1. Claude Palisca, ed., Norton Anthology of Western Music, 3d ed. (New York: Norton, 1996), 822-838.

2. J. Fischer and Bro. published the complete score in 1935; two years later, the same publisher brought out the Scherzo, arranged for small orchestra. In some unlabeled, typed notes on the symphony supplied through the courtesy of Judith Anne Still, there is a reference to three such reduced versions:

A. flute, oboe, 2 char, bassoon, 3 horns, 2 trp, trb, perc, pf, strings.

B. 2 alto sax, tenor sax, trb, 2 trp, perc, of, 1 or more violins, bass, tenor banjo.

C. 5 woodwinds, 3 sax, 2 hn, 2 trp, trb, perc, pf, tenor banjo, strings.

In other typewritten material, Arvey lists 56 performances through February 141, 1953, and 52 more of the Scherzo alone through September 3, 1951. Several of these were conducted by Donald Voorhees, Still's old employer, on the NBC Telephone Hour.

3. Still's "racial" aesthetic, expressed in his concert music especially between 1925 and 1932, is described in Murchison's chapter above. As shown in this chapter, it implies a fusion of African American folk music, especially the blues, and the European concert tradition. Its centrality to Still's work is affirmed by the title William Grant Still and the Fusion of Cultures in American Music, a collection whose two editions were prepared under Still's and his daughter's supervision, respectively. But this is hindsight; the primacy of the Afro-American Symphony in Still's oeuvre was not established until some years after its composition. In his compositions from 1924 on, he tried several techniques to achieve this fusion. We are reminded of that by the fact that Still's contemporary and friend Forsythe was entirely unfamiliar with this symphony until about 1936.

4. Guthrie Ramsey made this suggestion in the discussion that followed my presentation, "Transforming the Blues: Doubleness of Race, Genre and Geography in the Music of William Grant Still," American Studies Association, Kansas City, October 25, 1996. The trickster figure is exploited in relation to the efforts of the African Diaspora to enter the written, European language by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

5. Paul Harold Slattery, "A Comprehensive Study of the Afro-American Symphony," Fusion 2, 101-127, is described by Orin Moe (n. 8 below) as "schoolmasterish." Assembled many years after the symphony was composed under the eye of the composer, Slattery's 1972 description and analysis includes charts and phrase-by-phrase descriptions of all four movements. The charts refer to "expositions" and "development" areas and otherwise follow the terminology used for analysis of sonata forms in the European concert tradition. Still also used this terminology. I have taken Slattery's numbering of the Scherzo's themes (1A, 1B, 2A, 2B).

6. Carol J. Oja, "'New Music' and the 'New Negro': The Background of William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony," BMRJ 12, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 145-169.

7. Rae Linda Brown, "William Grant Still, Florence Price, and William Dawson: Echoes of the Harlem Renaissance," in Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., ed., Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), 71-86.

8. Orin Moe, "A Question of Value: Black Concert Music and Criticism," BMRJ 6 (1986): 57—66.

9. Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 109-110, 152-154, 253-254. This quotation is from p. 153. White critics are more likely to award Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue this status even as they remark negatively on its sectional construction.

10. Ultimately there were five symphonies and many more suites.

11. My dating, based on several aspects of the work. They include its uncharacteristic style features, its technical clumsiness, and its impractical notational style. An undated postmark (Columbus, Ohio) on a letter of inquiry suggests that the manuscript was submitted after Still had left Wilberforce (May 1915). See also pp. 5-6 and 222-223.

12. This work has been known only by its critical reviews and Still's description. It was thought lost until it was located at WGSM in September 1997. See also pp. 5-6 and 222-223.

13. The Bio-Bibliography, W1, 45-50, gives substantial information about the eleven-year evolution (1924-1935) of this work, which had a number of partial performances between 1930 and 1938. It was consistently well received by critics. A revival, this time of cut versions of the first and third movements, by the Centennial Celebration Orchestra, conducted by Ronnie Wooten, at Northern Arizona University on June 25, 1998, leads one to wonder about the eclipse of this remarkable work, arguably a twentieth-century masterpiece. Two explanations suggest themselves. One is that Africa was overshadowed by the eventual success of the Afro-American Symphony and that Still was too busy composing to promote it. The second is more likely. Still contracted with Robbins Music Corporation to publish his concert music between 1934 and 1936. Robbins did not promote his music; moreover, the company retained the rights to Africa until 1947. In 1937 Still signed with J. Fischer and Bro., a firm that vigorously promoted the Afro-American Symphony and other Still works for several years before the untimely death of George Fischer, the "Bro." who was the firm's driving force. I am grateful to Wayne D. Shirley for calling my attention to Robbins's and Fischer's roles.

