Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000202
Steven Lewis
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Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000196
Karin A. Cuellar Rendon
In American Originals: A New World, A New Canon , Agave Baroque and Reginald L. Mobley present a survey of music composed in the Americas from colonial times up to the twentieth century. Showcasing music that is mostly by composers of color, this album confronts head-on our colonial and postcolonial musical histories while challenging the musical narrative we have been taught, that of the ontological supremacy of the European canon.
{"title":"Agave Baroque and Reginald L. Mobley. American Originals: A New World, A New Canon Acis Productions LLC. 2021.","authors":"Karin A. Cuellar Rendon","doi":"10.1017/S1752196323000196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196323000196","url":null,"abstract":"In American Originals: A New World, A New Canon , Agave Baroque and Reginald L. Mobley present a survey of music composed in the Americas from colonial times up to the twentieth century. Showcasing music that is mostly by composers of color, this album confronts head-on our colonial and postcolonial musical histories while challenging the musical narrative we have been taught, that of the ontological supremacy of the European canon.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45763911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1017/s1752196323000251
{"title":"SAM volume 17 issue 3 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s1752196323000251","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1752196323000251","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45893323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000184
Hannah Porter Denecke
and funk of tracks like “In Love,” “Soft and Wet,” and slow-jam “Baby” were among the styles of R&B that were right at home in Uncle Sam’s, the dance club that soon transformed into First Avenue. (The latter holds near-mythical status as the site where much of the Purple Rain LP was recorded, and additionally served as the visual setting of many club scenes in the film.) The precision of the playing, use of technological timbral and rhythmic characteristics, and melismatic, multi-tracked vocals that occur throughout the album all seem to be directly descended from the local scene. Then there is the last track on the record, the raucous “I’m Yours,” which begins with a nasty funk bass and screaming rock guitar lead part. In themes that focus on relations of race and their resultant musical markets, Swensson explains clearly how virtuosic guitar performance and rock-oriented styles were audible to Prince during his formative years. The beauty of learning this background helps to clarify that he was not somehow calculating his musical offerings to simultaneously occupy multiple economic segments within the music industry. Instead, his mix of rock and R&B elements was far more organic, reflecting his understanding of the possibilities of popular music as a means of artistic expression. Although written by someone with no official connection to higher education, Swensson’s book serves the mission of academic musicology as well as anything written by a university professor during the last half-decade. Using deep, historical investigation and carefully selected sources, Got to Be Something Here tells a fascinating story about music, race and region, filling a gaping hole in our public knowledge of this important musical scene.
《In Love》、《Soft and Wet》和慢节奏的《Baby》等放克音乐都是节奏布鲁斯的风格，在山姆大叔(Uncle Sam’s)这个很快变成第一大道(First Avenue)的舞蹈俱乐部里很常见。(后者有着近乎神话般的地位，因为《紫雨》LP的大部分内容都是在这里录制的，此外，它还是电影中许多俱乐部场景的视觉背景。)演奏的精确性，技术音色和节奏特征的使用，以及整个专辑中出现的旋律，多轨人声似乎都直接来自当地的场景。然后是这张唱片的最后一首歌，沙哑的“I 'm Yours”，以令人讨厌的放克贝斯和尖叫的摇滚吉他开场。在关注种族关系和由此产生的音乐市场的主题中，斯文森清楚地解释了在普林斯成长的岁月里，他是如何听到精湛的吉他表演和摇滚风格的。了解这一背景的美妙之处有助于澄清，他并没有以某种方式计算他的音乐产品，以同时占据音乐行业的多个经济部门。相反，他将摇滚和R&B元素的混合更加有机，反映了他对流行音乐作为艺术表达手段的可能性的理解。尽管作者与高等教育没有任何官方联系，斯文森的书却为学术音乐学的使命服务，就像过去五年里大学教授所写的任何东西一样。通过深入的历史调查和精心挑选的资料，本书讲述了一个关于音乐、种族和地区的迷人故事，填补了我们对这一重要音乐场景的公共知识的空白。
{"title":"Christian Sacred Music in the Americas Edited by Andrew Shenton and Joanna Smolko. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.","authors":"Hannah Porter Denecke","doi":"10.1017/S1752196323000184","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196323000184","url":null,"abstract":"and funk of tracks like “In Love,” “Soft and Wet,” and slow-jam “Baby” were among the styles of R&B that were right at home in Uncle Sam’s, the dance club that soon transformed into First Avenue. (The latter holds near-mythical status as the site where much of the Purple Rain LP was recorded, and additionally served as the visual setting of many club scenes in the film.) The precision of the playing, use of technological timbral and rhythmic characteristics, and melismatic, multi-tracked vocals that occur throughout the album all seem to be directly descended from the local scene. Then there is the last track on the record, the raucous “I’m Yours,” which begins with a nasty funk bass and screaming rock guitar lead part. In themes that focus on relations of race and their resultant musical markets, Swensson explains clearly how virtuosic