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An iconic symbol and sound of the Lucumí/Santería religion, Afro-Cuban batá are talking drums that express the epic mythological narratives of the West African Yoruba deities known as orisha. By imitating aspects of speech and song, and by metaphorically referencing salient attributes of the deities, batá drummers facilitate the communal praising of orisha in a music ritual known as a toque de santo. This book blends musical transcription, musical analysis, interviews, ethnographic descriptions, and observations from his own experience as a ritual drummer to highlight the complex variables at work during a live Lucumí performance. Integral in enabling trance possessions by the orisha, by far the most dramatic expressions of Lucumí faith, batá drummers are also entrusted with controlling the overall ebb and flow of the four- to six-hour toque de santo. During these events, batá drummers combine their knowledge of ritual with an extensive repertoire of rhythms and songs. Musicians focus on the many thematic acts that unfold both concurrently and in quick succession. In addition to creating an emotionally charged environment, playing salute rhythms for the orisha, and supporting the playful song competitions that erupt between singers, batá drummers are equally dedicated to nurturing their own drumming community by creating a variety of opportunities for the musicians to grow artistically and creatively.

The Brazilian berimbau, a musical bow, is most commonly associated with the energetic martial art/dance/game of capoeira. This study explores its stature from the 1950s to the present in diverse musical genres including bossa nova, samba-reggae, MPB (Popular Brazilian Music), electronic dance music, Brazilian art music, and more. Berimbau music spans oral and recorded historical traditions, connects Latin America to Africa, juxtaposes the sacred and profane, and unites nationally constructed notions of Brazilian identity across seemingly impenetrable barriers. This book considers the berimbau beyond the context of capoeira, and explores the bow’s emergence as a national symbol. Throughout, it engages and analyzes intersections of musical traditions in the Black Atlantic, North American popular music, and the rise of global jazz. The book is an introduction to Brazilian music for musicians, Latin American scholars, capoeira practitioners, and other people who are interested in Brazil’s music and culture.

Queen Ida. Danny Poullard. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank. Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records. These are names that are familiar to many fans of Cajun music and zydeco, and they have one other thing in common: longtime residence in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are all part of a vibrant scene of dancing and live Louisiana-French music that has evolved over several decades. This book traces how this region of California has been able to develop and sustain dances several times a week with more than a dozen bands. Description of this active regional scene opens into a discussion of several historical trends that have affected life and music in Louisiana and the nation. The book portrays the diversity of people who have come together to adopt Cajun and Creole dance music as a way to cope with a globalized, media-saturated world. The author weaves together interviews with musicians and dancers (some from Louisiana, some not), analysis of popular media, participant observation as a musician and dancer, and historical perspectives from wartime black migration patterns, the civil rights movement, American folk and blues revivals, California counterculture, and the rise of cultural tourism in “Cajun Country.” In so doing, he reveals the multifaceted appeal of celebrating life on the dance floor, Louisiana-French style.

Chocolate Surrealism: Music, Movement, Memory and History is a (w)holistic historiography of the circum-Caribbean region. The book highlights connections among the production, performance, and reception of popular music at critical historical junctures in the late 19^th and 20^th centuries. The book moves through different sites and styles to place socio-musical movements into a larger historical framework: Calypso during the turbulent interwar period and the ensuing crises of capitalism; the Cuban rumba/son complex of the postwar era of American empire; jazz in the Bandung period and the rise of decolonization; and, lastly, Nuyorican Salsa coinciding with the period of the civil rights movement and the beginnings of black/brown power. The book thinks about the circum-Caribbean region as integrated culturally and conceptually while paying close attention to the fractures, fragmentations, and historical particularities that both unite and divide the region. At the same time, the book engages with a larger discussion of the Atlantic world. The project interrogates the interrelation between music, movement, memory, and history, a ‘contrapuntal’ analysis that treats the music of the African diaspora as both epistemological anchor and as a mode of expression and representation of both black identities and political cultures. Music and performance offer ways to re-theorize the politics of race, nationalism and musical practice, geopolitical conjunctures, as well as re-assess the historical development of the modern world system, through the examination of local, popular responses to the global age. In short, the book utilizes different styles, times, and politics to render a brief history of Black Atlantic sound.

