a mix of English but mostly French lyrics, and was inspired by a wide rage of Southern musical influences. Merging past and present beats to create a new rhythm for dancing, zydeco bands typically include fiddles, keyboards, and horns to add more rhythm and syncopation.
Its core instrumentation must always be composed by an accordion, a frottoir—a washboard worn like a vest—an electric guitar, bass, and drums. Today, fueled by the increased exposure of zydeco to America at large, the genre has evolved to become a testimony to those who came before us, those who worked in the fields under the hot sun in order to take care of their own, and those who continued to adapt during the good times and the bad.
Most importantly, zydeco is for those who chose to celebrate, dance, and love despite the roadblocks they might have encountered in life. With two stages, an extensive variety of crafts, and a huge food fair, this free event is where thousands gather to dance, celebrate and keep the traditions of the past alive. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.
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Cajun music is the music of the white Cajuns of south Louisiana, while zydeco is the music of the black Creoles of the same region. Both share common origins and influences, and there is much overlap in the repertoire and style of each. At the same time, each culture proudly and carefully preserves the identity of its own musical expression. Cajun music is a blend of the cultural ingredients found in south Louisiana. The colonial French Creoles were singing the same stock of western French folk songs as the Acadians who arrived in Louisiana during the midth century after being exiled from Nova Scotia.
Native American Indians contributed a wailing, terraced singing style. Black Creoles contributed new rhythms and a sense of percussion techniques, improvisational singing, and the blues. The Spanish eventually contributed the guitar and a few tunes. The violin, which was a popular new instrument in France during the 17th century when the French left for the New World, continued to dominate the instrumental tradition until German Jewish merchants on the south Louisiana prairies began importing diatonic accordions from Austria in the early 19th century.
Acadian and black Creole musicians alike began experimenting with the accordion and developed techniques which served as a basis for Cajun music and zydeco. Anglo-American immigrants contributed new fiddle tunes and dances reels, jigs, and hoedowns while singers translated the English songs into French.
By the turn of the 20th century, these diverse ingredients had combined to form what we now call Cajun music. Commercial recording companies like Decca, Columbia, RCA Victor, and Bluebird began recording regional and ethnic music throughout America in the early part of the 20th century.
Since commercial records were made to be sold, they provided a good parameter of popular trends and also gave an imprimatur to the musicians they recorded. In south Louisiana, popular and traditional culture were the same at the turn of the 19th century, but soon enough the recorded musicians began to set the style. Everyone wanted to hear the Cajun musicians who had made a record.
The newly improvised verse they had added to their arrangement of an older traditional tune immediately became a permanent fixture of the developing core repertoire of Cajun music. The early recordings of featured the accordion, fiddle, and guitar, and a high-pitched singing style necessary to pierce through the noise of dance halls.
By the mids, the Americanization of south Louisiana was well under way, and Cajun music reflected this strain on Cajun culture. Accordions began to fade from the scene as stringbands drifted toward Anglo-American styles, incorporating western swing, country and popular radio tunes into their repertoires.
Rural electrification made sound amplification available to country dance halls producing changes in instrumental and singing styles. Traditional Cajun and Creole music was pushed underground by new, more popular sounds. This was not an intellectual movement, but a visceral one. Musicians like Iry Lejeune, Lawrence Walter, Austin Pitre, and Nathan Abshire responded to the demand from Cajuns who were growing uneasy with the loss of their cultural base.
Thus, Cajun music made a dramatic comeback during the s finding its way back into many country dance halls. It did not, however, completely lose it raw, rural nature. The revival was openly regretted by the many urbanized and upwardly-mobile Cajuns who sought to distance themselves from such raucous identity markers.
Young Cajun musicians were understandably tempted by the potential for money and fame as they watched fellow Louisianans Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino shoot to the top of the charts. National organizations such as the New port Folk Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, and the National Folk Festival began to encourage the preservation of traditional Cajun music, sending folklorists and fieldworkers to record the oldest styles and identify the outstanding performers. The tradition was validated with outside audiences as Cajun musicians became a regular feature on the folk festival circuit.
Master fiddler Dewey Balfa was determined "to bring home the echo of the standing ovations" he and his Balfa Brothers Band had received in cities across America. He eventually succeeded in convincing local recording companies to release traditional music alongside their more commercial records.
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