guitar performance and rock-oriented styles were audible to Prince during his formative years. The beauty of learning this background helps to clarify that he was not somehow calculating his musical offerings to simultaneously occupy multiple economic segments within the music industry. Instead, his mix of rock and R&B elements was far more organic, reflecting his understanding of the possibilities of popular music as a means of artistic expression. Although written by someone with no official connection to higher education, Swensson’s book serves the mission of academic musicology as well as anything written by a university professor during the last half-decade. Using deep, historical investigation and carefully selected sources, Got to Be Something Here tells a fascinating story about music, race and region, filling a gaping hole in our public knowledge of this important musical scene.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44790866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1017/s1752196323000214
Katherine Reed
{"title":"The Velvet Underground Todd Haynes, director. Criterion Collection Blu-ray. 2021.","authors":"Katherine Reed","doi":"10.1017/s1752196323000214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1752196323000214","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48904716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1017/S175219632300024X
A. Apolloni
concludes by calling the reader to look to what is now called Palestine for further context. O’Connor reminds us that Jesus himself once lived in that region and would be described today as “a person of color,” and a Jew “who sang the psalms at Passover” and “chanted the scripture in the synagogue” (335). Thus, when we speak of Christianity, we must not lose sight of the origins of its very namesake, as O’Connor confirms the “vast majority of Christians in the Americas (and worldwide) do not share Jesus’s Jewishness” (335). I enjoyed reading this book throughout 2021, and I think it will intrigue readers from a variety of contexts. These chapters would be useful in a variety of classroom environments, whether for undergraduate or graduate students studying sacred or American musical expressions. Scholars of American sacred music will also find this book stimulating in the variety of methodological approaches it considers. In addition to the scholarly and educational contexts in which this book would be useful, I imagine it would also prove meaningful for curious readers beyond an academic context.
{"title":"The Sonic Episteme: Acoustic Resonance, Neoliberalism, and Biopolitics By Robin James. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.","authors":"A. Apolloni","doi":"10.1017/S175219632300024X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S175219632300024X","url":null,"abstract":"concludes by calling the reader to look to what is now called Palestine for further context. O’Connor reminds us that Jesus himself once lived in that region and would be described today as “a person of color,” and a Jew “who sang the psalms at Passover” and “chanted the scripture in the synagogue” (335). Thus, when we speak of Christianity, we must not lose sight of the origins of its very namesake, as O’Connor confirms the “vast majority of Christians in the Americas (and worldwide) do not share Jesus’s Jewishness” (335). I enjoyed reading this book throughout 2021, and I think it will intrigue readers from a variety of contexts. These chapters would be useful in a variety of classroom environments, whether for undergraduate or graduate students studying sacred or American musical expressions. Scholars of American sacred music will also find this book stimulating in the variety of methodological approaches it considers. In addition to the scholarly and educational contexts in which this book would be useful, I imagine it would also prove meaningful for curious readers beyond an academic context.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46920924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000238
Andrew Flory
Wilderson and its core ideas of Black social death and exclusion from humanity. Indeed, Williams finds Wilderson’s stark conception of Black inhumanity to be fundamentally incompatible with the vibrancy and global impact of Black music and with his subjects’ dedication to affirming their humanity through their art (18). He points instead to moments of multiracial collaboration from jazz history to illustrate Black musical space’s as-yet-unrealized potential to include all of humanity (19). Crossing Bar Lines is an excellent and timely addition to the literature of jazz studies, critical improvisation studies, and Black studies. With his insightful combination of cultural theory and music analysis, along with his engagement with urgent contemporary issues of race and gender, Williams has provided an especially illuminating look at Black musicians as improvisers and as theorists of politics and culture. His book will be useful for scholars in fields like Black Studies, American Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies who seek a deeper understanding of contemporary Black improvised music and its relevance to ongoing social justice struggles.