Derived from the nationalist writings of José Martí, the concept of Cubanidad (Cubanness) has always imagined a unified hybrid nation where racial difference is nonexistent and nationality trumps all other axes of identity. Scholars have critiqued this celebration of racial mixture, highlighting a gap between the claim of racial harmony and the realities of inequality faced by Afro-Cubans since Independence in 1898. This book argues that it is not only the recognition of racial difference that threatens to divide the nation, but that popular regional sentiment further contests the hegemonic nationalist discourse. Given that music is a prominent symbol of Cubanidad, musical practices play an important role in constructing regional and local, as well as national, identities, and the book thus suggests that regional identity exerts a significant influence on the aesthetic choices Cuban musicians make. Through the examination of several genres, the book explores the various ways that race and the politics of place are entangled in contemporary Cuban music-making. It argues that racialized discourses that circulate about different cities affect both the formation of local identity and musical performance. Thus, the musical practices discussed—including rumba, timba, eastern Cuban folklore, and son—are examples of the intersections between regional identity formation, racialized notions of place, and music-making.

This book is the culmination of several years of field research on sacred and secular influences of àsé, the West African Yoruba concept that spread to Brazil and throughout the African Diaspora. Àsé is imagined as power and creative energy bestowed upon human beings by ancestral spirits acting as guardians. In Brazil, the West African Yoruba concept of àsé is known as axé and has been reinvented, transmitted, and nurtured in Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion that is practiced in Salvador, Bahia. The author examines how the concepts of axé and Candomblé religion have been appropriated and reinvented in Brazilian popular music and culture. Featuring interviews with practitioners and local musicians, the book explains how many Brazilian popular music styles such as samba, bossa nova, samba-reggae, ijexá, and axé have musical and stylistic elements that stem from Afro-Brazilian religion. It also discusses how young Afro-Brazilians combine Candomblé religious music with African American music such as blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk, and rap. The author argues for the importance of axé as a unifying force tying together the secular and sacred Afro-Brazilian musical landscape.

Why Eleven Antilleans Knelt Before Chopin's Heart is not your usual music handbook. The book’s curious title refers to the presence of eleven Antilleans at the service held in the Warsaw church to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin’s death in October 1999 where the composer’s heart is kept in an urn, whilst the rest of his mortal remains lie in Paris. The item which Brokken had read in a German newspaper triggered him to start writing the book based on notes he had been taking while living on Curacao from 1993 to 2002. Anyone interested in discovering an overlooked chapter of Caribbean music and music history will be amply rewarded with a Dutch Caribbean perspective on the pan- Caribbean process of Creolization and the history and legacy of slavery in shaping culture and music in the New World. Brokken’s portraits of prominent Dutch Antillean composers, are interspersed with anecdotes, and forays into cultural and music history. Brokken puts the Dutch Caribbean’s contributions into a broader context by also examining the 19^th century phenomenon, pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk from New Orleans and Manuel Samuel from Martinique. Brokken explores the African component of Dutch Antillean music – examining the history of the rhythm and music known as tambú as well as American jazz pianist Chick Corea's fascination with the tumba rhythm from Curacao. The book ends with a discussion of how recent Dutch Caribbean adaptations of European dance forms has shifted from a classical musical approach to contemporary forms of Latin jazz.

This book is the first in-depth study of Guyanese musical life. It is also a detailed description of the social, economic, and political conditions that have encouraged and sometimes discouraged musical and cultural creativity in Guyana. It explores these interactions in Guyana during the three political eras that the society experienced as it moved from being a British colony to an independent nation. The first era to be considered is the period of mature colonial governance, guided by the dictates of “new imperialism,” which extended from 1900 to 1953. The second era, the period of internal self-government and the preparation for independence, extends from 1953, the year of the first general elections under universal adult suffrage, to 1966, the year when the colony gained its political independence. The third phase, 1966 to 2000, describes the early postcolonial era. The book reveals how the issues of race, class, gender, and ideology deeply influenced who in Guyanese multicultural society obtained access to musical instruction and media outlets and thus who received recognition. It also describes the close connections between Guyanese musicians and Caribbean artists from throughout the region and traces the exodus of Guyanese musicians to the great cities of the world, a theme often neglected in Caribbean studies. The book concludes that the practices of governance across the twentieth century exerted disproportionate influence in the creation, production, distribution, and consumption of music.

This book explores the role of music in negotiating difference. It brings to light processes of differentiation and social stereotypes and hierarchies at at work in the evolving French Louisiana musical field. It also draws attention to the interactions between binary oppositions such as black and white, urban and rural, differentiation and creolization, traditional and modern, and local, national and global. The book argues for the importance of desegregating the understanding of French Louisiana music by situating it beyond ethnic or racial identifications, bringing to light the importance of regional identification. The musical genealogy and categories in use are legitimized through an omnipresent racial imaginary that frames African and European lineage as a foundational difference. Instead of seeing the discourses of origins and mixing as contradictory, the field and the way music is practiced show that they continually interact. French Louisiana musicians navigate between multiple identifications, music styles and legacies while market forces, outsider’s interest and geographical mobility also contribute to shape their career strategies and musical choices. This work also demonstrates the decisive role of non-natives’ interest and mobility in the validation, evolution, and reconfiguration of French Louisiana music. Finally, the distinctiveness of South Louisiana with respect to the rest of the country appears both nurtured and endured, revealing the intricacies of political domination and regionalism.

