Oh Adelaide (with Ain Bailey), 2010, Video

Medium
Single-channel video with sound. 7 minutes 28 seconds.
Oh Adelaide (with Ain Bailey), (film still), 2010. Single-channel video with sound. 7 minutes 28 seconds
Oh Adelaide (with Ain Bailey), 2010. Single-channel video with sound. 7 minutes 28 seconds. Photo: Prudence Cummings Associates
Oh Adelaide (with Ain Bailey), (film stills), 2010. Single-channel video with sound. 7 minutes 28 seconds

Oh Adelaide is a single-channel video by Sonia Boyce and sound artist Ain Bailey, that incorporates found film footage from the internet of the late jazz singer and entertainer, Adelaide Hall (1901-1993). Through re-imagining the footage Hall is re-rendered as an ethereal figure on the stage in which she appears both in and outside of history – a sense that is underscored by Bailey’s immersive and haunting soundtrack comprised of re-worked audio tracks of Hall and other performers from the Devotional Collection: an ongoing project since 1999 that Boyce has been developing on Black women in the British music industry. Adelaide Hall is widely regarded as a pioneer of jazz scat singing: a wordless technique where the voice mimics a musical instrument.

Devotional series

Related theme: Sound / Singing

Related theme: Performance

Related theme: Participatory / Collaboration