Much of the music literature of churches in the Philippines was destroyed during World War II, particularly in Manila. Marcelo Adonay (1848–1928) was one of the major figures in Philippine music of the 19th century European traditions and styles of choral music prevailed in Latin America; however, the period of 1810 to 1830 witnessed efforts towards independence from Spain in many areas, including music. Unfortunately, this independence weakened some of the institutions that supported and produced music, including the church. A brief survey is provided of sacred, theatrical, and civic choral music (the major venues, composers, organizations, works, and developments) in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Venezuela, the Andes region, the Rioplatense region, Brazil, and Spain.
Explores the onboard experience in situations of extreme musical commodification during cruising, with the ship resembling a floating pleasure palace that provides a monopolistic tourist environment that taps into the 'experience economy' concept. The authors' ethnographic insights reveal how music is a quintessential means to create congenial ambiance in order to encourage consumption of experience enhancements (like gambling, dancing, or drinking) and boost onboard revenue, especially through live music performance of various types and levels of interaction, whereby performer-audience interaction and participation play a major role in consumption of touristic music. While much of this music is drawn from familiar, predictable Western culture, some performances readily tap into tourists' expectations of journeying to and encountering the exotic Other, even if presented as part of their onboard experiences. Such touristic musical performances, which stereotypically include Caribbean bands performing calypso classics, Harry Belafonte and Bob Marley numbers, and tropicalist Western pop songs, are usually promoted as authentic extensions of the culture from which they originate. These situations of extreme commodification have not only transformed some of the most secluded locations into commercially viable tourist destinations, but have turned transport facilities themselves into hyper-commercialized locales of touristic consumption.
Examines aspects related to the plural constitution of Afro-descendants informed by black discursiveness in Salvador, Bahia. This discursiveness is strongly marked by the role of black music and by the history of Afro-descendant Carnaval. This essay shows that these subjects are a product of modernization and operate in it, while giving it a specific configuration. Social agents as reflexive audience play a decisive role in the review and criticism of such modernity, pluralizing it and pushing the boundaries of democracy and of representation politics, in their demand for recognition and changes. Music, as discursive production and as sociability experience, plays a key part in this process.
By reflecting on the intersections of race, nationality, and the body within the specificities of Black Seminole border culture and history, the essay problematizes Anne Anlin Cheng’s notion of racial melancholia, suggesting that self rejection might be a more strategic move than Cheng acknowledges it to be. In the end, the author coins the term dialectical soundings and proposes that the singing of spirituals among the Black Seminoles in fact operates as such, rendering blackness visible in the context of the Mexican border essentialist racial discourse.
Unedited] The career of Laba Sosseh, the Senegambian singer of Afro-Cuban music, challenges many of the dominant paradigms of world music' research. His music was not the product of Western influence nor was Sosseh shaping his music to please elite Western audiences. Sosseh instead sought to Cubanize African popular music and Africanize new world Latin music. He was active in several West African music centers in the 1960s and 1970s and New York in the 1980s. He was the first musician reportedly to have a gold record in West Africa and his recordings for a U.S. Cuban-owned company circulated widely throughout the Caribbean Basin. In the 1990s, Sosseh returned to Dakar, Senegal, to mentor a new generation of Senegalese Latin musicians. By looking at Sosseh’s life on both sides of the Atlantic, it becomes clear that world music can come from unexpected places in unanticipated ways. Sosseh’s music had its roots in a South-South dialogue that underscored cultural difference and local identities. His work demonstrates that globalization does not inherently produce global homogeneity. Non-western communities can deploy communication technologies (records, radio and cassettes) to create forms of counter-globalization that rather than promote Western cultural hegemony resist it.
