Music: styles and genres Books

Book SynopsisIn A Kiss across the Ocean Richard T. Rodríguez examines the relationship between British post-punk musicians and their Latinx audiences in the United States since the 1980s. Melding memoir with cultural criticism, Rodríguez spotlights a host of influential bands and performers including Siouxsie and the Banshees, Adam Ant, Bauhaus, Soft Cell, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and Pet Shop Boys. He recounts these bands’ importance for him and other Latinx kids and discusses their frequent identification with these bands’ glamorous performance of difference. Whether it was Siouxsie Sioux drawing inspiration from Latinx contemporaries and cultural practices or how Soft Cell singer Marc Almond’s lyrics were attuned to the vibrancy of queer Latinidad, Rodríguez shows how Latinx culture helped shape British post-punk. He traces the fandom networks that link these groups across space and time to illuminate how popular music establishes and facilitates iTrade Review"This at-once scholarly and personal book is a moving tribute to the escapism and comfort that music can give to the most marginalized members of society: Rodríguez provides well-researched analysis of the influences on and of post-punk bands, in realms from racial politics to ethnic cultural dynamics, and also writes of his own experiences as a young fan searching for belonging. Rodríguez’s book successfully balances an intellectual understanding of the cultural ramifications of post-punk music with poignant and alluring background stories, appealing to scholars and fans alike." -- Lisa Henry * Library Journal *"In this part-memoir, part-ethnography of England and SoCal in the 1980s, author Rodríguez, a professor of media and cultural studies and English at UC Riverside, investigates what binds these two seemingly disparate cultures. Starting with his own tween-age fandom of Boy George and the Culture Club, Rodríguez plumbs the depths of the passionate, sometimes tainted love affair between British post-punks and the Latinos who worship at their altar." -- Suzy Exposito * Los Angeles Times *"Extremely well written and researched the book is a fantastic exploration into the wider reaches of UK post-punk and compulsive reading for those with an interest in subculture studies and the post-punk scene itself." -- Lee Powell * Vive Le Rock *"Rodríguez could’ve easily ripped into a press corps that still largely thinks Latinos only listen to Spanish-language music backed by either accordions or congas. He does critique them but limits the bile in favor of a warm, poignant memoir-analysis, which he writes is 'animated by a deep investigative labor propelled by fannish investment.'" -- GustavoArellano * Los Angeles Times *"An intriguing study of how music builds connections between different communities, and how pop desire translates over time and space." -- Rob Sheffield * Rolling Stone *"Ultimately, Rodriguez’s book is a tribute to the music that not only provided a soundtrack to his teenage years but also enabled him to navigate his way through the thorny questions of identity." -- Gilbert Garcia * San Antonio Express-News *"Tender, wry, delicate, and rich, A Kiss across the Ocean is a love letter to the theatrically potent musical and visual gestures of the artists and bands of the British postpunk scene that made a difference in the mid-1980s and continue to do so today, even when people may have forgotten some of the bands’ names." -- Caridad Svich * Theatre Survey *"In seven short chapters, the author’s intertwining of autobiography and a deeply researched history is a winning approach for articulating the equally intertwined friendships, influence and politics of British post-punk and Latin American cultures." -- Maria Elena Buszek * Punk & Post-Punk *"The book is valuable in furthering a grasp of the deeply nuanced cultural hybridity, orientation and style sensibilities that have informed U.S. Latinx life from its very beginnings, and how this community has in turn been pivotal in determining artistic output beyond our borders and into the mainstream. . . . , Rodriguez opens up vistas from personal experience and lifelong research to chart dizzying connections across fandom, fantasy and friendships, showing influences from Latinos on both U.S. coasts on recording artists who received and processed Latinx culture in tandem with their trans-Atlantic careers." -- Benjamin Ortiz * New Lines Magazine *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix A Kiss Across the Ocean: An Introduction 1 1. Red over White 27 2. Touching Prince Charming 48 3. Darker Entries 67 4. The Shining Sinners 85 5. Zoot Suits and Secondhand Knowledge 104 6. Mexican Americanos 128 7. Latin/o American Party 147 Conclusion. Dedicated to the One I Love 164 Notes 175 References 207 Index 231

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Book SynopsisAlexander Ghedi Weheliye traces R&B music’s continued relevance for Black life since the late 1970s, showing how it remains a thriving venue for the continued expression of Black thought and life and a primary archive of the contemporary moment.Trade Review“This cutting-edge book demonstrates the work of a thinker who has devoted a great deal of research and care to the study of the sonic, historiographic, and aesthetic consequences of Blackness. Alexander Ghedi Weheliye’s concentration on the rich concurrences of Blackness and R&B is a true blessing. Deftly mapping out new avenues of critical pursuit devoted to the art of Blackness, Feenin is a stunning work.” -- Michael Boyce Gillespie, author of * Film Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of Black Film *“Feenin is less a collection of essays and more a playlist of Alexander Ghedi Weheliye’s greatest hits. It assembles a series of captivating essays that register the complex sonic frequencies of Black life with resounding effect. The ‘tracks’ gathered here demonstrate the force of Weheliye’s incisive theorizing and its profound contribution to sounding the rhythm, vibes, and groove of Black studies in the ‘forceful fullness of the Now.’” -- Tina M. Campt, Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities, Princeton UniversityTable of ContentsTrack 0.0 Good Days: R&B Music and Critical Fabulation in the Frequencies of Now 1 Track 1.0 Engendering Phonographies: Sonic Technologies of Blackness / A Response to Tavia Nyong’o 23 Track 2.0 “Feenin": Posthuman Voices in R&B Music 37 Track 3.0 Rhythms of Relation: Black Popular Music and Mobile Technologies 75 Interlude 1. Calling My Phone 98 Track 4.0 My Volk to Come: Specters of Peoplehood in Diaspora Discourse and Afro-German Popular Music 100 Track 5.0 “White Brothers with No Soul": UnTuning the Historiography of Berlin Techno / Interview with Annie Goh 121 Interlude 2. Don't Take It Away 135 Track 6.0 New Waves, Shifting Terrains: Prince’s and David Bowie’s Transatlantic Crossovers 140 Interlude 3. #BeyondDeepBrandyAlbumCuts 153 Track 7.0 “Sounding That Precarious Existence": On R&B Music, Technology, and Blackness / An Interview with Nehal El-Hadi 158 Track 8.0 “Scream My Name Like a Protest": R&B Music as BlackFem Technology of Humanity in the Age of #Blacklivesmatter 178 Interlude 4. Songify Your Life 198 Track 9.0 808s and Heartbreak / Alexander Ghedi Weheliye and Katherine McKittrick 201 Track 10.0 Wayward Shuddering, Beautiful Tremors (AGW's Quiet Storm Remix) 237 Sources 245 Index 275

