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| Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo |  | Author: Ned Sublette
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Seller: dumbdealz
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 194,700
Media: Paperback
Pages: 688
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.5
ISBN: 1556526326
Dewey Decimal Number: 780.97291
EAN: 9781556526329
ASIN: 1556526326
Publication Date: February 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| | ISBN13: 9781556526329 | | | Condition: NEW | | | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
This entertaining history of Cuba and its music begins with the collision of Spain and Africa and continues through the era of Miguelito Valdés, Arsenio Rodríguez, Benny Moré, and Pérez Prado. It offers a behind-the-scenes examination of music from a Cuban point of view, unearthing surprising, provocative connections and making the case that Cuba was fundamental to the evolution of music in the New World. The ways in which the music of black slaves transformed 16th-century Europe, how the claves appeared, and how Cuban music influenced ragtime, jazz, and rhythm and blues are revealed. Music lovers will follow this journey from Andalucía, the Congo, the Calabar, Dahomey, and Yorubaland via Cuba to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Saint-Domingue, New Orleans, New York, and Miami. The music is placed in a historical context that considers the complexities of the slave trade; Cuba's relationship to the United States; its revolutionary political traditions; the music of Santería, Palo, Abakuá, and Vodú; and much more.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
 Overrated and Unfocused October 26, 2009
Vain Saints (USA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Some have noted that the subject of the book isn't really Cuban music per se, and unfortunately, they are right. Sublette's work as an evangelist for the music is commendable and essential, but this book truly does make up in length what it lacks not just in depth, but in focus, tone, and execution as well.
The most glaring weakness is the lack of a proper discography. In its place there is a catologue of recommended listening that is barely a page long and highly disorganized, focusing on "availability" and lacking discographical information, even though "availability" changes from week to week and discography stays constant.
Indeed, there is a surprising inattention to detail throughout this book. Sublette accepts that Ignacio Pineiro is one of the most important figures in Cuban music and perhaps the single greatest figure of the early Trova-Son, yet all of the references to Pineiro combined probably take up slightly more than a page, and once again, there is no discography. The same could be said about Miguel Matamoros. Rita Montanier and Miguelito Valdez, among others, get more face time, but discographical information is haphazard and scarce for even these figures, and even for Chano Pozo and Arsenio.
Sublette seems to bridge these gaps with an historical account of Cuba and Cuban society, but this dualist approach comes off as more of a distraction than an account of Cuban music that is truly integrated into a greater historical framework. Truly, the interplay between the music and the general history is clumsy and at times forced.
This is made all the worse by the fact that Sublette is not and does not claim to be a reliable historian. Basically, what this means is that would have could have been a fascinating history of Cuban music told by a devotee of the subject falls short of the mark by being constantly interrupted by a superficial political history told by a dilettante. The author seems to possess standard Left-Wing historical biases, in particular the steady stream of passionate denunciations of American "imperialist" interventions in Latin America, while presenting facts that, when looked at coldly, do not merit these vituperations, even accepting Sublette's account on face value. Also, by Sublette's account, it seems like every black person in Cuba was an Afro-spiritist who was constantly enduring oppression at every turn by Whites. Thus, when Celia Cruz appears on the scene: a black woman of vintage working-class Christian stock who barely drank or smoked and proceeded to become immensely popular, the reader can't help but wonder where whence that strange bird could have come. Shouldn't she have been a pagan prostitute who was always one step away from being lynched?
This is not to say that Sublette is a tubthumper but he makes no attempt to reconcile these various historical strands to produce a balanced narrative of Cuban society, and his work thus comes off as a White-Boy dilettante who reads The Nation too much. He makes elementary mistakes, such as crediting the invention of the arabic numeral system to the Arabs, when in truth this numeral system has been all but renamed the Indian numeral system and was an invention of the Indians that the Arab Muslims stored and transmitted to the West. An inordinate number of citations come from two sources, Ortiz and Cabrera. which is another sign of diletantism.
Throughout the book, you never get the sense that this story is going anywhere. The flow from Africa to Cuba is interrupted buy an account of the Mann Act, which is in turn interrupted by an account of the Congo in Cuba. The Changui is barely (if ever) mentioned. And so it goes.