14. The contact with Barnhart is noted in his diary on October 22, 1930.

15. There was, however, considerable freelance work. A list at the front of the diary reports his arranging work, all of which follows the end of his contract with Whiteman on May 30:

Glow-worm—delivered Aug. 25 $95
Deep River—delivered (radio) $95
Rumba Rhythm—delivered (Remick) (radio) $115.50
Kentucky Home (24 pages)—scoring $84
Composing interlude $20 (bill in) $104
Suwanee River (28 pages) $98
Peg O' My Heart (28 pages) $95.50
Ol' Man River, 42 pages [Probably the "Show Boat Medley" done for Paul Whiteman.]
Chinese Lullaby $80
Blue—(Reisman) $50

Aunt Hagar's Blues (Reisman) $50
Waters of Perkiomen $80
Sunshine of Your Smile $80
2 numbers for woodwind $15

Most of these cannot be associated with specific employers, though "Ol' Man River" was probably for Paul Whiteman (who discussed a 52-week contract at one point but couldn't deliver) and the radio arrangements were almost certainly for Willard Robison. Other musicians with whom he had contact, according to the diary: Sam Lanin (Oct. 29), [Nathaniel] Shilkret (Oct. 31), John Rehauser (Nov. 4), Hugo (Leo?) Reisman(n?) (Nov. 14), Paramount Studios (Nov. 15), [Irving] Weill] (Nov. 15), Don Voorhees (Nov. 26).

16. Willard Robison, singer, songwriter, pianist, and bandleader, organized the Deep River Orchestra in the late 1920s. Still worked as arranger and sometimes conductor for Robison's radio show, the "Deep River Hour," from 1931 to 1934. Some of Still's arrangements for Robison have surfaced in the Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian. See Wayne D. Shirley, "Religion in Rhythm: William Grant Still's Arrangements for Willard Robison's 'Deep River Hour,'" BMRJ 18, no. 2 (forthcoming).

17. Still attended Wilberforce University from 1911 to 1915. His wife, Grace Bundy, graduated from Wilberforce in 1915. This was probably a social engagement rather than a working one.

18. This is the first volume of Still's diary that survives. It runs from July 7, 1930, through the end of that year. No further diaries are known until the one for the year 1937.

19. "The first of this week saw the completion of my latest effort. Its title, Afro-American Symphony, is self explanatory." See "William Grant Still and Irving Schwerké," below, for the full text.

20. "Rashana" (earlier entitled "Roshana") was to be an opera, but it was never completed.

21. "Rashana" sketchbook. See figure 5. The final sentence, reduced to "With humble thanks to God, the source of inspiration," appears at the end of all Still's scores after the Afro-American Symphony . Of the caricatures drawn by Still in figure 5, he represents himself twice. The two upper figures are probably Donald Voorhees and Paul Whiteman. The lower figures are not identified; they could be two of his children.

22. See three different accounts by Still in Arvey's "William Grant Still," the "Personal Notes," and the Still-Schwerké correspondence below.

23. Courtesy of Judith Anne Still. The paragraph was typed on Still's typewriter. Some of it is written in longhand in the sketchbook described below. In that source, parts of the poems are given as well. Ellipses in the original.

24. All of Dunbar's poetry quoted here is from Joanne M. Braxton, ed., The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 243, 1951, 13-15, 15-16 (includes The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar [New York: Dodd Mead, 1913). I am grateful to Wayne Shirley for calling my attention to the meaning of the third of these quotations. Only one of the two holograph scores in the Library of Congress bears this stanza.

25. See the introduction and Murchison's chapter for Du Bois's famous paragraphs.

26. The European practice is exemplified in the single best-known work in the entire symphonic repertoire, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which "progresses" from C minor to C major.

27. I am grateful to Craig Russell for pointing out the resemblance to Dvorak's * music in this passage. After a presentation based on the "Politics of Race and Class" at the Northern and Southern California Chapters meeting of the American Musicological Society, April 26, 1997, Russell suggested that Still's fondness for the oboe and English horn, shown both in his selection of the oboe as his major performing instrument and in his use of it in his scores, was an acknowledgment of Dvorak's use of these instruments in the New World Symphony.

For a discussion of the controversy around Dvorak's use of "American" melodies in that symphony, see Adrienne Fried Block, "Dvorak * , Beach, and American Music," in Richard Crawford, R. Allen Lott, and Carol J. Oja, eds., A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 256-280.

28. See the "Personal Notes," below.

29. Robert A. Simons, "Music Events: Three Native Composers, Many Orchestras, and a Few Virtuosi," New Yorker 11 (November 30, 1935): 55. Quoted in Bio-Bibliography, WB2.13, 54-55.

30. See Chadwick Hansen, "Jenny's Toe Revisited: White Responses to Afro-American Shaking Dances," AM 5 (1987): 1-19, for an etymology for Still's term, "janny."

31. In the course of his 1916 summer in Memphis playing, traveling, and arranging for W. C. Handy, Still almost surely heard and absorbed echoes of older New Orleans improvising style that involved varying the melody but not necessarily composing new melodies as later improvisers did.

