Enduring Rhythms From African
Musical Instruments

The exhibit highlights more than 80 instruments that reflect the unflagging durability and resilience of the African-American heritage. Works dating from the Sixteenth Century to the present focus upon the instruments' inherent beauty and functional design and, in addition, retell the African experience in the Americas.

A highlight of the exhibition is a pair of tap shoes worn by dancer Savion Glover, star of the current Broadway production Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk. The recorded audio tour accompanying "Enduring Rhythms" -- featuring sounds of selected instruments -- is narrated by jazz pianist Billy Taylor.

Displaying African instruments alongside their American adaptations reveals a 400-year transformation of instrument construction, use, and musical style. The exhibition traces the impact of African musical culture on the Americas. In so doing, it places in perspective the process by which different cultures inform and influence each other in sparking the creation of new forms and structures while maintaining close ties to tradition.

String, wind, and percussion instruments made of wood, palm fiber, bamboo, metal, clay, hide, and ivory, as well as Twentieth Century Western materials -- plastic and fiber glass -- are among the objects displayed. They range in size from a four-foot long, cow shaped "Nekpokpo," a wooden "slit drum" (really a gong) from Zaire, to a palm-sized, three-inch "Tritone Samba" whistle used in contemporary Brazil.

The objects were drawn from the department of musical instruments and the department of the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the the collections of American Museum of Natural History and the LP Music Group, Inc; and private collectors.

According to Ken Moore, associate curator of the musical instruments department, "`Enduring Rhythms' is the Metropolitan's first African diaspora exhibition and the museum's first exhibition to recognize the African contribution to American music. It provides us with the opportunity to showcase some of our non-Western musical instruments from the museum's encyclopedic collection of approximately 5,000 instruments, one of the largest and best known in the world. The story of African-American musical instruments touches upon issues of cultural transformation, identity, and the retention and continuity of values and practices."

Africans began their forced migration to the Americas almost 500 years ago, first transported to the Caribbean in 1502 and soon thereafter to Central and South America. They arrived in the Virginia colony of North America by 1619, and in spite of the deprivation of material goods, they brought to each new location a rich cultural heritage that included dance, religion, culinary habits, language, and music.

In African and diaspora-related cultures, musical performance plays a pivotal role as part of work, rituals, ceremonies, festivals, and even as a means of communication. Slit drums, for example, are among the types of instruments that imitate the pitch and rhythm of speech patterns and may be used to "talk" over great distances. Signaling instruments like these could, in the Americas, be used to spread insurrection so they were suppressed, particularly in North America, and this consequently accounts for the lack of African drums and drumming traditions in the United States.

In both Africa and the Americas, some instruments were dedicated to deities or ancestral spirits. They have maintained a symbolic importance. Many of these ritual instruments are still vital to African-American worship.

Although traditional African musical practices were adapted to their new circumstances, they were nevertheless either fiercely suppressed or tightly controlled in colonies dominated by the Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and English. Gradually, however, African-American sounds entered the musical mainstream, notable in popular and religious genres. The resulting hybridization of style and instruments continues today and has enriched musical practices worldwide.

Among the instruments on view are a carved ivory "Sapi-Portuguese Horn" that combines European and African styles; a 21-string Senegalese "Kora" (harp-lute) with its modern American offspring the Gravikord; a Ghanian "Ntan" drum, a sculpted breasted drum borne on an elephant's back and carved with symbolic emblems; and a "Mokenge" (bell) from Gabon fitted with a sculpted handle that forms a head.

"Enduring Rhythms" is the first collaborative exhibition between the museum's department of musical instruments and the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Moore is the organizing curator and is aided by Alisa LaGamma, assistant curator, department of the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. The exhibition was designed by David Harvey, senior exhibition designer, with graphics by Constance M. Norkin, graphic designer, and lighting by Zack Zanolli, lighting designer.