An impressive variety of music is surveyed - rock, jazz, reggae,
Afropop, Brazilian Tropicalia - in these reviews and interviews
reprinted from the Nation, the Atlantic Monthly, and elsewhere. The
collection starts, pointedly, with a Paul Simon interview about his
collaborations with South African musicians on the controversial
Graceland album. This story raises hopes for big topics from the
essays to come: synthesis of international styles, cultural
appropriation, politics, and music. But Santoro (Dancing in Your
Head: Jazz, Blues, Rock, and Beyond, not reviewed) delivers a more
diffuse collection. The pieces are about albums, or musicians, or
musical ideas explored with particular musicians as examples - or
all of the above. Sting discusses how "there aren't any original
ideas" and where creativity does come from. The Bob Marley chapter
serves as a short, informative history of reggae music, featuring
Bob Marley. In the section on jazz bassist Tim Drummond, Santoro is
content, for the most part, to let this outspoken man hold court.
The jazz greats are perhaps best covered: John Coltrane, Charles
Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, and others. Perhaps the
influences and heirs-apparent are clearer in jazz. Or maybe jazz
musicians just have the best stories to tell - Mingus, for
instance, checks into Bellevue for a rest, "as if it were a resort
hotel," and then has trouble getting out. Sometimes Santoro's hip,
smart style threatens to distract. Trail-blazing saxophonist John
Zorn's music, for instance, contains "pieces of a subatomic jigsaw
puzzle whose Heisenbergian reality is connected by dots in the mind
of the observer." Intelligent coverage of major artists - Elvis
Costello, Bruce Springsteen, and David Byrne are all included -
will appeal to many readers. But the overarching theme of
cross-cultural pollination remains merely a rough reference point
for the volume - a title pasted across a disparate, if thoughtful
collection of writings. (Kirkus Reviews)
In his second collection of writings, acclaimed music critic Gene Santoro takes the reader on a tour through the ever-changing soundscape of modern popular music. Ranging across jazz (John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Tom Harrell), rock (Sting, Elvis Costello, P.J. Harvey), and the international scene (Jamaican, Brazilian, and African pop music), Santoro shows the subtle and often surprising connections between the diverse people who create so many dazzling sounds.
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