Focus: Music of Northeast Brazil (Focus on World Music Series) [Paperback]

Larry Crook (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415960657 | ISBN-13: 978-0415960656 | Publication Date: March 26, 2009 | Edition: 2nd

Focus: Music of Northeast Brazil examines the historical and contemporary manifestations of the music of Brazil, a country with a musical landscape that is layered with complexity and diversity. Based on the author’s field research during the past twenty years, the book describes and analyzes the social/historical contexts and contemporary musical practices of Afro-Brazilian religion, selected Carnival traditions, Bahia’s black cultural renaissance, the traditions of rural migrants, and currents in new popular music.

Part One, Understanding Music in Brazil, presents important issues and topics that encompass all of Brazil, and provides a general survey of Brazil’s diverse musical landscape. Part Two, Creating Music in Brazil, presents historical trajectories and contemporary examples of Afro-Brazilian traditions, Carnival music, and northeastern popular music. Part Three, Focusing In, presents two case studies that explore the ground-level activities of contemporary musicians in Northeast Brazil and the ways in which they move between local, national, and international realms. The accompanying CD offers vivid musical examples that are discussed in the text

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Anyone with more than a casual interest in Brazilian music history simply must look at this top ethnomusicological study." --Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Larry Crook is Professor of Music and Co-Director of the Center for World Arts at the University of Florida. He is co-editor of Black Brazil: Culture, Identity, and Social Mobilization and has published his work in journals, books, and encyclopedias. An active performing musician, he performs with and directs Jacaré Brazil.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 2nd edition (March 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415960657
• ISBN-13: 978-0415960656
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #566,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Carnival Music: More Than the Samba, January 27, 2012

By 

Dr. Debra Jan Bibel "World Music Explorer" (Oakland, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Focus: Music of Northeast Brazil (Focus on World Music Series) (Paperback)

Most people in America, if interested in Latin jazz or world music, divide Brazil's musical heritage into samba and bossa nova in the south, Rio de Janeiro, and Afro-Brazilian ritual Candomblé and martial capoeira in the north central, Salvador de Bahia. This book fills the gap by discussing the historical and contemporary sounds of the northeast, from Pernambuco's rural inland to the old coastal city of Recife, as well as other music in Bahia. This is folk music and country dance music and Afro-Brazilian music of Carnival, such as baião, cantoria, forró, frevo, mangue, maracutu, and samba-reggae. This is bamboo fife and drum music, music for accordian, drum, and triangle, and processional bands with brass and woodwinds. Larry Crook has written a fine, detailed examination of these other musical forms and has included a CD of examples, with samples of little heard fife music. The first 60 pages is a well-crafted survey of Brazilian music as a whole, and the next 45 pages discuss the origins and development of Afro-Brazilian music for Carnival. The following chapters present the multiracial evolution of Carnival music, the frevo, how northeastern country music went to Rio and became popular as forró, and the modern hybrid explorations of Axé. Other elements are a couple case studies of musicians, some lyrics and their translations, photographs, and scored rhythms. The book reads well and we learn much about the musical history, styles, and instruments of this area. In Brazil, for instance, the viola is a 10-string, 5-course guitar (the violin-like alto instrument is the violeta), and the large number and types of drums played in small combos to full parade batteries would make Mickey Hart smile. A good player of the pandiero drum, a ubiquitous Brazilian tambourine, can made a remarkable variety of pitches and timbre. This book will help provide a fuller understanding of Brazilian music.