King’s Vibrato: Modernism, Blackness, and the Sonic Life of Martin Luther King Jr by Maurice O. Wallace (review)
2023; Southern Historical Association; Volume: 89; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/soh.2023.a909889
ISSN2325-6893
Autores Tópico(s)Musicology and Musical Analysis
ResumoReviewed by: King’s Vibrato: Modernism, Blackness, and the Sonic Life of Martin Luther King Jr by Maurice O. Wallace Keith D. Miller King’s Vibrato: Modernism, Blackness, and the Sonic Life of Martin Luther King Jr. By Maurice O. Wallace. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2022. Pp. xvi, 352. Paper, $28.95, ISBN 978-1-4780-1840-7; cloth, $104.95, ISBN 978-1-4780-1574-1.) Although many have attributed Martin Luther King Jr.’s oratorical success, in part, to his enviable baritone voice, King’s Vibrato: Modernism, Blackness, and the Sonic Life of Martin Luther King Jr. is the first book published about that voice. A philosophical explorer, Maurice O. Wallace examines King’s oratory as “a function of the acoustic calculus of voice, architecture, organology, and audience” (p. 1). Asking historians to investigate the sounds of history, he theorizes and historicizes King’s oratory in relation to a larger African American soundscape, what he terms “the particular sound of blackness for which King is a key figure” (p. 13). For this purpose, he summons theorists as [End Page 773] diverse as Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Hortense Spillers, Fred Moten, Claude Brown, and Alexis Gumbs. Wallace’s first chapter addresses the afterlife of King’s recorded voice, starting with the playing of a King sermon at his funeral—a moment that, in Wallace’s words, serves as “an unparalleled occasion for the study of black voice in itself, the sign and signifier of a black radical critique of the modern order of things” (p. 15). Invoking organology, he next examines the importance of the Wurlitzer pipe organ at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which King’s mother, Alberta King, played avidly. Wallace then zigzags to Ralph Ellison’s fictional depiction of an organ and choir in his renowned novel Invisible Man; invokes Hortense Spillers; and then shifts back to Alberta King’s tour de force performance of gospel favorite “Rough and Rocky Road.” Wallace then ventures to Chicago, the electrical power station of African American sacred music. He considers its most estimable composer, Thomas Dorsey, and King’s ad-libbing, which recalls a long-enduring tradition of folk preaching. Next, Wallace links Alberta King to three singers: Coretta Scott King, Mahalia Jackson, and Aretha Franklin. He then considers “photography’s aural underside,” which he calls “the dream-wish of still images to be heard,” along with “the acoustic ecology of Mason Temple,” the site of King’s final address (pp. 192, 208, 199). The penultimate chapter explores many aural dimensions of “I Have a Dream,” starting with its first iteration in North Carolina, continuing with its arrival at Detroit’s Cobo Hall (a recitation that Wallace relates to the Motown Sound of Berry Gordy), and concluding with its final incarnation at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Although Wallace investigates depictions of King, his work inspires comparison. Take, for instance, the based-on-a-photograph, larger-than-life sculpture of firebrand Fannie Lou Hamer that presides over a park in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi. The statue portrays Hamer speaking into a handheld microphone attached to a spiraling microphone cord, all rendered in bronze. Wallace’s book spurs his readers to ponder the multiple dimensions that surround the sculpture and to contemplate the original photograph, Hamer’s feisty speeches, her passionate singing, and the bountiful tradition of African American music and oratory that has sustained a people for centuries. Keith D. Miller Arizona State University Copyright © 2023 The Southern Historical Association
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