The Practices of Experimentalism in Latin@ and Latin American Music

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana R. Alonso-Minutti ◽  
Eduardo Herrera ◽  
Alejandro L. Madrid
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Music ◽  
Latin American Music ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This chapter introduces the main theoretical issues discussed in the book and puts them in dialogue with contemporary discussions about them. The book’s adoption of the plural term “experimentalisms” points toward a purposeful decentering of the usual US and Eurocentric interpretative frameworks. The case studies in this volume contribute to this by challenging discourses about Latin@s and Latin Americans and experimentalism that have historically marginalized them. As such, the notion of “experimentalisms” works as a performative operation of sound, soundings, music, and musicking that gives social and historical meaning to the networks it temporarily conforms and situates. The authors propose an understanding of music experimentalisms as a series of continuous presences that navigate fluidly in a transhistorical imaginary encounter of pasts and presents.

Experimentalisms in Practice

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
Experimental Music ◽  
Latin American Music ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
Traditional Scholarship ◽  
Broad Approach

This book problematizes the notion of experimentalism as defined in conventional narratives about experimental musical practices. Contributors take a broad approach to a wide variety of Latin@ and Latin American music traditions conceived and/or perceived as experimental. The adoption of a plural “experimentalisms” points at a purposeful decentering of its usual US and Eurocentric interpretative frameworks. The case studies in this book contribute to this by challenging discourses about Latin@s and Latin Americans that have historically marginalized them. As such, the notion of “experimentalisms” works as a grouping, as a performative operation of sound, soundings, music, and musicking that gives social and historical meaning to the networks it temporarily conforms and situates. This book responds to recent efforts to reframe and reconceptualize the study of experimental music in terms of epistemological perspective and geographic scope, but also engages traditional scholarship about musical experimentalisms. Contributors provide important challenges in relation to the types of music that have been traditionally considered experimental and the reasons why scholars have adopted these perspectives. Included in this book are case studies localized in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, México, Peru, and the United States, but with frequent regional, transnational, and postnational implications. This book contributes to the current conversations about music experimentalism while providing new points of entry to further reevaluate the field.

The “Othering” of Latin Jazz

Latin Jazz ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 112-141
Author(s):  
Christopher Washburne
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Music ◽  
Latin American Music ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Economic Marginalization ◽  
Latin Jazz ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter discusses various ways the Caribbean and Latin American music styles continued to share a common history with jazz from the 1940s to the 1960s, intersecting, cross-influencing, and at times seeming inseparable, as each has played seminal roles in the other’s development. Three case studies are discussed: the collaboration of Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo, the Jazz Samba recording by Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz, and Mongo Santamaría’s “Watermelon Man” recording. In much of the jazz literature, these musicians and their seminal roles have been diminished or downright ignored. This chapter explores the reasons for these omissions and the systematic “othering” of Latin jazz. It examines the forces at play in their continued exclusion; explores how this omission is tied to the economic marginalization of jazz, racism, nationalism, tensions between art and popular music, and canon construction; and identifies what is at stake when Latin jazz is included.

Festival of Contemporary Latin American Music

Tempo ◽  
1955 ◽  
pp. 4-5
Author(s):  
Aaron Copland
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
American Music ◽  
Latin American Music ◽  
American Composers ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Orchestral Works ◽  
The Moment ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Town ◽  
Latin American Countries

Caracas, Venezuela, unlike Paris, France, is a newcomer in the field of present day music. Nevertheless it recently succeeded in putting itself on the contemporary musical map—and with a bang. No one, not even Paris, had ever before thought of organising a festival of orchestral works by contemporary Latin American composers. This happened for the first time anywhere in Caracas, which is full of vitality at the moment, thanks to an oil-engendered prosperity. The town boasts of a good orchestra, a brand new open-air amphitheatre seating six thousand people, and a lively cultural organisation, the Institución José Angel Lamas, headed by Dr. Inocente Palacios. This musically minded enthusiast is the kind of Maecenas composers dream about. By enlisting the aid of the Venezuelan government and other private sources he managed to put on an event that will have historical significance in the annals of Ibero-American music. Within the space of two and a half weeks forty symphonic compositions originating in seven Latin American countries were performed in a series of eight concerts. This was a major effort for all concerned, especially for the courageous musicians of the Orquesta Sinfonica Venezuela and the Festival's principal conductors: Heitor Villa Lobos, Carlos Chávez, Juan José Castro, and Rios Reyna.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document