„Sheep, Sheep, Don’t You Know the Road?“
– Zur Herkunft des Kurzphrasenresponsoriums in der afro-amerikanischen Musik
The structure of the so-called Call And Response is widespread in Afro-American music, and it has been even more cultivated within religious music. This can be said of the Protestant Churches in the United States as well as for Catholicism and the syncretic cults (Santeria etc) in Latin America. In jazz research this form is considered part of the African heritage. A comparative survey of ethnographically applicable recordings from the Antilles and from West Africa shows that the Call And Response on the Antilles covers about 60% of what is on recorded documents, in West Africa, however, this amounts to only about 20%. It must have been known by most of the slaves with African roots, but its high-rate frequency in the USA cannot be explained by African descent. From the American history of settlement we can conclude that the litanies and rosaries of the Catholic cults form the background of the immensely extended usages of the Call And Response among Afro-Americans. As for its share within the Gospel we should take into consideration that before the time of its expansion the South and the West of today’s USA had been parts of Latin America too. In the singing practice of the Black Churches in the Southern States of the US relics of Catholic rituals had been preserved, which were not recognized as such by the white Protestants and were therefore classified as “African”.