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A Language of Song: Journeys in the Musical World of the African Diaspora
Contributor(s): Charters, Samuel (Author)

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 ISBN: 0822343800     ISBN-13: 9780822343806
Publisher: Duke University Press
OUR PRICE: $27.50  

Binding Type: Paperback
Published: May 2009
* Out of Print *

Annotation: In A Language of Song, Samuel Chartersone of the pioneering collectors of African American musicwrites of a trip to West Africa where he found a gathering of cultures and a continuing history that lay behind the flood of musical expression [he] encountered everywhere . . . from Brazil to Cuba, to Trinidad, to New Orleans, to the Bahamas, to dance halls in west Louisiana and the great churches of Harlem. In this book, Charters takes readers along to each of those places and others including Jamaica and the Georgia Sea Islands, as he recounts experiences from a half-century spent following, documenting, recording, and writing about the Africa-influenced music of the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Music | Ethnomusicology
- Music | Genres & Styles - Blues
Dewey: 780.899
LCCN: 2008055237
Physical Information: 1.1" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" L (1.40 lbs) 368 pages
Features: Bibliography, Illustrated, Index, Maps, Table of Contents
Review Citations: Choice 10/01/2009
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
In A Language of Song, Samuel Charters-one of the pioneering collectors of African American music-writes of a trip to West Africa where he found "a gathering of cultures and a continuing history that lay behind the flood of musical expression he] encountered everywhere . . . from Brazil to Cuba, to Trinidad, to New Orleans, to the Bahamas, to dance halls of west Louisiana and the great churches of Harlem." In this book, Charters takes readers along to those and other places, including Jamaica and the Georgia Sea Islands, as he recounts experiences from a half-century spent following, documenting, recording, and writing about the Africa-influenced music of the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean.

Each of the book's fourteen chapters is a vivid rendering of a particular location that Charters visited. While music is always his focus, the book is filled with details about individuals, history, landscape, and culture. In first-person narratives, Charters relates voyages including a trip to the St. Louis home of the legendary ragtime composer Scott Joplin and the journey to West Africa, where he met a man who performed an hours-long song about the Europeans' first colonial conquests in Gambia. Throughout the book, Charters traces the persistence of African musical culture despite slavery, as well as the influence of slaves' songs on subsequent musical forms. In evocative prose, he relates a lifetime of travel and research, listening to brass bands in New Orleans; investigating the emergence of reggae, ska, and rock-steady music in Jamaica's dancehalls; and exploring the history of Afro-Cuban music through the life of the jazz musician Bebo Vald s. A Language of Song is a unique expedition led by one of music's most observant and well-traveled explorers.
 
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