32. Detroit Symphony, Neeme Järvi, conductor, Chandos CHAN 9154, 1993. The tenor banjo is also almost inaudible on this otherwise excellent recording. The horns, which are assigned the first "I Got Rhythm," and banjo are very clear, however, in the performance by the Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra, Jindong Cai, conductor, Centaur CRC 2331, 1997.

33. "Conversation with Eubie Blake (continued): A Legend in His Own Lifetime," ed. Bobbi King, BPiM 1-2 (1973): 155-156.

In a 1977 interview, Blake lists this among unacknowledged white "borrowings" from black musicians. Eubie Blake, taped interview with Lorraine Brown, Research Center for the Federal Theater Project (George Mason University), January 9, 1977, Eubie Blake Collection, Maryland Historical Society.

34. Judith Anne Still reports that her father and Blake went at least once to Gershwin's apartment to help him with orchestration. But in his 1973 interview Blake was probably confusing Still with Will Vodery, who orchestrated for Gershwin, most notably Gershwin's 1922 one-act opera, Blue Monday .

35. Manuscript Reading Report, Dominique-René De Lerma to University of California Press, September 29, 1996. De Lerma and Still met at a conference organized by De Lerma at Indiana University, June 18-21, 1969. Subsequently De Lerma edited a collection that included a Still speech drawn from the conference: Black Music in Our Culture: Curricular Ideas on the Subjects, Materials and Problems (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1970).

36. Still's recollection of Gershwin in the audience of Shuffle Along (De Lerma, n. 35 above) dates Gershwin's acquaintance with African American jazz and blues earlier than assumed by Charles Hamm in "A Blues for the Ages," in Crawford, Lott, and Oja, A Celebration of American Music, 346-355. Hamm was unable to document Gershwin's acquaintance with African American music making before 1925, the year of Gershwin's Concerto in F .

37. Verna Arvey," Memo for Musicologists," reprinted in Fusion 2, 21-25. This essay first appears under this title in the first edition of Fusion (ed. Robert Bartlett Haas; Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1972, 88-93). To judge from the citation in the Bio-Bibliography (A30), which quotes a sentence reproduced in the quotation here, it is probably an expansion of Arvey's "Afro-American Music Memo," Music Journal 27 (November 1969): 36, 68. Arvey goes on to discuss Dvorak's * use of "national American melodies" in the symphony From the New World, so strongly influenced by the singing of "Plantation songs and Hoe-downs" by Harry T. Burleigh.

38. William Grant Still, "The Men behind American Music," Crisis (January 1944): 12-15, 29. Reprinted in Spencer, Reader, 114-123.

39. In June 1938 Still wrote to Willard Robison to complain, "While listening to a local radio station last Thursday night, I heard some transcriptions [implied: from Robison's "Deep River Hour," for which Still had arranged] made by the Associated Music Publishers Inc. [Still was later to correct this to "Associated Recorded Program Service"] . . . All of them sounded like my own arrangements, although they were credited to Walter Remson. Do you think that it is fair to me to do a thing like that?" In a later letter he notes that the Associated Record Program Service had informed him that " 'Walter Remsen' [ sic ] is a pseudonym for Willard Robison." Carbon copies of letters, Still to Robison, June 12, 1938, and August 1938, Still-Arvey Papers.

Still also wrote very generally about white borrowings of the music of African Americans, distinguishing again between unconscious borrowings and conscious imitation, in "A Symphony of Dark Voices," Opera, Concert and Symphony (May 1947): 18-19, 36, 38-39 (reprint, Spencer, Reader, 136-143).

40. Unsorted biographical papers at WGSM.

41. Wayne D. Shirley to the author, June 24, 1997. Short excerpts from the choruses of four of the returned songs appear on the back covers of the two deposited songs. None shows the characteristic rhythm.

42. Still was not the only musician to quote "I Got Rhythm," although he was probably the first to use it in concert music, in a written score. Richard Crawford, in The American Musical Landscape (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), devotes a chapter to "I Got Rhythm." He describes its subsequent use as a song, as a jazz standard, and as a chordal structure for jazz improvisation. His table, listing seventy-nine recordings of "I Got Rhythm" and contrafacta between October 1930 and January 1942 indicates the song's enormous popularity. Still's artistic intention and his relationship to the tune were clearly different from the uses examined by Crawford.

43. Lawrence Kramer, "Powers of Blackness: Africanist Discourse in Modern Concert Music," BMRJ 16, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 53-70, shows how white modernist composers often used quotations of African-derived music in ways that contain it, reflecting the prevailing societal power structure in their music.

44. See Still's "Personal Notes," below.

45. "Fifty Years of Progress in Music," Pittsburgh Courier, 11 November 1950, 15. Reprinted in Spencer, Reader, 177-188.