Black Music Research Journal articles

Recent articles from Black Music Research Journal

Signifyin(g) Salvador: Professional Musicians and the Sound of Flexibility in Bahia, Brazil's Popular Music Scenes
March 22, 2009... Over the past twenty-five years, popular music scholarship has benefited from an ever-increasing diversity of approaches. Even so, in-depth studies that address music as not only a creative endeavor but also a form of work are less common. (1) In this article, I investigate flexibility in the...

Werner Jaegerhuber's Messe Sur Les Airs Vodouesques: The Inculturation of Vodou in a Catholic Mass
March 22, 2009... Werner Jaegerhuber's Messe sur les airs vodouesques is an exceptional creation due to the unprecedented integration of Haitian Vodou melodies in a Catholic mass. (1) The composition of the Messe was begun in 1947 and completed in 1953. Its relatively long period of gestation suggests that the...

Reggae in Cuba and the Hispanic Caribbean: Fluctuations and Representations of Identities
March 22, 2009... I vividly recall when, in 1993, I was introduced to a small group of Rastafarians in a suburban and apparently poor and marginalized neighborhood southeast of Havana. (1) That moment was the beginning of my very frequent contacts with that group. Around the block from the house of one of those...

Sound, Voice, and Spirit: Teaching in the Black Music Vernacular
March 22, 2009... The study of African-American music and culture flourished during the twentieth century. Its varied approaches and perspectives earned its inclusion as a vibrant area of interest in the study of American music as well as its respectability in the academy. Prior to the 1960s, the bulk of studies...

Interpreting the African-American Musical Past: A Dialogue
March 22, 2009... The following dialogue between Samuel Floyd and Ronald Radano developed from a series of written exchanges and conversations over the course of the summer of 2008. It was prompted by Floyd's essay "Black Music and Writing Black Music History: American Music and Narrative Strategies," which...