SUNY Geneseo professor James Kimball knows world music
Professor plays with folk traditions, in the classroom and on stage
James Kimball’s cluttered office at the State University College of New York at Geneseo is the stuff of folklore — literally.
Folk instruments from around the world hang on the walls, lean against corners, sit on top of stuffed cabinets and bulge out of boxes. But as instruments go, they’re not the usual suspects: There’s a Turkish drum, Chinese lute, Hungarian zither, Mongolian fiddle and a bumbass — a German folk drum with a single gut string on a long stick with bells on top that stands as tall as Kimball himself.
Such unusual instruments can be hard to handle. After a quick demonstration on the bumbass, Kimball carefully set the instrument back in the corner, but it slowly leaned and fell over into the pile of papers and recordings that line his office floor. Fortunately, there was plenty to cushion the fall — the piles represent almost 40 years’ worth of research on folk music, specifically the old-time music from Rochester and the western New York region.
In our area, he says, “Jaw harps and fiddle strings is what you would buy at the general store.” He pulled an example, a metal jaw harp, off his desk, put in his mouth and boinged away with proficiency. He has a box of jaw harps from about 20 different countries, some even made out of bamboo.
Kimball is a professor of ethnomusicology, teaching students about music from around the globe. He also directs the Geneseo String Band at the university, playing everything from regional square dances to St. Patrick’s Day concerts. The band will have its 31st-anniversary pre-St. Patrick’s Day performance on Saturday evening.
Though his work spans the world, Kimball has a special passion for understanding the traditions of home. Even before he was an ethnomusicologist, he was using that passion to absorb musical traditions in various places he himself called home. At Cornell University in Ithaca during the folk movement of the 1960s, he perfected fiddling and picked up the banjo. In Germany while stationed in the army in the mid ’60s, he sang in choirs. On trips to Poland in the early ’70s, he was drawn to traditional Polish dancing and fiddlers.
“They … told stories about World War I and World War II, what it was like living in rural areas as these armies swept through and they got displaced, and trying to keep the music alive,” he says. “I really enjoyed the fiddling. I could borrow a fiddle and sit down and play with these guys a little bit, record them and try to get some of their stories.”
And after, when Kimball was offered a position at SUNY Geneseo, “everything sort of got transplanted to western New York.” Suddenly he was asked to perform music with local color from the Civil War years and beyond at the Genesee Country Museum, Farmers Museum in Cooperstown and other historical societies in the area. He became intrigued with excavating music from the region, much because it hadn’t been discovered the way other folk music had.
“What did they play in Genesee County in 1870?” he says, describing how he set about doing his research. “It’s sort of the same thing that maybe some of the Eastman people do, the early music people do: What did they play in Venice in 1643?”
It meant digging around for surviving music, searching through old newspapers and reading old diaries that documented not only the music but also the social gatherings around the music. That’s how Kimball discovered the continuing tradition of square dancing that has survived in upstate New York unscathed.
“It wasn’t like the modern dancing where you had lots of lessons, teaching,” he says. “This is just stuff people grew up doing.”
When SUNY Geneseo started offering square dances, old-time square dancers from the region attended and requested songs they were used to dancing to. From those and other regional dances, Kimball picked up an oral tradition of square dance music that continues to be enjoyed in the rural parts of upstate New York even today — and his band, of about 20 members, still performs regularly.
“Part of it is seeing the history that’s still happening,” says Kimball about his passion for old music.
“It’s persistent. It’s got parallels with lots of other things — parallels with knitting, quilting or baking apple pies, things like that. Things that Grandma did that, hey, they’re still good, they still work and people are still doing them. They haven’t been replaced by a whole newer set of things.”
Kimball, too, won’t replace his world by a newer set of things, even riding an antique bicycle to school each day from his Geneseo home, even in the snow. Preferring traditional ways of communication to the YouTube generation, he has the disposition of a sweet grandfather, with personal stories and wisdom that gives his students a glimpse into history.
And his string band has branched out from upstate New York music to other surviving styles in the area.
Irish folk music enjoys a large, growing community in Rochester filled with amateur musicians and dancers. After attending jam sessions at area pubs, Kimball picked up popular Irish tunes for his band to play.
Saturday’s concert will also include the Drumcliffe Irish Dancers and an array of well-known local performers, including the well-known folk musicians Ted McGraw, Glenn McClure and hammered dulcimer player Mitzie Collins.
AREGUERO@DemocratandChronicle.com
If you go
What: SUNY Geneseo String Band’s 31st Annual Pre-St. Patrick’s Day concert featuring the Drumcliffe Irish Dancers, Glenn McClure, Ted McGraw, Mitzie Collins and more.
Where: Wadsworth Auditorium, SUNY Geneseo, 1 Circle Dr., Geneseo.
When: Saturday, 7 p.m.
Admission: $5 ($2 for students; 12 and under are free).
Call: (585) 245-5824.
To listen
Hear James Kimball’s music at www.samplerfolkmusic.com.
