This powerful book covers the vast and various terrain of African
American music, from bebop to hip-hop. Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., begins
with an absorbing account of his own musical experiences with family and
friends on the South Side of Chicago, evoking Sunday-morning worship
services, family gatherings with food and dancing, and jam sessions at
local nightclubs. This lays the foundation for a brilliant discussion of
how musical meaning emerges in the private and communal realms of lived
experience and how African American music has shaped and reflected
identities in the black community. Deeply informed by Ramsey's
experience as an accomplished musician, a sophisticated cultural
theorist, and an enthusiast brought up in the community he discusses,
Race Music explores the global influence and popularity of African
American music, its social relevance, and key questions regarding its
interpretation and criticism.
Beginning with jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel, this book
demonstrates that while each genre of music is distinct-possessing its
own conventions, performance practices, and formal qualities-each is
also grounded in similar techniques and conceptual frameworks identified
with African American musical traditions. Ramsey provides vivid glimpses
of the careers of Dinah Washington, Louis Jordan, Dizzy Gillespie,
Cootie Williams, and Mahalia Jackson, among others, to show how the
social changes of the 1940s elicited an Afro-modernism that inspired
much of the music and culture that followed.
Race Music illustrates how, by transcending the boundaries between
genres, black communities bridged generational divides and passed down
knowledge of musical forms and styles. It also considers how the
discourse of soul music contributed to the vibrant social climate of the
Black Power Era. Multilayered and masterfully written, Race Music
provides a dynamic framework for rethinking the many facets of African
American music and the ethnocentric energy that infused its creation.