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Book SynopsisOf all the musical developments of rock in the 1960s, one in particular fundamentally changed the music’s structure and listening experience: the incorporation of extended improvisation into live performances. While many bands—including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Velvet Underground—stretched out their songs with improvisations, no band was more identified with the practice than the Grateful Dead. In Get Shown the Light Michael Kaler examines how the Dead’s dedication to improvisation stemmed from their belief that playing in this manner enabled them to touch upon transcendence. Drawing on band testimonials and analyses of early recordings, Kaler traces how the Dead developed an approach to playing music that they believed would facilitate their spiritual goals. He focuses on the band’s early years, the significance of their playing Ken Kesey’s Acid Test parties, and their evolving exploration of the myriad musical and spiritual possibilities tTrade Review“Michael Kaler demonstrates that the pursuit of something esoteric, essential, and religious in nature drove the Grateful Dead’s artistic path. Persuasively arguing that the Dead believed that improvisational music has the power to evoke transcendence and foster collective consciousness, Get Shown the Light makes an important contribution to the growing body of work that interrogates the relationship between music, religiosity, and American culture.” -- Ariella Werden-Greenfield, coeditor of * This Is Your Song Too: Phish and Contemporary Jewish Identity *“Ever since the 1960s, critics, fans, and band members understood that something powerful and unusual was at work when the Grateful Dead took the stage. ‘Every place we play is church’ became the common refrain to explain that elusive ethos, but tracing what that unorthodox spirituality consisted of and how it came to characterize the band’s concerts has challenged observers and inveigled scholars for decades. Michael Kaler brings a musician’s perspective to a religious studies exploration of this seminal topic, showing how Dead shows achieved what both band and fans recognized as something more than the typical concert experience, one that had a distinct and distinctive spiritual quality.” -- Nicholas G. Meriwether, Haight Street Art Center, San FranciscoTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix An Autobiographical Introduction 1 1. The Grateful Dead: A Spiritually Motivated, Improvising Rock Band 5 2. Setting the Scene: Where They Came From 22 3. How the Grateful Dead Learned to Jam: Building a Framework for Improvisation 45 4. Improvisational Tactics, 1965–1974: Roads Taken, and Some That Were Not Taken 73 5. Writing About Improvisation: Approaches to Understanding Spontaneous Playing 125 6. Other Improvising Rock Bands: Similar Directions, Different Motivations 139 7. Music, Transcendent Spiritual Experience, and the Grateful Dead: How They Came Together 161 8. The Grateful Dead’s Spiritual Context: The Acid Tests and Afterwards 185 9. What They Did: How the Grateful Dead Joined Their Musical and Spiritual Imperatives 201 Appendix. Grateful Dead Personnel and Performances 237 Notes 241 Bibliography 265 Index 281

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Book SynopsisAlexander Ghedi Weheliye traces R&B music's continued relevance for Black life since the late 1970s, showing how it remains a thriving venue for the continued expression of Black thought and life and a primary archive of the contemporary moment.Trade Review“This cutting-edge book demonstrates the work of a thinker who has devoted a great deal of research and care to the study of the sonic, historiographic, and aesthetic consequences of Blackness. Alexander Ghedi Weheliye’s concentration on the rich concurrences of Blackness and R&B is a true blessing. Deftly mapping out new avenues of critical pursuit devoted to the art of Blackness, Feenin is a stunning work.” -- Michael Boyce Gillespie, author of * Film Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of Black Film *“Feenin is less a collection of essays and more a playlist of Alexander Ghedi Weheliye’s greatest hits. It assembles a series of captivating essays that register the complex sonic frequencies of Black life with resounding effect. The ‘tracks’ gathered here demonstrate the force of Weheliye’s incisive theorizing and its profound contribution to sounding the rhythm, vibes, and groove of Black studies in the ‘forceful fullness of the Now.’” -- Tina M. Campt, Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities, Princeton UniversityTable of ContentsTrack 0.0 Good Days: R&B Music and Critical Fabulation in the Frequencies of Now 1 Track 1.0 Engendering Phonographies: Sonic Technologies of Blackness / A Response to Tavia Nyong’o 23 Track 2.0 “Feenin": Posthuman Voices in R&B Music 37 Track 3.0 Rhythms of Relation: Black Popular Music and Mobile Technologies 75 Interlude 1. Calling My Phone 98 Track 4.0 My Volk to Come: Specters of Peoplehood in Diaspora Discourse and Afro-German Popular Music 100 Track 5.0 “White Brothers with No Soul": UnTuning the Historiography of Berlin Techno / Interview with Annie Goh 121 Interlude 2. Don't Take It Away 135 Track 6.0 New Waves, Shifting Terrains: Prince’s and David Bowie’s Transatlantic Crossovers 140 Interlude 3. #BeyondDeepBrandyAlbumCuts 153 Track 7.0 “Sounding That Precarious Existence": On R&B Music, Technology, and Blackness / An Interview with Nehal El-Hadi 158 Track 8.0 “Scream My Name Like a Protest": R&B Music as BlackFem Technology of Humanity in the Age of #Blacklivesmatter 178 Interlude 4. Songify Your Life 198 Track 9.0 808s and Heartbreak / Alexander Ghedi Weheliye and Katherine McKittrick 201 Track 10.0 Wayward Shuddering, Beautiful Tremors (AGW's Quiet Storm Remix) 237 Sources 245 Index 275

