Timothy J. Cooley’s Making Music in the Tatras stands out as an insightful look at the particular case of górale (Polish highlander) musicians and, more broadly, culture in the Tatra Mountains and the ways in which the musicians construct multiple identities in various contexts and how these identities are reflected in musical performance. Reading it I was struck by how favorably the book compares with Timothy Rice’s May It Fill Your Soul (a personal favorite in the ethnography of music) and Tina Ramnarine’s Ilmatar’s Inspirations. The latter case is perhaps the more comparable, in that both it and Making Music in the Tatras take a broad historical approach to modern ethnography and look more broadly than Rice’s tightly focused ethnographic approach.
This book excels in its treatment of the ways in which scholars have been influential in establishing górale music as “authentic” since at least the early 1800s and how this work has transformed popular conceptions of the Tatras from a remote backwater infested with bandits into the cradle of “real” Polishness. Although Cooley does not really spend much time on the concept, he does bring forth the paradox that górale music and culture are considered authentically Polish precisely because they are so different from—and thus atypical and nonrepresentative of—the culture most Poles recognize as their own quotidian culture; it is, in fact, their hybridity, rather than their purity, that provides the characteristics that make them into vessels of “pure” Polish culture.
Cooley shows how the ideologies (and competing notions of authenticity) in górale society are played out in selections of music, playing styles, singing styles, and performance practices in situations ranging from informal gatherings to international “folk” festivals to “world music” productions. This last topic is discussed at length with respect to a musical collaboration between the Jamaican reggae group Twinkle Brothers and the górale ensemble Tutki. The book focuses in particular on the precise ways in which górale music was simplified, particularly in its rhythm, to allow the collaboration. While the collaboration between the two groups was fruitful, the reality of the effort was considerably more complex than the marketing “myth” in which two groups realized their musical affinities and created something new. It also examines how two albums based on the collaborative material, one made for an international, primarily Western, audience and the other aimed more at local markets, differ. Some of the themes raised at this point are expanded when Cooley goes on to discuss a techno/folk tune created by Tutki specifically to interest górale youth in their traditional music and the song “Nasze Reggae (Pami?ci Bob),” a górale “reimagining” of reggae in tribute to Bob Marley. Cooley states, intriguingly, that “[t]hey use a de-reggaed reggae song to sing about [górale] music” (195), thus pointing to the reflexive use of music even in a “folk” context. Taken together with the discussion of tunes clearly considered górale, a picture of a dynamic and evolving tradition emerges in which musicians take an active role in the constant recreation of their culture in dialog with both local and global issues.
Cooley’s knowledge of the music and region is clearly extensive and he is quick to recognize the musical connections of the górale to their neighbors in Slovakia and even as far as Hungary and Ukraine. It is a useful antidote to the often poisonously nationalistic discourse produced in Eastern Europe that tries to reduce folk arts to manifestations of national culture and see everything as unique to a particular group or region. The topic of hybridity in the region is almost unimaginably complex, and Cooley handles his analysis adeptly, pointing to the many different levels at which this discourse operates, from public performance (which features an almost exclusively “Polish” repertoire) to after-performance parties for locals (where the repertoire becomes much more accepting of tunes that would not appear in staged performances) to more intimate family gatherings where musicians are more likely simply to play what they like with little concern for “authenticity.”
Finally, the discussion of the politics of culture in festival settings evokes something of David Whisnant’s discussion of the White Top Folk Festival in All That Is Native and Fine, but is ultimately more optimistic and positive than Whisnant’s work. The discussion of cultural framing in these environments is nuanced and insightful, with examples that add concrete value to the discussion on festival culture.
In the end, my only real quibble is that I felt that Cooley stopped short of making what seemed to me to be fairly obvious general conclusions based on his research. Perhaps this reluctance is part of a general, current suspicion of grand theory in the field, or perhaps Cooley was relying on readers to make the conclusions he leads them to. Much of what Cooley writes is applicable to fields I work in (such as Hungarian village music), and I will consult the book in the future as a valuable resource. It stands out as a valuable contribution to the field that will be of general interest to scholars working in Eastern Europe or dealing with concepts of hybridity and purity in a national framework.
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[Review length: 853 words • Review posted on March 23, 2009]