As its name implies, this work is a general survey of the diverse array of musical systems and styles that have emerged from Latin America and the Caribbean in the past several centuries. It is first and foremost a textbook for undergraduate world music classes, and is geared toward music majors and non-majors alike. Mark Brill’s primary focus is on the sociocultural and historical processes that have shaped each musical tradition he describes rather than on the technical musicological elements which define them. His discussions are therefore accessible to readers of all levels of expertise and specialization. While there is no central argument per se, the author’s implicit aim is to demonstrate the interconnectedness of musical and other sociocultural and historical developments, the power of music to both express and transform cultural identity, and the importance of understanding musical traditions in terms of the meanings they hold for those who practice them. This book thus serves equally well as a practical, example-based introduction to the basic tenets of ethnomusicological thought for those unfamiliar with the discipline.
Chapter 1 opens with a general discussion of the relationships between music, culture, and identity, and Brill introduces some of the central concepts that reappear throughout the book: the blurry boundaries between folk, popular, and art music; the common processes by which rural folk genres become urbanized, popularized, and (inter)nationalized; and the dangers of facile evaluations of authenticity and objective musical worth. He also provides a synopsis of the history and culture of Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole, with overviews of pre-Columbian culture and music, the European conquest, the African slave trade, and cultural syncretism. In chapter 2 Brill focuses on art music in the western hemisphere, noting that composers in the Americas followed the same basic trajectory of stylistic periods as their European counterparts and often rivaled or even surpassed European achievement in certain styles and particular compositional techniques.
Chapters 3–9 discuss the musics of individual countries or regions throughout the hemisphere. Brill does not aim for comprehensiveness, but rather for brief surveys of some of the most important folk and popular styles that have emerged from each geographic area. Chapter 3, for instance, deals with Mexico, moving from its Aztec/Maya past to its most prominent regional folk traditions, and then to several styles of contemporary popular music. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the Caribbean, beginning with a historical overview of the region’s indigenous roots and moving to the European power struggles which played out on several of its islands, its heavy reliance on the African slave trade and Asian and Middle Eastern indentured servitude, and the unique forms of cultural (and musical) diversity which have resulted from these historical particularities. Brill then examines the musics of the most influential islands of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic) in chapter 4, and of the English-speaking Caribbean (Jamaica and Trinidad) and the French-speaking Caribbean (Haiti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe) in chapter 5. He also briefly discusses the Garífuna people of Central America, descended as they are from indigenous Caribbeanites and escaped African slaves.
Chapter 6 turns to the music of Brazil, from its African-derived secular, religious, and Carnival forms to its major regional folk genres, and finally to its world-renowned popular styles. Chapters 7–9 deal with Hispanic South America, which Brill divides into three cultural regions based on the predominance of either African-derived, European-derived, or indigenous cultural influences (though all of the continent’s musical cultures are extremely diverse and characteristically syncretic). Chapter 7, for instance, discusses Colombia and Venezuela, many (though by no means all) of whose most prominent musical traditions exhibit a marked African influence. Chapter 8 focuses on the Andes, a vast region whose heterogeneous musics and cultures demonstrate a preponderance of indigenous and mestizo characteristics. Though Brill treats the Andean countries as a single unit, he devotes a section to Peru in particular, widely recognized as it is for its especially diverse array of European- and African-derived musical traditions in addition to its indigenous/mestizo styles. Chapter 9 discusses the Southern Cone and specifically the musics of Argentina and Chile, where European influence is the strongest. As in other chapters, Brill outlines various regional folk traditions as well as the urban popular styles that draw from them.
Taken as a whole, Music of Latin America and the Caribbean has a number of significant shortcomings. Perhaps the most obvious is Brill’s lack of recognition of or reference to the more authoritative ethnomusicological and other scholarly sources which he must surely have consulted to produce a work so broad in scope. Indeed, while the text is peppered with “Recommended Listening” and “Recommended Viewing” suggestions for additional songs and films not analyzed in the book or included on its two accompanying CDs, the single “Recommended Reading” citation is for a book on human history, and there is no comprehensive bibliography to speak of. This oversight substantially diminishes the book’s effectiveness as a reference tool for its readers’ own more in-depth inquiries into the musical traditions and phenomena that Brill surveys, despite his stated intention to inspire such further research at both the informal/amateur and professional/academic levels. Furthermore, several of Brill’s discussions of individual musical traditions leave much to be desired. Though I certainly do not possess the breadth of knowledge to evaluate the veracity of every claim he makes, I can say that his section on Jamaica—my area of specialty—contains a number of inaccuracies, conspicuous omissions, and oversimplified or misleading claims, many of which merely replicate commonly held assumptions and essentialized tropes about specific styles, artists, or historical trends without taking into account the more nuanced and critical readings offered by scholars who specialize in those traditions. Finally, though Brill makes no claims to comprehensiveness, I find his near-complete elision of the musical traditions of Central America quite problematic. It is certainly the case that far less English-language ethnomusicological scholarship has been produced on this region than on the other areas he discusses, but he would have done well to acknowledge and explain this dearth rather than to simply ignore it, leaving his readers to assume that this part of the world is just not as interesting or important.
Despite these shortcomings, I feel that Music of Latin America and the Caribbean is a valuable contribution to the field overall. Brill amasses an astounding amount of information about a diverse array of musical traditions from a wide range of geographical areas throughout the region, and he should be applauded for the ambitiousness of his work. Furthermore, he does a fine job of translating complex phenomena into terms accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike. He effectively identifies some of the most influential historical processes and musical traits that characterize Latin America and the Caribbean, lucidly defines them, and successfully demonstrates both the similarities and the differences in how they manifest themselves in a range of local contexts. Ultimately, then, I recommend this book for the undergraduate introductory world music courses for which it is intended, with the suggestion that it be supplemented with more focused and in-depth scholarly accounts that may provide some of the critical nuance and complexity that Brill’s broad overview is often unable to fully convey.
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[Review length: 1198 words • Review posted on June 30, 2011]