This book is good for a beginners intro to Cuban music and a flawed account of Cuban history. There was little reason for it to be more than 200 pages long. At most.
Masterpiece June 17, 2009
Edward Brakus (Austin)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
From the dawn of human speech to the contemporary era, Sublette covers every force in history converging to create the modern latin sound. Here are some things I learned reading this book;
1)Cuban music is as much a story of the fusion of Congolese and Nigerian elements as it is a story of African and Spanish fusion.
2) Why African culture forces remained predominant in Cuba while dissipating in other colonies.
3) All about the Abakua, Palo, Ekue, and all that.
No dry history text, this is a fascinating read, well researched and crafted as a labor of love.
what a fun read June 21, 2008
Nancy A. Kintisch (los angeles, ca.)
informative and fun to read, this is a loving tribute to the music of Cuba and from whence it came. It's historical without being tedious and a real page turner. I love it and recommend it to anyone who digs this kind of music and culture.
There should be a Nobel Prize for musical scholarship! March 2, 2008
Al Past (Beeville, TX USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's a first for me to review a book I haven't finished reading. I've been reading Cuba and Its Music for about a year, off and on, as I've read other books and material. What's prompting me to review it now is that this is simply a terrific, wonderful book and the word needs to get out. Full disclosure: despite being a musician all my life, I discovered Cuban music only about twenty years ago. The more I learned about it the more it took me over. This is not the place to go into the reasons, but I will make an outrageous blanket statement and say that what Bach is to classical music, Cuban music is to popular music.
Ned Sublette explains why in his marvelous book. I find myself pouring over passages, rereading and underlining and making notes to myself in the back. I can't take a lot of this at one time. I'll put the book down to pick it up a week later and end up rereading what I'd already read. The prospect of getting all the way to the end of it fills me with joy and dread at the same time. It's not that it's densely written: on the contrary, it's some of the clearest, easiest to read scholarly writing I've ever run across (and that's a lot, by the way).
The book is not for everyone. You have to like music, for starters. Then, it would be good if you enjoy learning about how musical styles originate, travel, and influence other styles. Cuba has been a true melting pot for many of the world's musical traditions, and most have made their way to this country, through New Orleans, through New York, and by other means, to the point that its influence is discernible in almost every popular American genre today. Sublette has traced these influences in the most careful and understandable way, and the result is enlightenment on every single page.
Now I hear that Sublette has another book out on the musical cultures and history of New Orleans. This is wonderful news even if it means I'll spend the next five years finishing both volumes. Amazon won't let me review a book twice, so I won't be able to comment on the latter parts of Cuba and Its Music here. Maybe I'll be able to mention it when I finally report on The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square.
Filling a gap that I never knew June 25, 2007
Dr. Debra Jan Bibel (Oakland, CA USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is the finest book on the sociological basis of music I have ever read. Many good books will provide a new fact on each page or two, but I seem to learn three new bits of history on every single page of this extensive analysis of the origins of musical styles in Cuba. But this is more than about Cuba; it is about Al-Andalus/Sefarad and Renaissance Spain and the eary history of the United States, and about northwest and central African peoples, and about Renaissance Europe, and about the early history of Islam and Arabia. It is about differing social policy and its effect on the slave trade. It is about what gave New Orleans jazz the Latin tinge and makes that city a treasure. It is about the distinct origins of the polyrhythmic, polytonal structures of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music and the recitative, glissando-embellished, monorhythmic music of the blues and later jazz. We learn about Louis Gottchalk's first use of the African drum in classical music [performed in Europe] and why such instruments were banned in England's continental colonies and the early United States since 1739. We learn how Moorish, that is, black, line dance style was once the rage of western Europeans, and led to England's Morris dances. These are among the smallest of factoids that you will encounter reading this highly readable yet scholarly book.
Because I admire and particularly enjoy multidisciplinary cultural histories, Sublette's book is a feast. His explorations are ours. You will be fascinated, and you will be delighted. The book is an education. Buy it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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