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Book SynopsisJordan Alexander Stein uses an archive of Nina Simone's performances, images, and writings to think through the space between our collective and individual fantasies about Simone the performer, Civil Rights activist, and icon and her own fantasies about herself.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2022 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities, award by by the Council of Graduate SchoolsExplores the role of jazz celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williams as representatives of African American religion in the twentieth centuryBeginning in the 1920s, the Jazz Age propelled Black swing artists into national celebrity. Many took on the role of race representatives, and were able to leverage their popularity toward achieving social progress for other African Americans. In Lift Every Voice and Swing, Vaughn A. Booker argues that with the emergence of these popular jazz figures, who came from a culture shaped by Black Protestantism, religious authority for African Americans found a place and spokespeople outside of traditional Afro-Protestant institutions and religious life. Popular Black jazz professionalssuch as Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williamsinherited religious authority though they were not Trade ReviewBooker offers a fresh and innovative perspective on twentieth-century African American religious history and culture by highlighting how Black jazz professionals functioned as “race representatives” in American public life and as agents in shaping and transforming the landscape of African American religious life. Mobilizing a host of unconventional sources for religious studies, Lift Every Voice and Swing presents a fascinating and original portrait of the dynamic relationship between popular culture and Black religious life. -- Judith Weisenfeld, author of New World A Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great MigrationIn this vividly imagined, carefully researched, and musically written book, Vaughn Booker argues for jazz as the vector by which African American spiritual authority moved beyond black church life to saturate all of American culture, and from there to command the shape, feel, and sound of the long twentieth century. A book this fresh about religion in the lives and works of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams would by itself be a remarkable achievement. But Lift Every Voice and Swing is more: a demonstration of the power of their artistry to move and change the world. -- Tracy Fessenden, Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State UniversityLift Every Voice and Swing is entirely original and groundbreaking. By way of incisive archival research and superb cultural analysis, Vaughn A. Booker has shown that there was a religiosity to the creation of jazz music and that some jazz musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams, represented alternative sources of spiritual authority and religious ways of being throughout the long twentieth century. Convincingly overturning notions of the innate secularity of jazz, Booker has provoked a powerful rethinking of African American religious history and the means by which we tell that history. -- Wallace Best, Princeton UniversityWhile Booker is an unconventional music researcher, readers benefit from his lifting up of the unspoken, unsung, and unswung flows of multi-faceted, religious jazz lives…His expansive inclusion of various types of texts makes our reading of these great figures richer by amplifying the musical meaning found in their envoiced and religio-socially swinging lives. * American Religion *Booker’s fluency in religious and music history is formidable. His book is dense with ideas expressed in prose that will reward both scholars and general readers with an interest in twentieth-century religion, American music, African American studies, and history. * The Journal of African American History *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2022 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities, award by by the Council of Graduate SchoolsExplores the role of jazz celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williams as representatives of African American religion in the twentieth centuryBeginning in the 1920s, the Jazz Age propelled Black swing artists into national celebrity. Many took on the role of race representatives, and were able to leverage their popularity toward achieving social progress for other African Americans. In Lift Every Voice and Swing, Vaughn A. Booker argues that with the emergence of these popular jazz figures, who came from a culture shaped by Black Protestantism, religious authority for African Americans found a place and spokespeople outside of traditional Afro-Protestant institutions and religious life. Popular Black jazz professionalssuch as Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williamsinherited religious authority though they were not Trade Review"Booker offers a fresh and innovative perspective on twentieth-century African American religious history and culture by highlighting how Black jazz professionals functioned as “race representatives” in American public life and as agents in shaping and transforming the landscape of African American religious life. Mobilizing a host of unconventional sources for religious studies, Lift Every Voice and Swing presents a fascinating and original portrait of the dynamic relationship between popular culture and Black religious life." -- Judith Weisenfeld, author of New World A Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration"In this vividly imagined, carefully researched, and musically written book, Vaughn Booker argues for jazz as the vector by which African American spiritual authority moved beyond black church life to saturate all of American culture, and from there to command the shape, feel, and sound of the long twentieth century. A book this fresh about religion in the lives and works of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams would by itself be a remarkable achievement. But Lift Every Voice and Swing is more: a demonstration of the power of their artistry to move and change the world." -- Tracy Fessenden, Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State University"Lift Every Voice and Swing is entirely original and groundbreaking. By way of incisive archival research and superb cultural analysis, Vaughn A. Booker has shown that there was a religiosity to the creation of jazz music and that some jazz musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams, represented alternative sources of spiritual authority and religious ways of being throughout the long twentieth century. Convincingly overturning notions of the innate secularity of jazz, Booker has provoked a powerful rethinking of African American religious history and the means by which we tell that history." -- Wallace Best, Princeton University"While Booker is an unconventional music researcher, readers benefit from his lifting up of the unspoken, unsung, and unswung flows of multi-faceted, religious jazz lives…His expansive inclusion of various types of texts makes our reading of these great figures richer by amplifying the musical meaning found in their envoiced and religio-socially swinging lives." * American Religion *"Booker’s fluency in religious and music history is formidable. His book is dense with ideas expressed in prose that will reward both scholars and general readers with an interest in twentieth-century religion, American music, African American studies, and history." * The Journal of African American History *

