From Publishers Weekly
This is a challenging and fascinating look at various ways in which popular music from the 1940s to the 1990s represented “anchor moments in the cultural, social and political realms of twentieth-century African American history.” Ramsay, an assistant professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania, notes that this “is not a comprehensive, strictly chronological study”; he also uses a wide range of source material including family narratives, recordings, live concerts and films. But his sophisticated understanding of current ethnological, musicological, literary and historical theories-as well as a clear and engaging writing style remarkably free of theoretical jargon-explores a central theme: the “subjective understanding of black music as shaped continually by community sensibilities.” Through nuanced looks at such musical artists as Dinah Washington and Dizzy Gillespie, Ramsay shows not only that their work displays a wide range of express (more…)