DESCRIPTION

From Vodou to Zouk, the inaugural volume in African Diaspora Press's Black Music Reference Series, is a landmark work documenting vernacular music traditions of the French- and Creole-speaking Caribbean. Its nearly 1300 entries cover all of the French-speaking islands, in particular Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana, as well as their overseas enclaves in France, the United States and Canada. Idioms covered range from the liturgical music of Haitian Vodou to folk and popular dance musics such as kalenda, bélé, compas, zouk, ragga, and more. A lengthy biographical and critical section provides information on more than 350 of the region’s leading musicians and producers. Most works are in English, French, and Spanish, with a smattering in Creole. These range in date from 1698 to 2008, with the bulk having been published or recorded between the 1930s and 2008. Interdisciplinary in scope, the book offers a wide spectrum of perspectives, chiefly from the humanities and social sciences, which range from academic studies to popular reportage. Of particular note is the strong representation of sources from the Caribbean and France not found anywhere else.

An introduction by the compiler and a scholarly foreword by ethnomusicologist Julian Gerstin help to contextualize the history of the region and its vibrant musical legacy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JOHN GRAY is director of the Black Arts Research Center in Nyack, New York. His previous publications include African Music (1991); Fire Music: A Bibliography of the New Jazz, 1959-1990 (1991); Blacks in Classical Music (1988); Blacks in Film and Television (1990); Black Theatre and Performance (1990); and, Ashe, Traditional Religion and Healing in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Diaspora (1989), all published by Greenwood Press.

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