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Book SynopsisDerived from the nationalist writings of Jose Marti, the concept of Cubanidad (Cubanness) has always imagined a unified hybrid nation where racial difference is nonexistent and nationality trumps all other axes identities. Scholars have critiqued this celebration of racial mixture, highlighting a gap between the claim of racial harmony and the realities of inequality faced by Afro-Cubans since independence in 1898. In this book, Rebecca M. Bodenheimer argues that it is not only the recognition of racial difference that threatens to divide the nation, but that popular regional sentiment further contests the hegemonic national discourse. Given that the music is a prominent symbol of Cubanidad, musical practices play an important role in constructing regional, local, and national identities.This book suggests that regional identity exerts a significant influence on the aesthetic choices made by Cuban musicians. Through the examination of several genres, BodenheTrade ReviewAn insightful and well theorized contribution to existing literature, Rebecca Bodenheimer’s book is the first on Cuban music to explore the topic of regionalism in detail, discursively and musically, as well as its intersections with hybridity and racial conflict. A fascinating study."" - Robin Moore, professor of ethnomusicology, the University of Texas at Austin""By avoiding a Havana-centric approach, Bodenheimer examines the presence of significant cultural and musical distance between eastern and western Cuba as well as the different meanings of ‘blackness’ in various parts of the island. She lays bare the contradiction that eastern Cuba, widely regarded in Havana as the ‘blackest’ region of the island, is simultaneously celebrated as the cradle of the ‘mestizo’ Son genre. Bodenheimer documents in impressive detail the rise in the last forty years of two new rumba styles, the batarumba and the guarapachangueo. This is a truly refreshing book about Cuban music and culture which, by connecting notions of race and place, explores the way in which musical practices define regional identities in the island."" - Raul Fernandez, author of From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz

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Book SynopsisExamines in rich detail the playing styles and international influence of important figures in US Latin music. Sue Miller focuses on the Cuban flute style in light of its transformations in the US after the 1959 revolution and within the vibrant context of 1960s New York

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Book SynopsisAround the world there are grandparents, parents, and children who can still sing ditties by Tigger or Baloo the Bear or the Seven Dwarves. This staying power and global reach is in large part a testimony to the pizzazz of performers, songwriters, and other creative artists who worked with Walt Disney Records. Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records chronicles for the first time the fifty-year history of the Disney recording companies launched by Walt Disney and Roy Disney in the mid-1950s, when Disneyland Park, Davy Crockett, and the Mickey Mouse Club were taking the world by storm. The book provides a perspective on all-time Disney favorites and features anecdotes, reminiscences, and biographies of the artists who brought Disney magic to audio. Authors Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar go behind the scenes at the Walt Disney Studios and discover that in the early days Walt Disney and Roy Disney resisted going into the record business before the success of ""The Ballad of Davy Crockett"" ignited the in-house label. Along the way, the book traces the recording adventures of such Disney favorites as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Cinderella, Bambi, Jiminy Cricket, Winnie the Pooh, and even Walt Disney himself. Mouse Tracks reveals the struggles, major successes, and occasional misfires. Included are impressions and details of teen-pop princesses Annette Funicello and Hayley Mills, the Mary Poppins phenomenon, a Disney-style ""British Invasion,"" and a low period when sagging sales forced Walt Disney to suggest closing the division down. Complementing each chapter are brief performer biographies, reproductions of album covers and art, and facsimiles of related promotional material. Mouse Tracks is a collector's bonanza of information on this little-analyzed side of the Disney empire.Learn more about the book and the authors at www.mousetracksonline.com.

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Book SynopsisA revelatory study of how composers and dramatists of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France criticized and trivialized independent women in their portrayals of them in works of theater and opera. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French theatrical works created an uneasy dialogue with the often-blistering depictions of marriage in contemporary writings by literary women. For over a century, composers and librettists attempted to silence such anti-traditionalist views through dramas that ridicule, banish, or, even more violently, silence and subjugate female characters who resist marriage. These dramas portray independent-minded women as agents ofchaos who deploy their sexuality to destabilize class demarcations, or to destroy families and at times the monarchy itself. Coquettes, Wives, and Widows: Gender Politics in French Baroque Opera and Theater shows how dramatists wrested narratives away from women and weaponized those narratives in a defense of the status quo. It examines a wide range of works of different types: from Jean-Philippe Rameau's Platée, ou Junon jalouseand André Campra's Aréthuse, ou la Vengeance de l'Amour to representative works from the Comédie Française, the Comédie Italienne, and the fairgound theaters. Each theater offered denigrating portraits of independent womenas dissolute, obstinate, and extremist. The operas and other theatrical works explored in Coquettes, Wives, and Widows reveal who (in the view of many at the time) should exercise authority to make choices aboutwomen's lives. They also give evidence of widespread fears about how society might change if it were to grant women themselves that responsibility.Trade ReviewMarcie Ray explores women's character types in French comic entertainments, contextualizing spectacles and their themes within a broad array of literary and historical works and stylistic trends. Ray probes questions ranging from identity to reception in her efforts to locate the sites and mechanisms involved in women's quest for cultural authority in the eighteenth century. Coquettes, Wives, and Widows is timely, intriguing, and significant. -- Margaret Butler, University of Wisconsin-MadisonWell fleshed-out, with detailed and well-documented case studies. [The consideration of] legal contexts is greatly welcome, allowing the author to dig further into the thick social and mental reality of French society during the Ancien Régime. The discussion of the "coquette" focuses on how the treatment of a social class could serve to critique and denigrate women who sought to please in order to turn their charms to profit. . . .Astute. . . . Teems with ideas. * REVUE DE MUSICOLOGIE *Table of ContentsIntroduction From Platée's Frog-like Flirt to Pompadour's Yellow Skin: Correcting the Coquette Disciplining Widows The Price of Independence: Women Seeking Separations "Everywhere Our Hearts are in Danger": Cupid's Triumph and the Decline of the Indifferent Mistress Epilogue Appendix

