This book is the result of a symposium on African and Afro-American music which was sponsored by the Center for Ethnic Music at Howard University. It is the first of a projected two-volume work—this one includes “Africa, South America, and the Caribbean, and the second . . . the United States” (p. xiv). Except for the first two essays by two pioneers in American ethnomusicology, Bruno Netti and Mantle Hood, the remaining eight chapters are by young scholars of African and African-derived music.
The editor explains that her goal is to provide the scholarly community with a collection of ethnomusicological essays covering Africa and the Afro-Americas. People interested in colonial and contemporary South America and the Caribbean, however, may find this book of only peripheral interest because of what is not included; Latin America is represented only by the articles on a small region of Brazil (Nago music from Bahia) and Panama (negro mestizo music). Certainly South American and Caribbean African-derived music should warrant a book by itself, considering what the series seeks to do.
Unfortunately, this collection of essays is not unified by any particular theme or approach; the general topic of ethnic heritage provides its only base. For example, the dicta within the first two chapters by Netti and Hood, although of great value to the ethnomusicologist (and any researcher), are not followed by many of the authors of the subsequent chapters; only a few of the articles are based on a particular research design (deemed important by Netti, p. 17), and both Latin American articles are based on comparisons with African music (contrary to what Hood suggests, p. 28).
This book, nevertheless, could be of value as a supplementary text for an ethnomusicology area course on Africa and the Afro-Americas.