{"title":"Got To Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound By Andrea Swensson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021.","authors":"Andrew Flory","doi":"10.1017/S1752196323000238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196323000238","url":null,"abstract":"Wilderson and its core ideas of Black social death and exclusion from humanity. Indeed, Williams finds Wilderson’s stark conception of Black inhumanity to be fundamentally incompatible with the vibrancy and global impact of Black music and with his subjects’ dedication to affirming their humanity through their art (18). He points instead to moments of multiracial collaboration from jazz history to illustrate Black musical space’s as-yet-unrealized potential to include all of humanity (19). Crossing Bar Lines is an excellent and timely addition to the literature of jazz studies, critical improvisation studies, and Black studies. With his insightful combination of cultural theory and music analysis, along with his engagement with urgent contemporary issues of race and gender, Williams has provided an especially illuminating look at Black musicians as improvisers and as theorists of politics and culture. His book will be useful for scholars in fields like Black Studies, American Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies who seek a deeper understanding of contemporary Black improvised music and its relevance to ongoing social justice struggles.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43852331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-17DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000172
J. Yunek
Abstract The discussion of narrative in mashups typically involves how a preexisting message is reinterpreted by the incorporation of new musical material. However, many scholars note how DJ Earworm's technique of creating new lyrics through the combination of samples from up to fifty different tracks conveys an original message that is distinct from its borrowed sources. In his various interviews, DJ Earworm elaborates that his mashups are original compositions that act as musical time capsules that capture the zeitgeist of the age. Nevertheless, DJ Earworm only provides brief commentary on the meaning of his mashups and there is no close examination of these narratives in the literature. This raises the question: To what degree do DJ Earworm's mashups reflect cultural issues in American society? By merging Zbikowski's concept of conceptual integration with Almén's theory of musical narrative, this paper will demonstrate how DJ Earworm's mashups show a consistent pattern of having complex narratives with cultural messages that resonate with contemporary issues in American society, including fossil fuel dependence, income inequality, and political and racial division.
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Pub Date : 2023-07-04DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000226
Katharina Uhde, R. Todd, Naomi André, Karen M. Bryan, Eric Saylor
Abstract Florence Price (1887–1953) was instrumental in establishing a “black musical idiom” in the twentieth century (Samantha Ege, 2020) by embedding vernacular songs into her works, including Violin Fantasy No. 2 in F-sharp minor, built on “I'm workin’ on my Buildin.’” In 1940 she arranged the melody as the second of the Two Traditional Negro Spirituals, finished on March 26, 1940. On March 29 and 30, 1940, she quickly dispatched Fantasy No. 2. Price often performed the piano part of her works herself. The performative act of playing Fantasy No. 2 with its embedded spiritual “I'm workin’ on my Buildin’ […] All for my Lord” would have solidified her faith, which rested in part in her own interpretation of its lyrics: Her “work” on her “buildin” and foundations, in composition and in life. Furthermore, each performance of Fantasy No. 2 would have created an embodied performed commemoration, from her perspective, of historical events of injustice and oppression in the Jim Crow South, which she abandoned in 1927 for Chicago. By engaging with Price's fantasies through the lens of performance studies and genre theory, and by drawing on Ege (2020), Rae Linda Brown (2020), Cooper (2019, 2020), and Douglas Shadle (2021), this article examines Price's vernacular foundation and sonic foundation-building symbolically. Meanings of freedom emerge on several levels, which we relate to creative freedom and to “freedoms in the most oppressive of social environments,” such as Price's environment, to which she responded with “a powerful musical language” (Ege, 2020).