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Book SynopsisThroughout the nineteenth century, people heard more music in the theatre - accompanying popular dramas such as Frankenstein, Oliver Twist, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Lady Audley’s Secret, The Corsican Brothers, The Three Musketeers, as well as historical romances by Shakespeare and Schiller - than they did in almost any other area of their lives. But unlike film music, theatrical music has received very little attention from scholars and so it has been largely lost to us. In this groundbreaking study, Michael V. Pisani goes in search of these abandoned sounds.Mining old manuscripts and newspapers, he finds that starting in the 1790s, theatrical managers in Britain and the United States began to rely on music to play an interpretive role in melodramatic productions. During the nineteenth century, instrumental music - in addition to song - was a common feature in the production of stage plays.The music played by instrumental ensembles not only enlivened performances but also served other important functions. Many actors and actresses found that accompanimental music helped them sustain the emotional pitch of a monologue or dialogue sequence. Music also helped audiences to identify the motivations of characters. Playwrights used music to hold together the hybrid elements of melodrama, heighten the build toward sensation, and dignify the tragic pathos of villains and other characters. Music also aided manager-directors by providing cues for lighting and other stage effects. Moreover, in a century of seismic social and economic changes, music could provide a moral compass in an uncertain moral universe.Featuring dozens of musical examples and images of the old theatres, Music for the Melodramatic Theatre charts the progress of the genre from its earliest use in the eighteenth century to the elaborate stage productions of the very early twentieth century.

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Book SynopsisAt least since the rise of the “Nashville sound” in the 1950s, Tennessee’s capital city has attracted numerous books and articles offering insight into the celebrity machine known as Music City. But behind the artist in the limelight are a host of support personnel and contributors who shape the artist’s music. Of these myriad occupations within the music industry, only two have received significant attention: executives at the major labels and elite songwriters who have forged a path to the top of the charts. In Making Music in Music City, sociologist John Markert compiles and assesses more than one hundred interviews with industry professionals whose roles have been less often examined: producers, publishers, songwriters, management, studio musicians, and more.The book naturally pivots around the country music industry but also discusses Nashville’s role in other forms of modern music, such as rock, Christian, and rap. Markert’s in-depth interviews with key music professionals provide a fresh perspective on the roles of critical players in Nashville’s music industry. This book sheds light not only on the complexities of the industry and the occupational changes taking place but on the critical role of those who work behind the scenes to shape the music that ultimately reaches the public.Through firsthand accounts, Making Music in Music City analyzes just what it takes to create, produce, and disseminate the Nashville sound.

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Book SynopsisCorazón Abierto: Mexican American Voices in Texas Music provides a wide view of the myriad contributions Mexican American artists have made to music in Texas and the United States. Based on interviews with longtime stalwarts of Mexican American music - Flaco JimÉnez, Tish Hinojosa, Ernie Durawa, Rosie Flores, and others - and also conversations with newer voices like Lesly Reynaga, Marisa Rose Mejia, Josh Baca, and many more, Kathleen Hudson allows the musicians to tell their own stories in a unique and personal way. As the artists reveal in their free-ranging discussions with Hudson, their influences go far beyond traditionally Mexican genres like conjunto, norteÑo, and Tejano to extend into rock, jazz, country-western, zydeco, and many other styles.Hudson's survey also includes essays, poetry, and other creative works by Dagoberto Gilb, Sandra Cisneros, and others, but the core of the book consists of what she describes as 'a collection of voices from different locations in Texas....Some represent voices from the edge, while others give us a view from the center'. Weaving together a tapestry that combines 'family, borders, creativity, music, food, and community', the book presents an image as varied and difficult to define as the musicians themselves. By sharing the artists' accounts of their influences, their experiences, their family stories, and their musical and cultural journeys, CorazÓn Abierto reminds us that borders can be gateways, that differences enrich, rather than isolate.

