In this collection of essays, interviews, and profiles, William Banfield reflects on his life as a musician and educator, as he weaves together pieces of cultural criticism and artistry, all the while paying homage to Black music of the last 40 years and beyond. In Representing Black Music Culture: Then, Now, and When Again?, Banfield honors the legacy of artists who have graced us with their work for more than half a century. The essays and interviews in this collection are enhanced by seven years of daily diary entries, which reflect on some of the country's most respected Black composers, recording artists, authors, and cultural icons. These include Ornette Coleman, Bobby McFerrin, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Gordon Parks, the Marsalis brothers, Spike Lee, Maya Angelou, Patrice Rushen, and many others. Though many of the individuals Banfield lauds are well-known to most readers, he also turns his attention to musicians and artists whose work, while perhaps unheralded by the world at large, are no less deserving of praise and respect for their contributions to the culture. In addition, this volume is filled with candid photographs of many of these fellow artists as they participate in expressive culture, whether on stage, on tour, in clubs, behind the scenes, in rehearsal, or even during meals and teaching class. This unique book of essays, interviews, diary entries, and Banfield's personal photographs will be of interest to scholars and students, of course, but also to general readers interested in absorbing and appreciating the beauty of Black culture.

Looks at the history of African American music from its roots in Africa and slavery to the present day and examines its place within African American communities and the nation as a whole.

African American Music provides an introduction to all of the richness and diversity of African American musical styles, focusing on the distinct characte4istics and development of each genre. This book is divided into four parts: folk traditions; the jazz aesthetic; black popular styles since 1940; and black theatrical and classical music. Using brief musical examples, the author illustrates and explains the basic concepts that unite all African American styles before discussing each style individually. Among the many types of music explored in individual chapters are spirituals, blues, gospel, ragtime, jazz, pop and classical. Biographical portraits of major musicians and composers, as well as detailed stylistic analyses of each musical genre, make this book not only required reading for any introduction to the field, but a pleasure to read for anyone interested in all of the different styles that comprise African American music. Includes information on Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, bebop, Chuck Berry, blues, boogie woogie, James Brown, call and response, classical music, classic jazz, Sam Cooke, cool jazz, William Levi Dawson, doo wop, Antonin Dvorak, Duke Ellington, free jazz, gospel music, Isaac Hayes, jazz, James Weldon Johnson, Motown Records, Charlie Parker, rags and ragtime, rap music, rhythm and blues, soul music, spirituals, swing, etc. [Publisher description]

How Afro-Peruvian music was forgotten and recreated in Peru.

LENARD C. BOWIE, DMA ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, RETIRED THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE , FLORIDA Dr. Lenard C. Bowie has developed an enviable reputation as a consummate musician. He is a classical trumpet artist, accomplished band director, effective music administrator, skilled lecturer and publi shed author. As an author, Bowie's expertise in several fields of endeavor has been documented through the following subjects, as published in the professional music journals indicated: "Solving Problems of Young Trumpet Players, " published in the Music Educators National Journal (December, J979) , a critical review of "Black University Marching Bands in the 80's." published by The Marching Band (January, 198 1), and the Proceedings of an Informal Research Conference whose mission was to document the extent to which African American music courses were offered in Florida's Public Schools was published by the Florida Music Educator (June, 2002). As an undergraduate, Bowie was plagued bymany questions concerning the absence of formal instruction in the music of his people, especially when considering the fact that there were only two authentic types of American music -- that of the American Indians and that of African Americans, with African American Music being the most important of the two. Bowie's search for answers to his probing questions began when he enrolled in Professor Willie Ruffs course in Black Music as a graduate student at Yale University in 1974. This course opened Bowie's eyes, ears and mind to many of his here-to-fore unanswered questions; including the extent to which African music traditions are practiced in African American Music today, and the impact that African American Music has made on the social, political, economic, and religious climates of modern American Society. After graduating from Yale with a Master of Musical Arts Degree in 1976, Bowie struck out on a mission to enlarge on what he had learned about African American Music.This mission brought him in contact with a wealth of information through independent study of numerous publications and documentaries; lectures, festivals, concerts; and personal contacts with scholars who were, or have become, major players in the research, dissemination, performance and composition of African American Music. Some of these scholars include former colleagues Dr.Oily W. Wilson, composer and Chair of Composition at UCLA , Berkeley, Samuel Floyd, Founder and Director of the Center for Black Music Research, found at Fisk University, now housed at ColumbiaCollege,Chicago,Dr. AaronHorne,AfricanAmericanMusic Biographer and Dean of Fine Arts, Winston Salem Unive rsity, North Caro lina, Aramentha Adams - Hummings, Founder and Director ofthe Gateways Music Festival , initiated at the North Carolina School of the Arts, now housed at the East man School of Music in Rochester,New York, Operatic Tenor and Music Educator, the late Dr. William A, Brown. Others include Dr. Portia Maultsby, Professor of Music at Indiana University, Dr. Dena Epstein, Retired Music Librarian, Archival Researcher and Author, Chicago, Dr. Rene Boyer-White, Professor of Music Education, College-Conservatory of Music, The University of Cincinnati, and Dr. John Smith, Dean of Fine Arts, The Univers ity of South Florida at Tampa. During the first of Dr. Bowie's two terms as Music Department Chair at The University of North Florida, he was afforded an opportunity to apply and distribute his long sought know ledge. The opportunity came in the form ofa Mill ion Dollar Endowment from the Koger Company to develop programs of study in American Music. The response of the faculty to the endowmentwas to institute two programs: a Jazz Studies Program and a program in African American Music. The Jazz Studies Program has become nationally recognized for outstanding achievements in jazz theory, history and performance. The latter program , designed and developed by Bowie, was chall

In 1969 Gerhard Kubik chanced to encounter a Mozambican labor migrant, a miner in Transvaal, South Africa, tapping a cipendani, a mouth-resonated musical bow. A comparable instrument was seen in the hands of a white Appalachian musician who claimed it as part of his own cultural heritage. Through connections like these Kubik realized that the link between these two far-flung musicians is African-American music, the sound that became the blues. Such discoveries reveal a narrative of music evolution for Kubik, a cultural anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. Traveling in Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, and the United States, he spent forty years in the field gathering the material for Africa and the Blues. In this book, Kubik relentlessly traces the remote genealogies of African cultural music through eighteen African nations, especially in the Western and Central Sudanic Belt. Included is a comprehensive map of this cradle of the blues, along with 31 photographs gathered in his fieldwork. The author also adds clear musical notations and descriptions of both African and African American traditions and practices and calls into question the many assumptions about which elements of the blues were "European" in origin and about which came from Africa. Unique to this book is Kubik's insight into the ways present-day African musicians have adopted and enlivened the blues with their own traditions. With scholarly care but with an ease for the general reader, Kubik proposes an entirely new theory on blue notes and their origins. Tracing what musical traits came from Africa and what mutations and mergers occurred in the Americas, he shows that the African American tradition we call the blues is truly a musical phenomenon belonging to the African cultural world [Publisher description].

Former dancer Jacqui Malone throws a fresh spotlight on the cultural history of black dance, the Africanisms that have influenced it, and the significant role that vocal harmony groups, black college and university marching bands, and black sorority and fraternity stepping teams have played in the evolution of dance in African American life.