“Maybe you won't like steel band. It's possible. But it's been said that the Pied Piper had a steel band helping him on his famous visit to Hamelin.” When the US Navy distributed this press release, anxieties and tensions of the impending Cold War felt palpable. As President Eisenhower cast his gaze toward Russia, the American people cast their ears to the Atlantic South, infatuated with the international currents of Caribbean music. Today, steel bands have become a global phenomenon; yet, in 1957 the exotic sound and the unique image of the US Navy Steel Band was one-of-a-kind. From 1957 until their disbandment in 1999, the US Navy Steel Band performed over 20,000 concerts worldwide. In 1973, the band officially moved headquarters from Puerto Rico to New Orleans and found the city and annual Mardi Gras tradition an apt musical and cultural fit. The band brought a significant piece of Caribbean artistic capital—calypso and steelband music—to the American mainstream. Its impact on the growth and development of steelpan music in America is enormous. This book uncovers the lost history of the US Navy Steel Band and provides an in-depth study of its role in the development of the US military's public relations, its promotion of goodwill, its recruitment efforts after the Korean and Vietnam wars, its musical and technological innovations, and its percussive propulsion of the American fascination with Latin and Caribbean music over the past century.

More than twenty universities and twenty other colleges in North America (USA and Canada) offer performance courses on West African ethnic dance drumming. Since its inception in 1964 at both UCLA and Columbia, West African drumming and dance has gradually developed into a vibrant campus subculture in North America. The dances most practiced in the American academy come from the ethnic groups Ewe, Akan, Ga, Dagbamba, Mande, and Wolof, thereby privileging dances mostly from Ghana, Togo, Benin, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. This strong presence of a world music ensemble in the diaspora has captured and engaged the interest of scholars, musicians, dancers, and audiences. In the first-ever ethnographic study of West African drumming and dance in North American universities the author documents and acknowledges ethnomusicologists, ensemble directors, students, administrators, and academic institutions for their key roles in the histories of their respective ensembles. Dor collates and shares perspectives including debates on pedagogical approaches that may be instructive as models for both current and future ensemble directors and reveals the multiple impacts that participation in an ensemble or class offers students. He also examines the interplay among historically situated structures and systems, discourse, and practice, and explores the multiple meanings that individuals and various groups of people construct from this campus activity. The study will be of value to students, directors, and scholars as an ethnographic study and as a text for teaching relevant courses in African music, African studies, ethnomusicology/world music, African diaspora studies, and other related disciplines.

In the 1990s, expressive culture in the Caribbean was becoming noticeably more feminine. At the annual Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago, thousands of female masqueraders dominated the street festival on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. Women had become significant contributors to the performance of calypso and soca, as well as the musical development of the steel pan art form. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted by the author in Trinidad and Tobago, this book demonstrates how the increased access and agency of women through folk and popular musical expressions has improved inter-gender relations and representation of gender in this nation. This is the first study to integrate all of the popular music expressions associated with Carnival—calypso, soca, and steelband music—within a single volume. The popular music of the Caribbean contains elaborate forms of social commentary that allows singers to address various sociopolitical problems, including those that directly affect the lives of women. In general, the cultural environment of Trinidad and Tobago has made women more visible and audible than any previous time in its history. This book examines how these circumstances came to be and what it means for the future development of music in the region.

Considering yodeling as a musical device in American music, this book investigates in parallel two ways of understanding various meanings associated with yodeling: as the connotative functions of yodeling within specific musical texts and as the ideological implications of its use. It aims to provoke a reflection on the concept of singing and received cultural ideas associated with it. Starting with the premise that music is a discursive practice that is itself inseparable from a critical verbal discourse about music, the book interrogates the relationship between yodeling and predominating musical orthodoxy. Through a critical examination of that relationship, the book explores numerous examples of yodeling in American music, questioning why it achieved prominence and status in some genres and not in others and attempting to account for the relatively low prestige accorded to music featuring yodeling. After defining yodeling and classifying the yodel types found in American vocal styles, the book traces yodeling’s history from early references to the practice in European art music, through its appearance in nineteenth-century Alpine-themed songs of the romantic era, its introduction into American music and the blending of European-style yodeling with African American singing styles, to its prominent role in early country music and in western-themed music. The approach is informed by critical musicology and semiotics, focusing on sound patterns, the development of their semantic associations in various contexts, and the relationship of that music to predominating tastes. A final chapter seeks to explain why yodeling continues to remain at the margins of mainstream tastes.