The Art of Trumpet Teaching: The Legacy of Keith Johnson by Leigh Anne Hunsaker (review)

Abstract

grew up with (pp. 184–86). Rabbath’s compositions often have the qualities of a taqsim, modal cadenzas making heavy use of sequences and pushing the limits of the instrument and the player’s capabilities. Studies of Rabbath as composer and improviser are thus in order. In the tradition of virtuosos like Giovanni Bottesini and Domenico Dragonetti, his material is often a pretext for his bravura musicianship, although it also relates closely to his pedagogy, with many compositions serving as etudes as well as showpieces. His incorporation of Arabic, flamenco, and other elements suggests that, were he a generation or two younger, he would have fit easily into Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. Like the music of Ma and the ensemble he founded, Rabbath’s work has a complex relationship to genre, having been presented variously as exotica, jazz, classical, and avant-garde music. Discussions of its production, marketing, and reception would be relevant to studies of the construction of genres, aesthetics, and cultural hierarchy. Rabbath’s status as a colonial subject and person of color is used to build up to one fantastic anecdote, when he first arrived in Paris and was stunned to see White men employed as sanitation workers. But this theme does not reappear (pp. 31–32). His personal connections to Syria, France, and Europe are part of his relationship to musical materials and genres and could be explored along the lines of Robin D. G. Kelley’s Africa Speaks, America Answers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), Steven Feld’s Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), David Toop’s Exotica: Fabricated Soundscapes in a Real World (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1999), and similar studies of intercultural hybridity. Strum’s book will satisfy its core audience of bassists and Rabbath fans, but it also has the potential to aid scholars of genre, cultural hierarchy, and the music industry. While not an essential purchase for institutions without a significant bass performance program, it is recommended to any serving a music department with an interest in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Libraries interested in this title should also consider Mary Rannie’s authorized biography of Karr, Life on the G String (Victoria, BC: Friesen, 2017), and Turetzky’s memoir, A Different View (Del Mar, CA: BT & NC, 2014).