Customer Reviews

Musica!: The Rhythm of Latin America - Salsa, Rumba, Merengue, and More

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It is hard to imagine that "Hall of Famer" Willie Colon, who wrote the foreword to this book, actually read it and gave it an endorsement. He writes, "...this book has helped put a face on some of my heroes". What Mr. Colon should have written was that this book has helped to distort the truth and put a mask on some of his heroes.

Musica is a book full of misinformation. Some examples:

Musician turned dance promoter Federico Pagani was not italian, he was Puertorican. Chick Webb did not die in 1932, he died on June 6, 1939. "Hall of Famer" Mario Bauza and Dizzy Gillespie did not move together into Cab Calloway's orchestra, nor did they played with Calloway in 1932. It was in 1938 that Bauza joined Calloway's band. Pretending to be sick, and without warning to Calloway, he sent Gillespie to play in his place...that is how the great Gillespie got into Calloway's band.

On page 41 a huge blunder is committed. Here it is stated that "Hall of Famer" Maria Teresa Vera was the first Cuban woman on record. Her suppose debut recording was in New York with Sexteto Habanero in 1918. Nothing could be further from the truth. The facts are that the first Cuban singer on record was "Hall of Famer" Rosalia "Chalia" Herrera Diaz. Not only was she the first singer of Latin origen on record, she is also the very first to record a "habanera". She manages to do all this with the famous "Habanera Tu" in New York in 1901!

I doubt very much that Maria Teresa Vera did any recordings with the Sexteto Habanero in 1918...first, this is the year in which the Sexteto Habanero was formed and secondly, those who have done their research indicate that the Sexteto Habanero's first recording was realized on October 29, 1925 with a tune titled "Maldita Timidez"...Maria Teresa Vera was not part of this recording. However, Maria Teresa Vera was probably the first female to direct a group in Cuba and probably in South America. She did this with the famous Sexteto Occidente that did recordings for Columbia Records around 1925 in New York. She also recorded for the Brunswick and Odeon labels. She later sold the group to "Hall of Famer" Ignacio Pineiro who renamed the group Sexteto Nacional.

The book goes on and on with countless errors. It is a shame, Because Sue Steward is a very good writer and the book has a great colorful layout, with dozens of great photos. It also has a good amount of solid information. But how is the reader suppose to decipher fact from fiction? You can see the confusion by the reviews written on this book. People who have no knowledge about the history of Latin music gave this book good reviews...they assumed everything was true and they enjoyed and believed that its content was accurate. That's the sad part of this book...people are going to read it and be persuaded that it is accurate and perpetuate the misinformation on to others.

I do believe that all is not lost...perhaps Sue Steward would take the responsible high-road and issue a revised accurate edition. Careful and meticulous research can make this book a winner. In the meantime I would hope that Sue Steward does not attempt to produce a television program based on the information in this book...that would be a great diservice to those who contributed so much to this great music and to those who work so hard at researching the truth.

Having read "Musica!....." I am dismayed at the customer reviews I just read praising this work. To the reviewer who wrote "this is the book I've been waiting for" I suggest you keep waiting or look to some less flashy, sexy works for correct information (try Manuel's (Carribean Currents") because you won't find much of it here. The reviewer who "wants to know a bit more about the history" will find just that--only "a bit more." But don't trust that the bit more you find will be correct. I wish the reviewer who said this work was "surely the product of painstaking research" were right, but the research is, at best, shoddy. Journalists (and Ms. Steward is one) are accustomed to fact-checking their work or having it done for them. This work was not fact-checked. Open this book to nearly any page and one can find one error after another. The errors are either of a factual nature that any journalist concerned with fact can check, or of an interpretative nature but which are presented as fact. The great salsero (and so much more) Willie Colon who wrote the forword to this work is presented as having been born and raised in Brooklyn. Mr. Colon has always been from the Bronx, is very self-identified as a Bronxite and even ran for public office from the Bronx. This is not some fuzzy concept open to interpretation. If the author can't even get right the simplest, most public fact about one of the most well-known salseros whom she got to write her forword, what can we possibly trust about any of her other information? In another glaring example, Ms. Steward refers to NY born and raised Puerto Rican percussionist Steve Berrios as a marielito (Cuban who came to the US from Mariel, Cuba in the early 1980s) who, she claims, as a young man in Cuba secretely listen to the presumably banned US jazz. This musician was never a young man in Cuba and all it takes is 5 seconds of listening to him talk to know he is a born and bred hard-core New Yorker. The interpretative information is equally subject to question, including who "invented" mambo, who recorded the first mambo, what constitutes the ensemble for PR plena music, etc. Additionally, the author mis-identifies people in many of the photos. And in talking about Abakua, an African religion still practiced in Cuba, the author clains the "costume looks like a flamboyant version of Ku Klux Klan dress." Is it possible to be more offensive to a people of African descent than to claim their ritual dress resembles that of the oldest hate group in the Americas? In summary, this is a very disappointing work given the money that backed such a glitzy tome and the potential it had for filling a gaping hole in the popular literature about this music. But even worse, it is a DANGEROUS work in that what Ms. Steward has written will become accepted as historical fact by unsuspecting people who know little or nothing and sincerely want to learn something.