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Book SynopsisA bold application of the concept of "canonical" works to the development of French operatic and concert life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This long-awaited book by a leading historian of European music life offers a fresh reading of concert and operatic life by showing how certain musical works in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France came to be considered "canonic": that is, admirable and worthy of being taken as models. In a series of interlinked essays, William Weber draws particular attention to the ways in which such reputations could shift in different eras and circumstances. The first chapter outlines how such a surge of reputation came about for Jean-Baptiste Lully after his death in 1687, followed a century later by one for the operas of Christoph-Willibald Gluck and Niccolò Piccinni. Next, Beverly Wilcox contributes a crucial chapter exploring how a canon of sacred works evolved at the Concert Spirituel between 1725 and 1790. Subsequent chapters detail the rise of an "incipient canon" for Joseph Haydn's music in the 1780s; a new operatic canon centered on works of Gioachino Rossini and Giacomo Meyerbeer; a century-long canonic repertory at the theater of the Opéra-Comique; and, between 1860 and 1914, frequent concert performances of excerpts from Wagner's operas, sometimes along with excerpts from Meyerbeer's. Throughout, Weber and Wilcox demonstrate how the French musical press reflected musical taste, and also shaped it, across two centuries.Trade ReviewDeftly illustrate[s] the rise and fall of various canonic repertories in France from the eighteenth through the early twentieth century. Many of these historical canons turn out to be surprisingly ephemeral, often lasting, as Weber explains, approximately three generations...Offers musicologists refreshing...ways to describe and discuss the drastic event of sounding music rather than to engage in gnostic interpretations. It offers music administrators practical analyses and historical examples of the process of refreshing and renewing stagnant canonic repertoires. * MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTES *Will be required reading for discussions of canonic thinking and musical institutions in France...Contains nuanced writing on important concepts and distinctions. The scope and quality of the research underpinning this book mean that it presents an essential history that will provide a new basis from which to advance our understanding of canon formation. This is vital work. * MUSIC & LETTERS *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Domestic versus the Foreign in Eighteenth-century Paris and London Elements of canon Formation at the Concert Spirituel, by Beverly Wilcox To Praise or to criticize? The evolution of music criticism in eighteenth-century France Haydn in the press during the 1780s: How did a Canon Arise? Parallel canons at the Opéra and the Comédie-Française at the end of the Ancien Régime Negotiating repertory, public demand, and les progrès de la musique at the Paris Opéra, 1815-1830 Tracing the evolution of le vieux répertoire at the Opéra-Comique in the nineteenth century Richard Wagner, concert life, and musical canon in Paris, 1860-1914 An Afterward Bibliography Notes

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Book SynopsisLeos Janácek (1854-1928) occupied a pre-eminent position in Moravian (and wider Czech) culture, not only as a composer but also as a folksong collector, journalist, educator and nationalist. One of the greatest and most original composers of the early twentieth century, Leos Janácek (1854-1928) occupied a pre-eminent position in Moravian culture, not only as a composer but also as a folksong collector, journalist, educator and nationalist. His friends and associates included artists, writers, ethnographers and politicians, as well as conductors, singers and instrumentalists. Janácek's many pupils included the conductor Bretislav Bakala and thecomposer Pavel Haas. He had important associations with publishers in Vienna and Prague and with the earliest years of Czech Radio. Janácek was strongly attached to particular places - Hukvaldy, Brno, Luhacovice - and had professional links with Prague, Berlin, London and beyond. The Janácek Compendium includes nearly 300 entries on every aspect of Janácek's life and works, with detailed notes on all his significant compositions - above all the operas - providing the latest information to emerge about some of his most famous pieces. An extensive bibliography supports the entries, which are cross-referenced to enable wider exploration of particular topics. NIGELSIMEONE is a widely respected writer and lecturer on music, with a lifelong interest in Czech music. His books include Janacek's Works (Oxford University Press, 1997, co-authored with John Tyrrell and Alena Nemcová), TheLeonard Bernstein Letters (Yale University Press, 2013), and Charles Mackerras (Boydell Press, 2015, co-edited with John Tyrrell). He is a regular broadcaster on BBC radio.Trade ReviewThe Compendium is well written, authoritative, and interesting enough to be read cover-to-cover or in large chunks, though most people will delve into it as fancy dictates. For scholars writing an article or paper on the composer it should be invaluable. . . . [It] is a sturdy hardbound, designed to be opened frequently. Its high quality pages are full of clean print, little white space, and 21 black-and-white pictures. It's a treasure trove of Leos Janácek and Czech music in general. -- Roger Hecht * AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE *An encyclopedia of its subject...cover[ing] Janacek's works, his colleagues and main interpreters.his family members and further significant others, places important to his life or career, and contemporary organizations that performed his works...the operas themselves are dealt with generously and with a clarity of approach that in each case explains their origins. * OPERA MAGAZINE *Simeone offers an excellent guide to specific works and other aspects of Janácek's career as a conductor, ethnographer, and teacher. . . . Anglophones will consider this the standard English-language resource for Janácek studies; specialists, however, will also find the German-language online encyclopedia Leos Janácek (www.leos-janacek.org) extremely useful. . . . Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Omits little or nothing that even the most demanding seeker for information and opinion about Janácek could expect to find. * GRAMOPHONE *This Compendium represents a book that has been conspicuously absent from the Janácek literature. It is quick and straightforward to find all of the important information on Janácek's life and works, including key personalities and editions. Everything essential is here, supported by an admirably thorough and up-to-date bibliography. As always, Nigel Simeone's work is of the highest quality, and this publication is a must for all musicologists, opera lovers and admirers of Janácek's extraordinary music. Dr Jirí Zahrádka, Curator of the Janácek Archive, Brno, * Czech Republic *Table of ContentsIntroduction Biography Dictionary Works Bibiliography