弗洛伦斯·普莱斯(Florence Price, 1887-1953)在20世纪建立了“黑人音乐风格”(Samantha Ege, 2020)，她在作品中融入了本土歌曲，包括以“我在我的建筑上工作”为基础的升f小调小提琴幻想第2号。1940年，她将这首歌改编为《两首传统黑人灵歌》的第二首，于1940年3月26日完成。1940年3月29日和30日，她迅速消灭了“幻想2号”。普赖斯经常亲自演奏她作品中的钢琴部分。演奏《幻想曲2》的表演行为，以及它所蕴含的精神“I'm working ' on my building '[…]All for my Lord”，将会巩固她的信仰，这在一定程度上取决于她自己对歌词的解释:她的“工作”建立在她的“建筑”和基础上，在作曲和生活中。此外，从她的角度来看，《幻想2》的每一场演出都创造了一种具体的表演纪念，纪念南方种族歧视的历史事件和压迫，她于1927年放弃了南方，前往芝加哥。本文以表演研究和类型理论为视角，借鉴Ege(2020)、Rae Linda Brown(2020)、Cooper(2019、2020)和Douglas Shadle(2021)的作品，象征性地考察了Price的乡土基础和声音基础的构建。自由的意义出现在几个层面上，我们将其与创造性自由和“最压抑的社会环境中的自由”联系起来，例如Price的环境，她用“一种强大的音乐语言”回应了这一点(Ege, 2020)。
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Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000159
Craig Jennex
Abstract In this article, I analyze a rhythmic device in musical theater performance that is often used but rarely discussed: The sudden break into halftime. Breaking into halftime—a rhythmic shift that is performed and perceived as occurring at half the tempo (or speed) of the groove in preceding and subsequent sections—has the effect of abruptly stretching out and slowing down musical temporality. With a break into halftime, a song's groove is suddenly broader, more open, and expansive. When accompanied by lyrics, the move suggests deliberateness, calls attention to the lyrical address, and invites a considered response from the listener. It is a musical device akin to drastically slowing down a spoken cadence to ensure that the listener is fully grasping the significance of one's words. With or without lyrics, this temporal disruption has a powerful effect on listeners’ bodies as, suddenly, the established timing of one's musical experience is disrupted and immediately set to half the speed of the previous pace. By analyzing the use of halftime in three filmed musicals—Newsies, Rent, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show—I show how the rhythmic device carries with it social coding of solidarity and collective power among queer, marginalized, and/or otherwise outcast individuals and ultimately alters the broader narrative of the shows. Ultimately, I articulate how halftime serves to queer time and forge collective action, allowing us to reimagine what sort of politics, formations, collectives, and futures are possible.
{"title":"Affective Interruptions: Political Collectivity in Halftime","authors":"Craig Jennex","doi":"10.1017/S1752196323000159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196323000159","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article, I analyze a rhythmic device in musical theater performance that is often used but rarely discussed: The sudden break into halftime. Breaking into halftime—a rhythmic shift that is performed and perceived as occurring at half the tempo (or speed) of the groove in preceding and subsequent sections—has the effect of abruptly stretching out and slowing down musical temporality. With a break into halftime, a song's groove is suddenly broader, more open, and expansive. When accompanied by lyrics, the move suggests deliberateness, calls attention to the lyrical address, and invites a considered response from the listener. It is a musical device akin to drastically slowing down a spoken cadence to ensure that the listener is fully grasping the significance of one's words. With or without lyrics, this temporal disruption has a powerful effect on listeners’ bodies as, suddenly, the established timing of one's musical experience is disrupted and immediately set to half the speed of the previous pace. By analyzing the use of halftime in three filmed musicals—Newsies, Rent, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show—I show how the rhythmic device carries with it social coding of solidarity and collective power among queer, marginalized, and/or otherwise outcast individuals and ultimately alters the broader narrative of the shows. Ultimately, I articulate how halftime serves to queer time and forge collective action, allowing us to reimagine what sort of politics, formations, collectives, and futures are possible.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46015057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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