Musical Practices of Early Black Americans

Samuel Mordecai, Richmond in Bygone Day (Richmond, 1856), 180.

no

Sy. Gilliat (violin), London Brigs (clarinet).

group

instrument

fiddle, clarinet

ball

dancing in a ball

Richmond, Virginia

Such bowing and curtseying, tiptoeing and tipfingering, backing and filling, advancing and retreating, attracting and repelling, all in the figures of Z or X, to a tune which would have served for a dead march! A long silken train following the lady, like a sunset shadow; and the gentleman holding a cocked hat under his arm, or in his hand, until at last the lady permitted the gentleman, at full arms-length, to hand her, by the very tips of her fingers to a seat, when, with a most profound bow, he retreated backward to seek one for himself. Then commenced the reel, like a storm after a calm—all life and animation. No solemn walking of the figure to a measured step —but pigeon- wings fluttered, and all sorts of capers were cut to the music of Si. Gilliat's fiddle, and the flute or clarionet of his blacker comrade, London Brigs. Contra dances followed, and sometimes a Congo, or a hornpipe; and when "the music grew fast and furious," and the most stately of the company had retired, a jig would wind up the evening, which, by-the-by, commenced about eight o'clock. The waltz and the polka were as great strangers to the ball-room floor, as were Champaign and Perigord pies to the supper-table.

Mordecai describes the balls that took place in Richmond. He wrote that the people danced to Si. Gilliat's music, a Black fiddler.