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Book SynopsisOffers a unique investigation of the composition of the entire corpus of Beethoven's symphonies, reconstructing their creation through the most extensive study of Beethoven's sketches yet. Beethoven's nine symphonies are a cornerstone of Western classical music and have revolutionised it. Composers succeeding Beethoven found their output measured against this master's work. But how did his symphonies come into being and how did they reach their final form? These are the questions this book seeks to answer. Barry Cooper has been one of the leading advocates of the need for extensive studies of Beethoven's sketches, and we see him here applying his usual investigative rigour to the study of the symphonies. For most of the symphonies the sketches have not previously been fully examined. In contrast, Cooper's book provides a much deeper exploration of these sketches, along with autograph scores, corrected copies and first editions, while the Beethoven correspondence offers additional information on the first publication and performances of the symphonies. The result is a clear overview of the creation of each symphony in turn, placed within the context of musical life in Beethoven's Vienna. Another strand of the investigation covers Beethoven's unfinished symphonies and how they helped to provide the fertile soil from which the finished ones grew. Most of those did not progress beyond a few bars, but two, known as No. 0 and No. 10, were sketched extensively. This book therefore offers a unique investigation of the composition of the entire corpus of Beethoven's symphonies, reconstructing their creation from Beethoven's rather than posterity's viewpoint.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Long and Hazardous Road to the First Symphony, Op. 21 2. A Creation in Two Parts: The Second Symphony, Op. 36 3. Elevating the Genre: The Third Symphony (Eroica), Op. 55 4. The Oppersdorff Connection: The Fourth Symphony, Op. 60 5. Motivic Intensity: The Fifth Symphony, Op. 67 6. 'More an Expression of Feeling than Painting': The Sixth Symphony (Pastoral), Op. 68 7. 'Great, Exalted' Work: The Seventh Symphony, Op. 92 8. 'Just because it is much better': The Eighth Symphony, Op. 93 9. The Philharmonic Connection: The Ninth Symphony, Op. 125 10. Epilogue Bibliography Index of music manuscripts Index of Beethoven's works General index

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Book SynopsisA former widower whose life was saved by writing about music spends a year waiting for his new wife to fly over from Toronto and join him in London. While he waits he observes that the world is subtly changing and that music has played a key part in these changes. A galaxy of characters, ranging from Marty Wilde to Jay-Z via Glenn Gould, Dorothy Squires, Britney Spears, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Patrick Cargill, Orson Welles and many forgotten others, conspire to alter his perspective, leading to a climax where he is finally united with his wife and the world chooses a new and better leader. The Blue in the Air is a gesture of defiance from a tiny but meaningful tugboat of resistance. At a time when we are repeatedly encouraged for reasons of demographic convenience to believe that music can change nothing and mean nothing, this writer demonstrates comprehensively that for those who stay awake, alert and alive, music still retains the power to change the fabric of the air we choose to breathe.Trade ReviewMarcello Carlin lures or impels us through an astonishing maze of music, much of it very likely unfamiliar with, from radical free improv to one off novelty pop, via every imaginable sheeptrack or rat run or scenic bus ride. (Mark Sinker)

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Book Synopsis„Weil jede Note zählt“: Dies ist das interpretatorische Credo, das Alfred Brendel in diesem Buch entwirft. Es ist eine Aufforderung, über den Umgang mit Mozarts Musik nachzudenken, über das, was man gemeinhin „Interpretation“ nennt und was sich in den letzten 100 Jahren immer wieder fundamental verändert hat. In Gesprächen und Essays formulieren weltberühmte Mozart-InterpretInnen und bekannte Mozart-ExpertInnen ihre Erfahrungen und Erkenntnisse darüber, was es hieß und was es heißt, Mozart aufzuführen.Table of ContentsErster Teil: Essays.- zweiter Teil: Gespräche.- Dritter Teil: Mozartfest Würzburg.- Anhang: Werkregister, Personenregister

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Book SynopsisWhile institutional critique has long been an important part of artistic practice and theoretical debate in the visual arts, it has long escaped attention in the field of music. This open access volume assembles for the first time an array of theoretical approaches and practical examples dealing with New Music’s institutions, their critique, and their transformations. For scholars, leaders, and practitioners alike, it offers an important overview of current developments as well as theoretical reflections about New Music and its institutions today. In this way, it provides a major contribution to the debate about the present and future of contemporary music.Table of Contents1. Introduction.- I Scholars.- 2. Institutions Against Art Music—Curation, Rehearsal, and Contemporary Art.- 3. Gender Issues as Criticism within (New) Music Institutions.- 4. Darmstadt and its Discontents.- 5. Epistemological Stagflation and the Crisis of Democracy in Contemporary Music Research.- 6. Black Music’s Institutional Critique.- II Artists.- 7. My Via Dolorosa from (Impotent) Institutional Critique to the Founding of my own Institution, the Norwegian Opra, with the Gradual Construction of the followers of ø Opra-Dorf on a Meadow in the Swedish Forest, thereby (Maybe) Saving the Autonomy of Art.- 8. Sheltering Each Other from the Storms to Come. Why we need to become allies rather than critics of liberal cultural institutions.- 9. Gender Relations in New Music is Institutional Critique.- 10. Ark.- 11. On the Kunsthalle for Music and (Music-)Institutional Critique.- III Interviews.- 12. “We started expanding the ‘us,’ rather than including someone else” – Peter Meanwell and Tine Rude interviewed by Brandon Farnsworth.- 13. “Don’t expect the wrong things from institutions.” – Berno Odo Polzer interviewed by Christian Grüny.- 14. “Pockets of Obscure Skills” – Samson Young interviewed by Brandon Farnsworth.- 15. “Positioning myself between stools” – Hannes Seidl interviewed by Christian Grüny.- 16. “Framing Europe” – meLê yamomo interviewed by Theresa Beyer.

