A FAILED SHOWCASE OF EMPIRE?: THE GOLD COAST POLICE BAND, COLONIAL RECORD KEEPING, AND A 1947 TOUR OF GREAT BRITAIN
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v10i2.2038Keywords:
Gold Coast Police Band, Accra government, Colonial OfficeAbstract
In 1947, the Gold Coast Police Band embarked on a four-month long tour of Great Britain. The event, which was organized by the Accra government and Colonial Office in London, was designed to be a carefully-scripted showcase of the Empire's merits and future prospects. As a result, the bulk of the written records that colonial officials compiled about it focused not on its actual progression or outcomes, but on their own preparations and confidence about its "inevitable” success. This article examines this pattern of colonial record keeping and looks beyond its overt declarations to analyze a series of incomplete exchanges, isolated letters, and brief references that tell a much more complicated story. Insisting that these archival fragments reveal that the tour did not go as planned, it also proposes that we can use them to engage two topics important to studies of African music during the colonial period: the state's strategic use of music and the colonial archive's utility as a source of information about past musical events.
References
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Stratton, Jon. 2014 "Melting Pot: The Making of Black British Music in the 1950s and 1960s.” In Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945, Jon Stratton and Nabeel Zuberi, eds. 27—46. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Tackley, Catherine. 2013 "Jazz, Dance, and Black British Identities.” In Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Music and Dance. Sherril Dodds and Susan C. Cook, eds. 193—207. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Tackley, Catherine. 2014 "Race, Identity and the Meaning of Jazz in 1940s Britain.” In Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945, Jon Stratton and Nabeel Zuberi, eds. 11—26. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press.
Agawu, Kofi. 2003. Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions. London: Routledge.
Boonzajer Flaes, Robert. 2000. Brass Unbound: Secret Children of the Colonial Brass Band. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute.
Cloonan, Martin and Matt Breenan. 2013 "Alien Invasions: the British Musicians' Union and Foreign Musicians.” Popular Music 32(2): 277—295.
Coester, Marcus. 2008 "Localising African popular music transnationally: 'Highlife-Travelers' in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 20(2): 133—144.
Coester, Marcus. 2014 "Revisiting Britain's 'Afro Trend' of the 1960s and 1970s: Musical Journeys, Fusions, and African Stereotypes.” In Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945, Jon Stratton and Nabeel Zuberi, eds. 47—66. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Cohen, David William. 1994. The Combing of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cole, Catherine. 2001. Ghana's Concert Party Theatre. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Collins, John. 1994 "The Ghanaian Concert Party: African Popular Entertainment at the Cross Roads.” PhD Dissertation: State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo.
Collins, John. 1996 E.T. Mensah: King of Highlife. Accra: Anansesem.
Cooper, Frederick. 1996. Decolonization and African Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Erlman, Veit. 1994. "'Africa Civilised, Africa Uncivilised': Local Culture, World System and South African Music.” Journal of Southern African Studies 20(2): 165—179.
Feld, Steven. 2012. Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra. Durham: Duke University Press.
Flemming, Tyler and Toyin Falola. 2013 "Introduction.” In Music, Performance, and African Identities, Toyin Falola and Tyler Flemming, eds. 1—31. London: Routledge.
Gillespie, W.H. 1955. The Gold Coast Police, 1844—1938. Accra: Government Printer.
Green, Jeffrey. 1990 "Afro-American Symphony: Popular Black Concert Hall Performers, 1900-1940.” In Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contribution to Popular Music, Paul Oliver, ed. 34—44. Milton Keyes: Open University Press.
Herbert, Trevor and Margaret Sarkissian. 1997 "Victorian Bands and their Dissemination in the Colonies.” Popular Music 16(2): 165—179.
Hukporti, Frank Kwashie. 2014. Military Band in Ghana: A Historical Inquiry. Gottingen: Sierke Vierlag.
Jaji, Tsitsi Ella. 2014. Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity. London: Oxford University Press.
Jempsen, Mike. 1993. The Musicians' Union: A Centenary Celebration. London: Musicians' Union.
Lawler, Nancy. 2002. Soldiers, Airmen, Spies, and Whispers: The Gold Coast in World War II. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Low, Anthony. 1988 "The End of British Empire in Africa.” In Decolonization and African Independence: The Transfers of Power, 1960-1980, Prosser Gifford and W.M. Roger Louis, eds. 33—72. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Martin, Stephan H. 1991 "Brass Bands and the Beni Phenomenon in Urban East Africa.” African Music 7(1): 72—81. Available: https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v7i1.1931.
Matera, Marc. 2015. Black London: The Imperial Metropolis and Decolonization in the Twentieth Century. Oakland: University of California Press.
Mbembe, Achille. 2002 "The Power of the Archive and Its Limits.” In Refiguring the Archive, Hamilton et al., eds. 19—26. Cape Town: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
McKay, George. 2005. Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain. Durham: Duke University Press.
Oliver, Paul. 1990 "Introduction.” In Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contribution to Popular Music, Paul Oliver, ed. 3—15. Milton Keyes: Open University Press.
Orr, Charles A. 1966 "Trade Unionism in Colonial Africa.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 4(1): 65—81.
Pearce, R.D. 1982. The Turning Point in Africa: British Colonial Policy, 1938—1948. London: Frank Cass.
Plageman, Nate. 2013. Highlife Saturday Night: Popular Music and Social Change in Urban Ghana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Pokoo-Ankins, J.B. 2009. The Police in Ghana, 1939—2009. Accra: Highpoint Publications.
Ranger, Terrance. 1975. Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, 1890—1970. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Reily, Suzel Ana and Katherine Brucher eds. 2013. Brass Bands of the World: Militarism, Colonial Legacies, and Local Music Making. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Richards, Thomas. 1993. The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire. London: Verso.
Rye, Howard. 1990 "Fearsome Means of Discord: Early Encounters for Black Jazz.” In Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contribution to Popular Music, Paul Oliver, ed. 45—57. Milton Keyes: Open University Press.
Schauert, Paul. 2015. Staging Ghana: Artistry and Nationalism in State Dance Ensembles. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Shipley, Jesse K. 2015. Trickster Theatre: The Poetics of Freedom in Urban Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Stapleton, Chris. 1990 "African Connections: London's Hidden Music Scene.” In Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contribution to Popular Music, Paul Oliver, ed. 87—101. Milton Keyes: Open University Press.
Stoler, Ann Laura. 2002 "Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance.” Archival Science 2: 87—109.
Stoler, Ann Laura. 2009. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Stratton, Jon. 2014 "Melting Pot: The Making of Black British Music in the 1950s and 1960s.” In Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945, Jon Stratton and Nabeel Zuberi, eds. 27—46. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Tackley, Catherine. 2013 "Jazz, Dance, and Black British Identities.” In Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Music and Dance. Sherril Dodds and Susan C. Cook, eds. 193—207. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Tackley, Catherine. 2014 "Race, Identity and the Meaning of Jazz in 1940s Britain.” In Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945, Jon Stratton and Nabeel Zuberi, eds. 11—26. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press.
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2016-11-01
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“A FAILED SHOWCASE OF EMPIRE?: THE GOLD COAST POLICE BAND, COLONIAL RECORD KEEPING, AND A 1947 TOUR OF GREAT BRITAIN”. 2016. African Music : Journal of the International Library of African Music 10 (2): 57-76. https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v10i2.2038.
