Speakers Bureau Speaker
Jay Craváth, Parker
Jay Craváth is a composer, writer, and scholar in the field of music and American Indian studies. Dr. Cravath crafts programs from these interests into discussions that include stories, musical performance, and dance. His publications include North American Indian Music and Songs for Ancient Days.
Presentations are suitable for high school as well as adult audiences.
The Instrument as Time Capsule
For a musician, the song is often recalled most easily with instrument in hand, which conjures history when played in the manner of the day. The rolling gourd rattle before a Mohave Bird song carries the vocal. A banjo’s four-bar intro brings the audience to quiet and readies the dancers. Musical instruments in Arizona are as diverse as the immigrants who traveled through and settled in our state. Dr. Craváth, a multi-instrumentalist, discusses and demonstrates how instruments have been an integral part of the musical experience, from assisting with oral memory of pieces, to providing a time capsule opened when the song is played. Among the instruments demonstrated are the balalaika, dulcimer, harp guitar, Hohokam bone flute, and mandola.
• Host organization provides a medium-sized table.
The Journeys of Kokopelli
Kokopelli has become an icon of jewelry, t-shirts, and other elements of popular culture. It has also been the object of scholarly study among students of Native literature, anthropologists, and archeologists. Proliferating as petroglyphs and pictographs throughout the southwest, the figure derives his name from kokopollo, which is a combination of Hopi and Zuni words: Koko, rain people or kachina; and polo, hump or hemisphere. Stories from these tribes suggest the icon represents Toltecs from Meso-America who brought trading goods. This presentation examines a variety of petroglyphs and includes a discussion of the iconography alongside a performance of numerous indigenous flutes.
• Host organization provides an LCD projector, screen, and small table.
The Music and Ritual of Arizona’s Native Americans
Comparisons of various rituals from Arizona’s tribes are explored in this presentation using live and recorded music, stories, and verse. With four language groups represented, each group has its unique musical and ethnographic characteristics as well as interesting similarities. The Great Tellings of the Mohave are descriptions that map journeys to the Mission Tribes, songs of the Navajo teach moral lessons, and the Apaches have a ritual component for "teen dances." Music is an important part of social life for Arizona’s tribes: daily swimming songs of the Pima, the Yavapai Cricket songs sung during acorn gathering, and the Apache Old Big Owl Witch Song, sung to enjoin children to good behavior. This presentation shares and discusses these paintings and archival photographs, as well as samples of live and recorded music.
• Host organization provides an LCD projector, screen, extension cord, and small table.
Song Collection: Arizona’s Wellspring of Music
Arizona’s inhabitants enjoy diverse musical genres that are unique in their characteristics: the poly-rhythms of Mohave Bird Songs, the rich tradition of Mormon Pioneer music, songs of the Chemehuevi that mapped hunting territory, and tragic ballads that arose out of everyday, local history. The landscape of Arizona and its mix of cultures have enriched this music further, and cowboy poets like Gail Gardner, whose song about Prescott brush cattling entitled "The Sierry Petes," demonstrate the originality of Arizona artists. This presentation discusses the importance of music in everyday life of pioneer Arizona, and how it was often the glue that brought people together. Live and recorded music are included to share the richness of our musical traditions.
• Host organization provides a table for instruments and CD player.
