Music in the Hispanic Caribbean is a recent book in the Global Music Series published by Oxford University Press. The aims of the series's general editors, Bonnie C. Wade and Patricia Shehan Campbell, are to provide instructors who teach courses in world music and ethnomusicology with (1) a set of case study volumes from which to choose and facilitate the design of their own courses and (2) case studies focused on a particular musical tradition or the music of a discrete geographical area. The editors contrast this format with the conventional world music and ethnomusicology textbook that purports to cover the music of the world. Each volume in the series focuses on the contemporary musical scene, providing historical background to elucidate the present. The volumes also address the ways in which gender, globalization, race, ethnicity, national identity, and authenticity make music particularly meaningful and useful to the lives of people.
Robin Moore meets all of these expectations in providing a lucid introduction to the musical cultures of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic as well as the impact that these musical cultures have had on musical developments in the United States. Moore acknowledges that each island's music merits an independent volume of its own, but suggests that a comparative approach will help the reader think about the interrelated yet distinct musical histories of these areas. Three overarching themes guide his comparative approach: the legacy of colonization and slavery; hybridity or creolization; and diaspora, movement, and musical exchange.
The volume is organized into seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the growing prominence of Latin music in the United States via demographic changes, music festivals, and the commercial music industry. It then defines the Caribbean culturally, geographically, and musically; in the last instance, the author identifies particular rhythms (tresillo, cinquillo, and habanera) that are commonly heard in otherwise distinct musical genres. The chapter continues with a discussion of the cultural and musical influences of Africa and Spain, followed by an explanation of the concepts of race and ethnicity as they are utilized in the book to assess how musicians and other commentators over time have articulated their views on race and ethnicity through music. The importance of musical creolization and hybridity to the Caribbean concludes the chapter.
Chapters 2 and 3 focus on Spanish and African types of music, respectively. These musical repertories had the strongest influence on musical performance in the region throughout the colonial periods of each island. Chapter 2 focuses on various Spanish contributions including poetic forms (romances and seguidillas), string and keyboard instruments, and musical forms (mostly based on European social dance traditions). Three detailed case studies are included. The Puerto Rican seis derives from Spanish musical and poetic practices, such as simple harmonic progressions including the so-called Andalucian cadence (tonic, flat major seven, flat major six, and dominant in either minor or major keys) and décima (a ten-line poetic form that follows particular rhyme schemes and dates back to at least the fifteenth century). Cuban punto demonstrates Spanish antecedents similar to those found in the Puerto Rican seis as well as unique features in its performance practice as is the case with the punto libre (free punto) format. The final case study, the Dominican salve, demonstrates the significance folk Catholicism has had over the centuries throughout the three islands. The next chapter begins with a historical overview of the slave trade in the Caribbean and then presents three more case studies. The religious Afro-Cuban toques de güiros (literally “the playing of gourds”) comes from the Yoruba-influenced religion known as Santería. The study of this music's religious significances, musical repertory, instrumentation, and accompanying dances provides an excellent example of Cuba's rich and vibrant African cultural heritage. Similarly, Afro-Dominican salves demonstrate the extent to which African musical and religious practices (probably of Kongo origins) constitute this version of the more Spanish-influenced Dominican salve tradition discussed in the previous chapter. The final case study is on the Puerto Rican secular drumming and dance form known as bomba.
Chapter 4 surveys the musical characteristics and historical developments of Dominican merengue, Cuban son, and Puerto Rican plena. These three styles of creolized dance music have become powerful national symbols in the Hispanic Caribbean. In exploring the issue of creolization, Moore explains how the music fuses texts, instruments, musical forms, and choreographies of Spanish and African heritage. He concludes this chapter with a detailed discussion of salsa, showing how and why mostly Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians living in New York City reinterpreted the creolized dance music forms of their islands for consumption among Latino immigrants in the United States and Latin America. The history of transnational Caribbean music is the topic of Chapter 5. Here the author explores the history and musical ramifications of the regional and international circulation of culture in the Caribbean, beginning with the colonial-era contradanza. Next he shows how the bolero emerged as a local musical tradition in eastern Cuba in the late nineteenth century, only to be made internationally popular by primarily Mexican composers beginning in the 1920s through radio, recordings, and film. Dominican bachata, in turn, demonstrates how the internationally popular bolero was “localized” in terms of musical sound and social meaning. The chapter ends with a discussion of the quintessential transnational musical genre reggaeton, currently one of the most popular dance musics among Latino youth in the United States, and throughout Latin America.
Chapter 6 focuses on political song and its importance to the musical as well as the turbulent political histories of the Caribbean. The discussion introduces the reader to the history of political song in Latin America and the struggles for independence in the Hispanic Caribbean and follows with detailed case studies of Puerto Rican protest song, nueva canción (new song) in the Dominican Republic, and Cuban nueva trova (also translated as new song). The unique and vibrant rap scene in Cuba, known as rap consciente (socially conscious rap), concludes the chapter. The final chapter returns to the topics of creolization and race and explores how attitudes in the Hispanic Caribbean toward the African heritages in music have changed over time. Moore traces this history beginning with blackface entertainment in Cuba at the turn of the twentieth century, the incorporation of black musical practices by classical music composers of the mid-twentieth century, and, finally, the musical collaborations among mostly African American jazz musicians and their Caribbean counterparts in the formation of Latin jazz.
Music in the Hispanic Caribbean is an excellent addition to the Global Music Series and currently the most suitable textbook for Caribbean and Latin American music courses taught in U.S. colleges and universities. Although texts that cover similar material by Peter Manuel, John Schechter, and Frances R. Aparicio, et al.Footnote 1 have their own individual strengths, Moore's volume offers the most comprehensive study of this particular region of Latin America (covering folkloric, popular, and classical music). Furthermore, the book's accompanying CD, detailed listening guides, and effective activity assignments greatly facilitate classroom teaching. The activities are particularly useful in engaging the student with the music in practical and understandable ways.
The organization of the book—thematic rather than geographic—also facilitates the teaching of those issues and themes that bind and differentiate the musical histories of these islands. On the other hand, the book's organization in comparison with the Global Music Series's other case studies on Latin American music might present challenges to the organization of a course. Shannon Dudley's Carnival Music in Trinidad and Daniel Sheehy's Mariachi Music in America focus on the music that constitutes a specific performative event and repertory, whereas John Patrick Murphy's Music in Brazil and Thomas Turino's Music in the Andes focus on various musical genres of a culturally diverse nation (Peru, in the case of Turino's book).Footnote 2 Whether the instructor chooses to organize a course thematically, geographically, or both, Music in the Hispanic Caribbean is a timely and exceptional contribution to the teaching of the musical cultures of the Americas.
