LibGuides: Hispanic American, Latin American & Spanish Music: Books & eBooks

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From Tejano to Tango : Essays on Latin American Popular Music Author of two books on Issac Albeniz, including Issac Albeniz: A Guide to Research (1998), Walter Aaron Clark has compiled thirteen essays that discuss the various aspects of Latin American music. The essays cover the social and political impact the music generated as well as the rhythmic development of the various genres. In this essential book, significant personalities, including Carmen Miranda, are discussed. The scope of the contributors is vast as divergent musical styles such as the Macarena dace craze, Bob Marley's reggae music and the seductive strains of the tango are analyzed.
The Latin Tinge : The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States The Tejano superstar Selena and the tango revival both in the dance clubs and on Broadway are only the most obvious symptoms of how central Latin music is to American musical life. Latino rap has brought a musical revolution, while Latin and Brazilian jazz are ever more significant on thejazz scene. With the first edition of The Latin Tinge, John Storm Roberts offered revolutionary insight into the enormous importance of Latin influences in U.S. popular music of all kinds. Now, in this revised second edition, Roberts updates the history of Latin American influences on the Americanmusic scene over the last twenty years. From the merengue wave to the great traditions of salsa and nortena music to the fusion styles of Cubop and Latin rock, Roberts provides a comprehensive review. With an update on the jazz scene and the careers of legendary musicians as well as newer bands on the circuit, the second edition ofThe Latin Tinge sheds new light on a rich and complex subject: the crucial contribution that Latin rhythms are making to our uniquely American idiom.
Let's Make Some Noise Clarence Bernard Henry's book is a culmination of several years of field research on sacred and secular influences of àsé, the West African Yoruba concept that spread to Brazil and throughout the African Diaspora. Àsé is imagined as power and creative energy bestowed upon human beings by ancestral spirits acting as guardians. In Brazil, the West African Yoruba concept of àsé is known as axé and has been reinvented, transmitted, and nurtured in Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion that is practiced in Salvador, Bahia. The author examines how the concepts of axé and Candomblé religion have been appropriated and reinvented in Brazilian popular music and culture. Featuring interviews with practitioners and local musicians, the book explains how many Brazilian popular music styles such as samba, bossa nova, samba-reggae, ijexá, and axé have musical and stylistic elements that stem from Afro-Brazilian religion. The book also discusses how young Afro-Brazilians combine Candomblé religious music with African American music such as blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk, and rap. Henry argues for the importance of axé as a unifying force tying together the secular and sacred Afro-Brazilian musical landscape.
Listening to Salsa : Gender, Latin Popular Music, and Puerto Rican Cultures Winner of the MLA's Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for an outstanding book published in English in the field of Latin American and Spanish literatures and culture (1999) For Anglos, the pulsing beats of salsa, merengue, and bolero are a compelling expression of Latino/a culture, but few outsiders comprehend the music's implications in larger social terms. Frances R. Aparicio places this music in context by combining the approaches of musicology and sociology with literary, cultural, Latino, and women's studies. She offers a detailed genealogy of Afro-Caribbean music in Puerto Rico, comparing it to selected Puerto Rican literary texts, then looks both at how Latinos/as in the US have used salsa to reaffirm their cultural identities and how Anglos have eroticized and depoliticized it in their adaptations. Aparicio's detailed examination of lyrics shows how these songs articulate issues of gender, desire, and conflict, and her interviews with Latinas/os reveal how they listen to salsa and the meanings they find in it. What results is a comprehensive view "that deploys both musical and literary texts as equally significant cultural voices in exploring larger questions about the power of discourse, gender relations, intercultural desire, race, ethnicity, and class."
Musical ImagiNation : U.S-Colombian Identity and the Latin Music Boom Long associated with the pejorative clichés of the drug-trafficking trade and political violence, contemporary Colombia has been unfairly stigmatized. In this pioneering study of the Miami music industry and Miami’s growing Colombian community, María Elena Cepeda boldly asserts that popular music provides an alternative common space for imagining and enacting Colombian identity. Using an interdisciplinary analysis of popular media, music, and music video, Cepeda teases out issues of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and transnational identity in the Latino/a music industry and among its most renowned rock en español, pop, and vallenato stars. Musical ImagiNation provides an overview of the ongoing Colombian political and economic crisis and the dynamics of Colombian immigration to metropolitan Miami. More notably, placed in this context, the book discusses the creative work and media personas of talented Colombian artists Shakira, Andrea Echeverri of Aterciopelados, and Carlos Vives. In her examination of the transnational figures and music that illuminate the recent shifts in the meanings attached to Colombian identity both in the United States and Latin America, Cepeda argues that music is a powerful arbitrator of memory and transnational identity.
Oye Como Va! : Hybridity and Identity in Latino Popular Music Listen Up When the New York-born Tito Puente composed "Oye Como Va " in the 1960s, his popular song was called Latin even though it was a fusion of Afro-Cuban and New York Latino musical influences. A decade later, Carlos Santana, a Mexican immigrant, blended PuenteOCOs tune with rock and roll, which brought it to the attention of national audiences. Like Puente and Santana, Latino/a musicians have always blended musics from their homelands with other sounds in our multicultural society, challenging ideas of what Latin music is or ought to be. Waves of immigrants further complicate the picture as they continue to bring their distinctive musical styles to the U.S.OCofrom merengue and bachata to cumbia and reggaeton. Ina"Oye Como Va ," Deborah Pacini Hernandez traces the trajectories of various U.S. Latino musical forms in a globalizing world, examining how the blending of Latin music reflects Latino/a American lives connecting across nations. Exploring the simultaneously powerful, vexing, and stimulating relationship between hybridity, music, and identity, a"Oye Como Va "aasserts that this potent combination is a signature of the U.S. Latino/a experience.
Rockin Las Americas : The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America Every nation in the Americas from indigenous Peru to revolutionary Cuba has been touched by the cultural and musical impact of rock. "Rockin Las Americas" is the first book to explore the production, dissemination, and consumption of rock music throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, Brazil, the Andes, and the Southern Cone as well as among Latinos in the United States. The contributors include experts in music, history, literature, culture, sociology, and anthropology, as well as practicing "rockeros" and "rockeras." The multidisciplinary, transnational, and comparative perspectives they bring to the topic serve to address a broad range of fundamental questions about rock in Latin and Latino America, including: Why did rock become such a controversial cultural force in the region? In what ways has rock served as a medium for expressing national identities? How are unique questions of race, class, and gender inscribed in Latin American rock? What makes Latin American rock Latin American? "Rockin Las Americas" is an essential book for anyone who hopes to understand the complexities of Latin American culture today."
Tejano Proud : Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century From the dance halls to the main stage, from small town Texas to the big cities, and from treasured local cultural traditions to the national display of Mexican Texas' finest talent, música tejana is rapidly becoming known as a rich and vibrant form of American music. In Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century, Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., chronicles the many dimensions of this important musical form. Rooted in Mexican culture and shaped by influences from the United States and the rest of the world, the diversity and complexity of this music give an expression to the people and the borderlands culture from which the music grew. San Miguel provides an engaging history of the evolution of música tejana--its ups and downs and its importance to Mexican Texas culture in the context of Anglo-Mexican relations. He also discusses the more recent development of the Tejano recording industry and the role women have begun to play in an industry long dominated by men. The twentieth century has seen Texas Mexican music balance between the traditional and the modern, remaining rooted in Mexico while taking nourishment from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States. This music has helped shape the daily experiences of Mexican Texans. Today, the music's biggest stars are seen as affirming representations of Tejano ethnic pride. Readers interested not only in music, but also in ethnic studies and popular culture, will appreciate the broad spectrum covered in Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music of the Twentieth Century.

