Books and articles on black music.(Becoming: Blackness and the Musical Imagination)

Articles on Black Music in North America and the Circum-Caribbean in Major Music Journals, 1990-2007

Included in this bibliography are articles on music created by or performed by people who identify themselves as "black" and who are from North America or the Circum-Caribbean. The bibliography reveals a great deal about the state of research on black music among scholars in North America and the United Kingdom (see Table 1). The methodological and topical focus of a particular journal can predict the coverage of black music. Of the three music theory journals examined, only two had published any articles on black music (two each), and Journal of Music Theory has published none. (1) Journals whose methodological focus could be described as primarily music history or musicology were split between those with no or relatively little coverage and those with higher coverage. Among journals whose focus is ethnomusicological, Ethnomusicology included the most articles on black music during the period of focus. The vast majority of articles published on black music, however, can be found in journals that specialize in topics that focus on American music, popular music, and black music.

The genres and places treated in the articles run the gamut of black music, although tile bibliography shows preferences for certain topics. Articles on music in the United States outnumber those on Caribbean music by more than three times (see Table 2). This is perhaps due in part to the fact that most of the scholars represented in this bibliography reside in the United States. Jazz is covered at a rate nearly twice that of any other genre. After jazz, articles on art music are the most common, along with writings on black music in general. Perhaps most surprising is a relative dearth of coverage for all popular genres in the United States, with the exceptions of jazz and hip hop.

This bibliography does not represent a scientific study by any means, and a few caveats must be kept in mind. The journals cannot be compared as one-to-one entities. Some journals, such as the Journal of the American Musicological Society publish relatively few articles in each issue and appear only two or three times a year while others may publish as many as ten articles per issue on a quarterly basis. In some cases articles on black music or on particular genres are found primarily in special issues. Current Musicology, for example, devoted a triple issue (vol. 71-73) exclusively to jazz. And the relatively high number of articles on Appalachian traditional music (bluegrass, old time, country, and string band) can be attributed to a special issue of Black Music Research Journal (vol. 23, no. 1-2). Finally, it is to be expected that journals whose specialization more closely intersects with black music topics would more often treat this music than would journals with a very general focus.

Abbott, Lynn. 1992. "Play that barber shop chord": A case for the African-American origin of barbershop harmony. American Music 10, no. 3:289-325.