Book Description
This digital document is an article from Latin Beat Magazine, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1155 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Let's dance!
Author: Rudy Mangual
Publication: Latin Beat Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 16Issue: 10Page: 20(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
Arsenio Rodríguez was one of the most important Cuban musicians of the twentieth century. In this first scholarly study, ethnomusicologist David F. García examines Rodríguez's life, including the conjunto musical combo he led and the highly influential son montuno style of music he created in the 1940s. García recounts Rodríguez's battle for recognition at the height of "mambo mania" in New York City and the significance of his music in the development of salsa. With firsthand accounts from relatives and fellow musicians, Arsenio Rodríguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music follows Rodríguez's fortunes on several continents, speculating on why he never enjoyed wide commercial success despite the importance of his music.

García focuses on the roles that race, identity, and politics played in shaping Rodríguez's music and the trajectory of his musical career. His transnational perspective has important implications for Latin American and popular music studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Arsenio Rodríguez bio
The book all of us Arsenio-ologists have been waiting for, the discography and sidemen info are worth the double its sale price alone....

Great Resource and Interesting Read
What a treasure to have an English-language resource that shines light on this important figure, a man who was, and is, simultaneously revered and neglected.The source of many of salsa's most enduring innovations, Arsenio Rodriguez' contributions spanned the mambo era and found resonance when this music re-emerged later as "salsa."Garcia does a fine job of illuminating this for the reader.It should not surprise Americans, as Garcia points out, that these innovations were inspired by Arsenio's profound understanding of Cuba's African traditions.Most refreshing, however, is finding an author who also understands the importance of Arsenio's music as "music for dance."Garcia engages his reader on this point and drives home the critical relationship between Arsenio's music and the dancers, and the importance of this rapport in energizing and sustaining his innovations.Arsenio emerges in this biography as a critical voice in dispelling an entrenched notion that music for dancing cannot be serious music (I am reminded of Ned Sublette's "dancing is an intense listening state," from Cuba and its Music.)And Garcia makes this statement forcefully.

I also applaud Garcia's dissection of this musician/dancer connection--one that is enlivened by interviews with musicians and dancers.He missteps, however, in his definition of the son montuno "basic step."What he describes is more likely a "variation"--one that reflects the inventive styling and footwork of dancers responding to the push and pull of Arsenio's "clave feel."Son montuno was indeed danced using timing that Cubans call "contratiempo."Garcia's analysis of that timing, however, is simply too idiosyncratic.

Overall, this book is substantive.It presents English-language readers with another important resource in moving the discussion of Afro-Cuban music and dance (including salsa), and its West African roots, forward. ... Read more

Book Description
Here's an exciting and highly readable introduction to the musical and social roots of today's Latin music. The editors have assembled a collection of writings on Puerto Rican music and dance by some of the foremost experts in the field, which includes musicians, lay scholars, collectors, journalists, and music activists and promoters. Mixing scholarly essays, short articles, interviews, memoirs and even some poetry and creative prose, the readings are lively and interesting. Here are thoughtful critical analyses of the traditional Puerto Rican forms such as bomba, plena, and música jíbara, as well as new approaches to more familiar sounds like the mambo, Latin jazz and of course salsa. The collection also contains studies of the Puerto Rican role in reggae, punk, hip hop and reggaeton. In addition to fresh looks at musical rhythms and the major practitioners, the collection also addresses some of the historic venues, audiences and, most importantly, the dance styles and steps that have always been part of the Latin music scene. It's all here, as long as it has that swing y sabor! ... Read more

Product Description
Advanced manual not recommened for beginners. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Informative
The book is very informative. It may not be the most interesting but it definately taught me the dances. Now I am pretty good at them.

Informative
The book is very informative. It may not be the most interesting but it definately taught me the dances. Now I am pretty good at them. ... Read more