The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Africa History > Item 100
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The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States
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by Samuel A. Floyd Jr.
Sales Rank: 486157
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List Price: $34.99
$30.83
At Amazon
on 11-17-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 336 pages
Published by: Oxford University Press, USA October 31, 1996
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0195109759
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0195109757
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
Weighs: 1.2 pounds
From Booklist
African American music deserves but seldom gets as much attention from academics as from music critics. Floyd takes the rare scholarly approach to it and sets a standard for subsequent studies. The range of genres he discusses is comprehensive (it includes slaves' ring shouts, turn-of-the-century cotillion dances, jazz, R & B, etc.), and the connections he makes are particularly perceptive. Drawing on the works of prominent cultural theorists, such as Henry Louis Gates, Floyd traces the key elements in the music's panorama to an aesthetic that is still clearly linked to African myths and rituals (one example he cites is call-and-response technique, which is pervasive throughout many stylistic categories). A midwesterner, Floyd attends to the historically important but frequently overlooked Chicago Renaissance of black cultural activity and to the influential composers from that city as well as to the more familiar Harlem efflorescence. Complementing the discourse are plenty of musical examples. Academics, critics, scholars, and fans alike stand to gain much from carefully reading this impressive work. Aaron Cohen
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Review
A wide-ranging, jargon-laden discussion of African-American music. Floyd (director of the Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, Chicago) combines history and theory, beginning with African-American music's roots and progressing chronologically from early spirituals through blues, jazz, R&B, gospel, Motown, pop, and concert-hall music. Dozens of figures, both well-known and obscure, are mentioned, along with key musical works that are analyzed with a blend of anthropological, musicological, and self-made terms. Floyd believes that "Signifyin(g)" - using metaphoric or indirect means as a mode of artistic expression - is the key clement of African-American musical style. He identifies "Call-Response," the use of a structure based on theme (the "call") and counter-theme ("response"), as a basis for much African-American expression. He shows how, in this tradition, the performance itself is far more important than the piece performed. Some of Floyd's ideas are controversial, such as his essentialist assertion that there is an African "racial memory" among African-Americans that influences the kinds of music they produce - a notion that oversimplifies a complex process including cultural, musical, social, and individual innovations by which a musical style is shaped. Floyd also tends to lump together such varied performers as early bluesmen Blind Lemon Jefferson and Mississippi John Hurt, calling both "Mississippi Moaners," although Jefferson was from Texas, Hurt sang in a relaxed, open-voiced style, and neither is a typical representative of the Mississippi blues school. Many of the practices Floyd ascribes solely to African-American musicians, such as improvising new words based on stock sets of lyrical themes, are found in folk cultures throughout the world. Finally, his personal predilection for black concert-hall music over traditional or popular forms distorts the work. Of limited interest to the general reader, though it will inspire discussion in the musicological community. (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States (Hardcover)
This book is not an easy read, but it's worth it. It was written by a scholar for other scholars, but a lay person with patience will draw a great deal from the reading. It explains common threads -- basic components of African music-- in genres as diverse as blues,rock n' roll, be-bop, hip-hop, etc. What's nice is that the author, a noted scholar and head of Chicago's Collumbia College Center for Black Music Research, lends in his narration some playfulness, invoking elements of the music in the text, with lots of eye-witness discussions of African-American musical events that allow the reader to feel like an observer. You'll emerge from the reading a little exhausted, but with a greater appreciation of black music in the U.S., and a better understanding of how your favorite type of black music, or in the case of rock fans, black music derivative, came into being. (Note: For those lucky enough to live in the handful of cities where Dance Africa is performed each year, reading this book would be a great idea before you attend the next performance.)
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The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States
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Price: $30.83
Updated on 11-17-2008.
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