After four centuries, most Americans can identify a piece of music as African-American. Not necessarily performed by African-Americans but in the African-American tradition. Why is (Continue Reading)
After four centuries, most Americans can identify a piece of music as African-American. Not necessarily performed by African-Americans but in the African-American tradition. Why is (Continue Reading)
Looking at the history of Western music, certain individuals stand out as musical geniuses: Mozart, Bach. We recognize this phenomenon and marvel at it. These (Continue Reading)
In my household right now we have 4 levels of cultural exposure. My wife was raised in a Black Pentecostal church, came from a small (Continue Reading)
Musicology in the West has relegated popular music to the non-serious realm. Therefore, African scholars, branded and sanctioned by metropolitan universities and departments of musicology, (Continue Reading)
Reading Sam Floyd, my suspicions rise over terms like “cultural memory.” I recall a disturbing conversation with a Prof. Woods, chairperson of the art department (Continue Reading)
I sent this in when the program requested testimonials for a grant. The music of Africa has formed the base of a good deal of (Continue Reading)
The first 3 have the pulse I am talking about. I have used examples without vocals and the last two are nothing but drumming. The (Continue Reading)
“Show” is not the best word. Thinking about African Diasporic music and the issue of the pulse, I was reminded of the issue of acquisition (Continue Reading)
You might notice how in many forms of African-derived music, a melody- and harmony-driven music will over the course of the piece devolve into domination (Continue Reading)
At about 7:05 on this you will hear the horns take over and then play any recording of the music deeply written about by Simha (Continue Reading)
Western Europe and West Africa have a lot in common in their musics and musical traditions but are also clearly distinct. Both regions and traditions (Continue Reading)
One of the hallmarks – no, the sine qua nons – of the music of West Africa and the African Diaspora is what is popularly (Continue Reading)
I’m sure I’ve written up this incident here before but cannot find it. It points to the centrality of music and esp of rhythmic music (Continue Reading)
NPR played a nice piece on currents in jazz, the dropping of the boundary between different approaches to jazz. They played a piece by an (Continue Reading)
Many decades ago I read and heard about the practice in West Africa of drilling a small hole in the shell of a drum and (Continue Reading)
It has long been my vision of African-American music that the connection between the musical and the spiritual is so tight that this connection extends (Continue Reading)
A magical moment for me is when musicians are playing a piece of music straight and then, either insinuatingly or with a mighty shift, they (Continue Reading)
Recently I offered a friend several YouTube videos depicting Cuban street congas in response to our discussion about The Miami Sound Machine’s La Conga. Then (Continue Reading)
Sometimes you come across something that smacks you right in the forehead, something at the back of your mind but never entirely brought out into (Continue Reading)
Watch the topless man playing clave at and notice how he shakes the claves just a bit to maintain his place in the rhythm. This (Continue Reading)
Here you see the combination of music and dancing in huge crowds, dancing with abandon and a lot of sexuality and some fighting, that scares (Continue Reading)
These quotes are from Simha Arom’s African Polyphony and Polyrhythm …. for each type of procedure observed, there must be an explanation of how it (Continue Reading)