Nonsense Is Real
The International Archipelago of Ecstatic Syncretistic Mumbo Jumbo
Currently, we don’t live in an age of nonsense singing. By this I mean, when most of us sing nonsense syllables, they are just used to carry a note. Historically, nonsense singing did perform other functions, even important ones, such as being critical to the achievement of mystical or spiritual states. But in this essay, I look at ways they were used specifically as a tool to interact with other cultures. This style of deliberate mishearing is practically considered taboo today, but without it, we lose an important tool whereby we used to dissolve boundaries between cultures.
1. The Caliphate: This essay began when I came upon a strange assertion about the history of flamenco singing, which uses nonsense words.
"....common ‘nonsense’ words used in the Cante include Lelelelele, or Lailo lailo. These are a garbled form of the Islamic creed La ilaha illa Allah (‘No god but Allah’). And anyone familiar with Moroccan and North African music will have heard a common rhythm which is the same as a Flamenco Tanguillo..."
That is from https://idriesshahfoundation.org/flamenco-and-sufism/
Spain was, of course, on the Western border of the Islamic caliphate, and the influence of that culture on many aspects of Spanish culture is well documented. I was unable to find anything else on this particular assertion, which is certainly not surprising, nor could I imagine it would ever be possible to prove. But if we look at the other end of the Islamic/Ottoman controlled region, we find something similar.
In Eastern Europe, on another fringe of the Ottoman Empire, one encounters a similar use of nonsense syllabi- the wordless chants (“nigunim”) of the Hasidic Jews. They believed this tradition of holy song stemmed from the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov (1690-1760) and his theory “that song is an even greater form of spiritual expression than traditional prayer and that the Hasidic nigun was a musical path to God that transcended the limitations of language itself.” These songs are often claimed to be composed by rabbis, but they are obviously influenced by the local music traditions, and there is even an exception whereby entire melodies can be lifted and made holy (the example of the Marseillaise is oft cited here.)
At any rate, considering the example of flamenco, it raises a question about the origin of Hasidic wordless syllables, i.e. the La la Lai, Dai Dai Dai, etc sounds. Could this also have been an example of someone trying to imitate a language not their own? Like Spain, Eastern Europe was right on the border of the Ottoman Empire and the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, was born in a town then controlled by the Ottoman empire.
The interest in syllables and this sort of linguistic magic chanting mojo goes back in Jewish and Mediterranean thought, even before Islam, but no one quite knows how these syllables were spoken/sung/chanted and it is unlikely they were sung in a group setting a la nigunim. The relaxed meter in nigunim singing, in contrast to the local European traditions, might be another clue that perhaps this style of singing owes something to the Ottoman or Islamic influence.
The similarities between Hasidic and Ottoman, Islam or Sufi culture are significant and much has been already made of similarities in dance styles. It may be tempting to get into the “which came first” game here, but that is not my point. My point is that “nonsense” is an important tool for syncretism.
The syllables may be nonsense, complete fakery or shameless appropriation, but the ecstasy is real.
2. The Bektashi Order: Another strange link between Sufis and Jews may have come in the wake of the 17th century heretical antinomian movements that preceded and influenced Hasidism. In the book Salaam/Shalom, Thomas Block suggests that the real diffusion of Sufi culture amongst Jews came when those true believers of the heretical Sabbatei Zvi who stuck with their messiah even *after* his conversion to Islam, brought Sufi culture and medieval Islamic thought back out to Eastern Europe and beyond,
"Post conversion Shabbati Zevi inspired numerous late 17th century Jewish leaders. These hidden Shabbateans spread his Sufi innovations throughout the diaspora... Gershom Sholem writes that Jewish leaders across Germany, into Italy and Poland, and as far away as Hungary and Romania all exhibited Shabbatean ideas. An important center for crypto-Sabbateans became Galicia and Podolia..." Shalom/Salaam footnoting Sholem, Important Trends in Jewish Mysticism (he also cites Moshe Idel as an important source for some of this)]
Of course the Baal Shem Tov himself travelled to Istanbul, etc.
Are the Bektashi Sufi order, (who were central to the Janissaries, another story) the big missing link between the the Sufis and the Hasidim? The Bektashi are, appropriately enough for this tale, a very mysterious order. There are rumors of heresy, and all sorts of weird syncretisms, which explains their secrecy. They, like the Hasidism, also have a doctrine of Four Gates. Sabbatai himself seemed close to the Bektashi, and according to some accounts he was initiated into this order, although confirming this seems impossible. See this fascinating account:
"...In the years after his conversion, Sabbatai became close to the Bektashi Sufi leader Muhammed Niyazi, who had developed a belief system that merged Bektashi, Jewish, Christian, Gnostic, and Shiite concepts. Sabbatai most likely met the Sufi leader in [of course] 1666, when they attended some of the same dervish monasteries and prayer cells... some of [Sabbatai's] followers founded a small sect of Muslims, called the Donmeh, who secretly await the return of Sabbatai to this very day. "
As the account above shows, the love went both ways, Sabbatai went to Islam, but the Bektashi had affection for the Jews. Some Albanians *still* have a sweet spot for Sabbatai. This sounds kooky, but it was real enough that it lingered into the 20th century in a significant historical way when Muslim Albanians helped defend Jews against the Nazis:
And, according to the Bektashi, "The force of the syllables itself engenders the music."
