Vernon Boggs describes his book as “a participant-observer’s attempt to understand one genre of Afro-Hispanic music: Salsa” (p. xiii). A sociologist by training, Boggs casts himself in the role of participant-observer to suggest that the book is more meaningful as a primary source than as a monograph. He assembles a collection of essays, interviews, panel discussions, and photographs. In most instances he serves as author, interviewer, and discussion facilitator. However, he also includes articles written by other people, mostly musicologists. Boggs focuses on the ascendance of salsa, a type of Latin jazz, in New York City, where it emerged during the second decade of the twentieth century with the migration of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban musicians to Harlem. During the forties the music gained widespread popularity. By the fifties, Boggs argues, salsa had become so popular that it “virtually monopolized dances” (p. 123).
In Salsiology Boggs conveys the complexity of popular music as a subject for analysis. He organizes the book, which consists of 36 short chapters, into a number of broad sections that address the themes of the origins of the music, the male and female musicians and the institutions that helped popularize the music, the process of incorporating African rhythms into Cuban music, and finally the state of the music today.
Boggs asserts at the outset that the book “is an unpretentious effort to explore the origins, contours, and present state” of salsa (p. xiii), but he seems most interested in the contours of the music, devoting almost half the book to this subject. He views these contours as part and parcel of overlapping social and environmental processes that include slavery in the Caribbean as well as racism and sexism in the United States. But he falls short of showing precisely how these processes shaped the music. Throughout the book he mentions, for example, the low esteem in which salsa was held in Cuba as well as in the United States before the 1940s. This perception was common among a variety of groups, including the upper class in Cuba, Puerto Rican migrants in the United States, and the American public at large. But beyond simply asserting that such attitudes result from racism, Boggs does not distinguish between racism in the Caribbean and the United States. Nor does he seriously examine the link between racism and the rejection of salsa as “respectable” music, or the question of why salsa served as a vehicle for the articulation of that racism.
Despite these shortcomings, the book raises important questions about how we examine popular culture. Boggs does not overlook the relevance of salsa as a music genre. At some points he simply invokes that genre, and at others he raises questions about the existence of the genre itself. He alludes to this music as a problematic category when he writes of “a music commonly referred to as ‘Salsa’” (p. xiii). Placing the term in quotes allows Boggs to raise questions about the very music he sets out to explore. This strategy may seem inconsequential to some, but Boggs uses it to convey the elusive complexities and politics that are an integral part of popular culture. One interviewee spoke about such politics forthrightly: “Salsa is misleading…. That’s a marketing term put out by a record company in the ’70s” (p. 252). While I would have liked Boggs to explore such politics more systematically, I applaud his assertion that the issue warrants examination.
The range of perspectives Boggs presents also offers insights about popular culture. Whereas many scholars of popular culture focus exclusively on audiences, consumers, or producers, Boggs challenges those categories for understanding salsa. One of the most illuminating parts of the book is the section on how salsa became popular. Boggs interviews disc jockeys, club owners, and dancers as well as specialized “promoters” of the music. In his interview with Al Santiago, Boggs informs us that these roles did not necessarily exist as distinct entities but in some cases involved tremendous overlap. Santiago is a musician and composer who also ventured into the domain of record-store owner and record company executive.
Salsiology does not provide a definitive analysis of salsa. But Boggs does convey valuable insights for understanding not just salsa but popular culture in general. In this regard the book shows how music and popular culture can serve as valuable historical sources.