Featured Print Books

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Brazilian Music: Northeastern Traditions and the Heartbeat of a Modern Nation Written by a foremost expert in the field of Brazilian culture, this fascinating volume explores the music of Brazil's Northeast, gauging its historical and cultural importance within the nation's diverse culture. * Photographs of musical instruments, musicians, dancers, performances, and costumes, and illustrations of the art of Northeast Brazil including drawings, paintings, and wood cuts * Diagrams of instrument construction such as the pifano, zabumba, and viola, and an audio CD of musical examples
Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music From Rumba to Reggae Music is one of the most popular and dynamic aspects of Caribbean expressive culture. As Caribbean music has evolved from its contemporary forms, it has developed a rich variety of styles. From the well-known genres - salsa, merengue, reggae, calypso and bachata - to more localised forms like chutney and kaseko, this wide-ranging book surveys Caribbean music's prodigious diversity and colorful history.
Oye Como Va!: Hybridity and Identity in Latino Popular Music Listen Up When the New York-born Tito Puente composed "Oye Como Va " in the 1960s, his popular song was called Latin even though it was a fusion of Afro-Cuban and New York Latino musical influences. A decade later, Carlos Santana, a Mexican immigrant, blended PuenteOCOs tune with rock and roll, which brought it to the attention of national audiences. Like Puente and Santana, Latino/a musicians have always blended musics from their homelands with other sounds in our multicultural society, challenging ideas of what Latin music is or ought to be. Waves of immigrants further complicate the picture as they continue to bring their distinctive musical styles to the U.S.OCofrom merengue and bachata to cumbia and reggaeton. Ina"Oye Como Va ," Deborah Pacini Hernandez traces the trajectories of various U.S. Latino musical forms in a globalizing world, examining how the blending of Latin music reflects Latino/a American lives connecting across nations. Exploring the simultaneously powerful, vexing, and stimulating relationship between hybridity, music, and identity, a"Oye Como Va "aasserts that this potent combination is a signature of the U.S. Latino/a experience.