Rites, Rights & Rhythms: A Genealogy of Musical Meaning in Colombia’s Black Pacific by Michael Birenbaum Quintero (review)

Abstract

piece he had written in 1970 for Abraham Kaplan, who had prepared the choir for the Kaddish Symphony. Blues also figures in. For example, “I Don’t Know” from Mass borrows the riff from “Mannish Boy” by Muddy Waters. But not all of Bernstein’s jazz inspirations made the final cut. We also read that Bernstein originally planned the closing “Communion” of Mass to include a jazzbased vocal trio. “The echoes of the swing era never fully die away for Bernstein, so he still could hear jazz as a music for celebration and unity” (197). Perhaps in an effort not to sound outdated, Bernstein also tried his hand at other styles in Mass. The Celebrant’s “Simple Song,” which Baber labels as “radical tonal simplicity,” reminds us of the folkinspired tunes that were common at guitar masses in Catholic churches post–Vatican II, and a rock band is one of the many ensembles Bernstein calls for in his musical cornucopia. Although these attempts at keeping up with the times were not accepted by critics, Baber somewhat laments Bernstein’s inability to continue this trajectory in 1600. Part of her critique focuses on the fact that “the moments in which Bernstein uses the vocabulary of jazz to write for black characters, speaking on their own behalf, veer perilously close to outright ventriloquism or modernday minstrelsy” (205). She goes on to point out that by returning once again to the blues for these characters, for example, in the song “Bright and Black,” Bernstein “freez[es] black expressive culture at an earlier stage” (214). If he was able to absorb folk and rock in Mass, then why not evoke the soul music of Aretha Franklin or James Brown in 1600? “In leaving out soul in favor of his preferred jazz culture, he seems to have missed the point of black power” (215) and possibly revealed a limitation of his compositional language. Someone likely could have written the analyses in chapters 2 through 6 without writing chapter 1. But in carefully culling Bernstein’s writings to define the three precepts of innate tonality, human communication, and identity, Baber provides a firm grounding for the readings that follow. Her analytical observations, both musical and extramusical, are thus made richer by the context of the underpinnings of chapter 1. But more important, her cogent and thorough study of Bernstein’s compositional philosophy provides a framework for future research on Bernstein’s music, whether it engages with the issue of jazz or not. In this sense, Baber’s book can be read as a case study within a much larger project. The foundation she has laid and the example she has set will have likely a profound impact on Bernstein studies for years to come.