Poorly organized and inaccurate, this book should not have been brought to print in such a state. Furthermore, for one who respects the constituent dance forms of this music, I was particularly appalled by the confusing and misinformed section on dance. We do need more well-researched, english language resources on this subject--this unfortunately cannot be defined as such.

Wow. Weighing in at a mere 176 pages, this snappy little volume sure packs a wallop! This is the Cuban music equivalent of McGowan & Pessanha's "Brazilian Sound," but with more dynamic layout, and exceptionally precise writing. "Musica!" features several geographically-centered chapters, exploring salsa traditions in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Columbia and, of course, the explosion of modern salsa in New York and Miami. Brief overviews of the style's spread into Europe and Africa, and a look at modern salsa-pop crossovers. Each chapter features a central narrative, along with numerous sidebars that at first might seem unwieldy and distracting, but are tremendously informative and fun. These include profiles of artists ranging from the superstars to the obscure and the forgotten -- Tito Puente, Ruben Blades and Celia Cruz share the dance floor along with The Mambo Aces, Jesus Colon, and Maria Teresa Vera. The writing is remarkably compact and informative. Steward is especially effective at describing musical concepts and performance techniques, details that other writers often flounder over while trying to explain. The historical photographs, engravings and album reproductions are also illuminating and gorgeous-- laid out in crazy-quilt fashion, the colorful artwork alone makes this book a must for latin music fans. There are parts of this book which felt too short, but as an easily-assimilated guide to the music of four continents, this is pretty hard to beat. Highly recommended!

The main asset of this book is that it covers a great variety of Latin and Afro-Caribbean styles from different countries, from the origins before WW2 until the present day. I can't think of a single truly important musician or band that has been omitted. The book also gives due credit to songwriters such as Tite Curet Alonso and Omar Alfanno, who normally get very little attention because they are not performing artists. Furthermore, the book has an attractive layout, with many nice illustrations, album covers and so on.

However, as has already been pointed out by other reviewers, the book contains many inaccuracies. For instance, the former lead singer of Los Van Van is called Pedro CALVO, not Calvi, as has been wrongly stated several times on page 84. And in the photograph on page 101, the band leader of El Gran Combo, Rafael Ithier, is not located in the centre, but third from the left (wearing sunglasses). I also spotted many errors in the discography...

To conclude: a nice book to have if you can get it for a low price, but certainly not a Bible of Latin music.

An excellent book, very informative. A must for any fan of salsa or afro-cuban music in general who wants to know more about history of this nice music.

Last year I looked high and low for a good book on Latin American music but there seemed to be nothing around -- not currently in print nor out of print. But now this book comes along and it is great. The wonderful text is equally wonderfully illustrated, perhaps due to the author's position as a newspaper picture editor but she is wasted on such a task and should write more books.

The detail is amazing and surely the product of some painstaking research. I won't grumble and gripe about how the book differs from one that I might have idealised but I will make two critisms. One is that it has no CD. Two is that Brazil is completely missing. These omissions are so obvious that I can only think that they were not oversights.

All in all, not just a good book but a GREAT book.

I liked the fact that we have more books on Latin music, and this is interesting but the organization of material could have been better. The history is rich in detail and it would have been nice to have an encyclopedia style section of who's who in salsa and Caribbean music, much like "The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional Mexican Music," on Billboard Books by Ramiro Burr. Those artists essays are crisp and succinct, telling the essential style and accomplishments of various bands in norteno, trio, Tejano, conjunto, banda, etc. This salsa book too could have spelled out the top players in bachata, merenegue, bomba, etc.

There's relatively little available on Latin American music by itself, which makes this new title so important. Chapters cover salsa, merengue, and Latin jazz using plenty of biographical portraits and cultural overviews to trace the evolution of these styles and the musicians who fostered them. The addition of many bright color photos and drawings enhances the attraction and easy reading of this survey, making it accessible to newcomers to the styles as well as prior fans. Highly recommended.

Great book for salsa lovers who want to know a bit more about the history and background of the sexiest, spieciest music and dance.