If this connection is correct, it would fit the timeline very well as all of this contact would have been just prior to the founding of Hasidism.
3. “Jews Rocking”: 1969. Louis Armstrong is recovering from a life threatening illness in a NY hospital when he hears the doctor hum the song “Russian Lullaby” that he remembered from his childhood. He is sufficiently moved by the moment to write his last so-called “book”, "Louis Armstrong + The Jewish Family in New Orleans, LA 1907”, a memoir of his time with the Yarnofskys, a Jewish family he worked/lived with as a child in New Orleans. A strangely repetitive and fiercely moralistic book, it does offer a clear view of Armstrong’s earliest musical experiences. In it, he says, “When I reached the age of Eleven, I realized it was the Jewish family that instilled in me Singing from the heart.” [sic]
But his memoir left a few things out. Not only did he remember the secular lullabies sung softly and sweetly by the Yarnofskys, but he also remembered religious prayers too.
"The possible nigun-scat parallel was seen as a literal connection by Armstrong’s friend, publicist Phoebe Jacobs (born Pincus; 1918-2012). In Laurence Bergreen’s 1997 biography “Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life,” she explains that she heard Armstrong tell Cab Calloway that he derived his scat singing style “from the Jews ‘rockin,’ [by which] he meant davening.” Jacobs added: “Louis never talked about this in public, because he feared people would assume he was making fun of Jews praying, which wasn’t his intention at all.”
The scatting that the author is referring to here is the practice of singing nonsense syllables in blues or jazz music. Armstrong likely did not invent this, but he was the first to record this with his record, strangely titled, Heebie Jeebies in 1926 (Armstrong didn’t title it, just a weird coincidence).
On the other end of the Atlantic, about a decade before the recording of Heebie Jeebies, avant-garde Euro dadaists were also using nonsense syllables with the explicit intention of imitating African song and other "primitive" musics. This was mostly the work of Hugo Ball, but one of the founders of Dada was a Romanian Jew from Moinesti named Samy Rosenstock, or as he called himself, Tristan Tzara, who wrote poems "called Lautgedichte, [which] were simply concatenated nonsense syllables repeated at length."
The Dadaists’ (whose name itself is nonsense) purpose was not the same as the blues and jazz musicians. True, they were trying to have a good time, but they were also trying to undermine meaning in general, while also confusing themselves with various odd preconceived notions about African culture. However misguided this was, the use of nonsense was an awkward but important step towards approaching and articulating a new and different set of values, even if those values were more in their own heads than in reality.
Armstrong and the Dadaists ushered in a golden age of nonsense, which coincided with the great multicultural serendipities of the early 20th century. Cab Calloway and Slim Galliard would work deliberately multicultural nonsense into artforms, while writers like James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, (and I’d add working class folks like T-Bone Slim1) would explore the boundary between freedom and alienation using nonsense. The result was that nonsense, instead of being alienating or annoying as it would become in later incarnations of High Art, injected humor and fun into the culture, slowly disintegrating borders and creating new spaces for interaction.
Nonsense is real. By that I mean, as in all the examples above, the appropriation of other cultures, even when completely “wrong”, aided by the use of nonsense creates real ecstasy, real music, real culture. But as we saw with the Dadaists, mimicry is always dangerously close to minstrelsy. Louis' reticence to mention the influence of Jewish prayer was a red flag that what some saw as wonderful syncretism, others could see as hurtful parody. The golden age of nonsense vanished, generally being pawned off on kids books or embalmed in deliberately obtuse High Art. Eventually the scraps would be picked up by commercial interests and completely sucked dry for whatever attention getting shock value that was left in them. But still, on the frontier of “what makes sense” there still linger sentiments so barely or badly audible that they can only be groped at with the clumsiest of attempts. And so, with the passing of Dr. Seuss, we say adieu to the International Archipelago of Ecstatic Syncretistic Mumbo Jumbo, for now.
“T-Bone Slim takes us to the very heart of this elusive domain- the erotic spaces between words.” Rosemont, Franklin T-Bone Slim & The Phonetic Cabala