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Book SynopsisBy the end of the nineteenth century, Chinese culture had fallen into a stasis, and intellectuals began to go abroad for new ideas. What emerged was an exciting musical genre that C. C. Liu terms "new music." With no direct ties to traditional Chinese music, "new music" reflects the compositional techniques and musical idioms of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European styles. Liu traces the genesis and development of "new music" throughout the twentieth century, deftly examining the social and political forces that shaped "new music" and its uses by political activists and the government.Trade ReviewA valuable volume for any serious scholar of recent Chinese music and culture." —Choice

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Book SynopsisLa fuerza y el exceso del hard rock contados por sus protagonistasEl heavy metal de los años 80 fue una fuente de escapismo hedonista que encarnó y marcó una década espectacularmente exagerada. Éxitos como We?re Not Gonna Take It de Twisted Sister, Girls, Girls, Girls de Mötley Crüe y Welcome to the Jungle de Guns N? Roses están tan vinculados a esos años como el PAC-MAN y E.T.Nöthin? But a Good Time refleja la energía del hair metal a través de las palabras de quienes lo protagonizaron, como los miembros de Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Poison, Guns N? Roses, Skid Row, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Winger, Warrant, Cinderella y Quiet Riot, así como Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford y muchos más.Esta es la crónica definitiva de una época en la que el exceso y el éxito iban de la mano; de una era musical en la que las bandas y sus fans solo buscaban pasar un buen rato... y lo consiguieron.

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Book SynopsisFrom Jubilee to Hip Hop includes 36 reading selections that underscore the breadth and variety of African American musical culture. Each of these selections relates something notable and interesting about African American musical culture since the Emancipation, whether it is Marian Anderson's recollection of the legendary 1939 DAR Constitution Hall debacle, or John Chilton's story of the impact of Louis Jordan's song, Caldonia.Table of Contents1) "Adrift on Stormy Seas: The Jubilee Singers and Their Songs" by J.B.T. Marsh 2) "Richards and Pringle's Original Georgia Minstrels and Billy Kersands, 1889-1895" by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff 3) "The Virginia Jubilee Singers in Bourke, Australia" (Anonymous) 4) "Conclusion", African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia: A Story of Folk Traditions by Cecelia Conway 5) "War on Ragtime" & "Suppression of 'Ragtime'" (Anonymous) 6) "Of The Sorrow Songs," from the Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. Du Bois 7) "The Nineteenth Century Origins of Jazz" by Lawrence Gushee 8) "Marshall Lullaby" by Kip Lornell and Charles Wolfe 9) "The Scene and the Players in New York" by Tom Riis 10) "Jelly Roll Blues" by Jelly Roll Morton 11) "William Marion Cook" by Cary B. Lewis 12) "Ma Rainey and the Minstrels" by Charles Edward Smith 13) "Black Sacred Harp Singing in Southeast Alabama" by Hank Willett 14) "A Negro Explains 'Jazz'" (Anonymous) 15) "Paul Robeson, Musician" by Doris McGinty and Wayne Shirley 16) "Conflict and Resolution in the Life of Thomas Andrew Dorsey" by Michael Harris 17) "Fats Waller (Comedy Tonight)" by Gary Giddins 18) "'Dean of Afro-American Composers' or 'Harlem Renaissance Man': The New Negro and the Musical Poetics of William Grant Still" by Gayle Murchison 19) "Easter Sunday" by Marian Anderson 20) "Caldonia" by John Chilton 21) "Elder Beck's Temple" by William Russell 22) "T-Bone Blues: T-Bone Walker's Story in His Own Words" by T-Bone Walker 23) "The Impact of Gospel Music on the Secular Music Industry" by Portia K. Maultsby 24) "Singing in the Streets of Raleigh, 1963: Some Recollections" by Clyde Appleton 25) "Motown Calls 'The Rock & Roll Kid'" by Dennis Coffey 26) "Respect: 1964-1965" by Rob Bowman 27) "Clifton Chenier: 'They Call Me The King'" by Ben Sandmel 28) The Art of The Muscle: Miles Davis as American Knight and American Knave" by Gerald Early 29) "Evaluating Ellington" by Mark Tucker 30) "The P-Funk Empire" by Rickey Vincent 31) "Hip-Hop, Puerto Ricans and Ethno-racial Identities in New York" by Raquel Rivera 32) "Daughters of the Blues" by Cheryl Keys 33) "Media Interventions" by Maureen Mahon 34) "Black Artistic Invisibility: A Black Composer Talking 'bout Taking Care of the Souls Of Black Folks While Losing Much Ground Fast" by William Banfield 35) "Stepping Out an African Heritage" by Elizabeth Fine 36) "Rhythm and Bullshit?: The Slow Decline of R & B" by Mark Anthony Neal

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Book SynopsisThis is a comprehensive philosophy of the art of singing, addressed to those with a gift for singing who would like to understand better how to approach putting that gift to use. The central theme is that the imagination is an essential pre-requisite of singing--not an optional extra.Trade ReviewThis is one of the best (if not the best) books to be written about singing in recent times. Hemsley talks so much common sense, touches on so many truths about singers, singing and performance, and writes it all in such well-proportioned, unencumbered prose that active singers and aspiring students alike can and should benefit from reading his many wise and enlightening words. The public who attend opera and song recitals would also profit from reading the volume ... With so much wisdom imparted it is no wonder Janet Baker writes in praise of 'the extraordinary wisdom and truth' within the book's pages. * Alan Blyth, Opera *I couldn't put it down. Hemsley treats the subject seriously; everyone who is genuinely serious about singing, teacher, pupil, or listener, will find, as I did, extraordinary wisdom and truth within its pages ... His ideas should have far-reaching influence on the teaching of singing and the criteria used for accepting pupils into a vastly over-crowded profession' * Dame Janet Baker *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; I: THE BASIC PRINCIPLES ; Readiness to sing - The Raw Material ; Posture ; Posture - Hints ; The Impulse ; The Intention ; Intention - Hints ; The Anacrusis ; Colour ; Falsetto ; The Importance of Good Diction ; The Singer's Ear ; The Pitch-Intensity Effect ; Breath ; II: WORDS AND MUSIC ; The Works of the Imagination - Words and Music ; Legato and Tessitura ; The Pulse ; III: PERFORMANCE ; Performance ; Bibliography ; Index

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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