Neustadt

Neustadt compares the Buena Vista Social Club album and film- the best selling Cuban recording artist outside Cuba- with La Charanga Habanera and their album Tremendo Delirio- Cuba’s highest selling album inside the country. Neustadt shows that the Buena Vista Social Club depiction, which insinuates that Cuba has not progressed since the revolution, is off base. La Charanga Habanera has younger musicians, performing a style called timba, which mixes Afro-Caribbean rhythms with hip-hop and rap. La Charanga Habanera’s lyrics include thin metaphors for contemporary and taboo issues like sex and prostitution. They convey a young, rebellious image of themselves, featuring condoms on their album cover, and are known for wild behavior in the media. BVSC, meanwhile, features old musicians, performing son, and its cover implies a timelessness in Cuba. Neustadt finishes by insinuating that record companies (and Ry Cooder and Nick Gold who produced BVSC) are essentially pimping out Cuban music, culture and identity for shared revenues.
DQ: Why might the BVSC aesthetic- music, scenes pictured in the movie, etc.- be more appealing to a world or US audience?

Paper Sources

Three of the Journal Articles I will be referencing will cover music festivals in general. There does not seem to be muhc, if any, academic coverage of Latin-American music Festivals:

-The economics of music festivals by Bruno S. Frey. Published in The Journal of Cultural Economics.

-DOES THE MUSIC MATTER? MOTIVATIONS FOR ATTENDING A MUSIC FESTIVAL Authors: BOWEN, HEATHER E.1; DANIELS, MARGARET J

-A History of Folk Music Festivals in the United States: Feasts of Musical Celebration by Ronald D. Cohen

In addition to scholarly works, I will be consulting the websites of numerous festivals, as well as youtube clips from them.

I will also consult reviews and reports from newspapers like The Buenos Aires Herald, and, should my Spanish prove passable, La Nacion and Clarin. (They have a wealth of articles, so pointing to one or two is premature.)

Lastly, I will look at a range- from Rolling Stone down to individually run- of websites with concert reviews. There are several as well, and i am still distilling which will be the most helpful.

Pacini-Hernandez "Dancing with the Enemy"

Pacini-Hernandez reviews the role of Cuban music in the music industry. Firstly, she describes the two major potential markets for Cuban music: world music (denoted by the valued perception of authenticity) and world-beat (more dance oriented, meaning percussion, meaning African-heavy). Cuban recordings of world music did not take off until David Byrne thrust himself as a producer into the space.
The Cuban government encouraged and subsidized music of all kinds, and particularly Afro-Carribean musics. While this was certainly not the only music whose exploration was supported by the government, it has become Cuba's chief musical export. However, Cuban musicians fall into a trap- they must appeal to the local (Cuban) population enough to gain an American (tourist) audience and these two value different things. The Cuban government has attempted to involve the process of getting groups produced to raise funds. Once groups are "discovered", they are left to navigate a complex and unfamiliar American music industry, economy, and political state.

Field Notes #1

My research has been meandering quite a bit, and has recently settled on festivals. For 10-15 years (all Good Music Festival, Gathering of the Vibes), and especially in the last five to ten years (Bonnaroo, moe.down, Camp Bisco), music festivals were a significant part of the jam band music segment I have been focused on. However, in the last five years, some of the “jam-world”’s largest festivals have made the mainstream jump (Bonnaroo), and other main stream or “independent”, but not jam, festivals (Coachella) have found great success. I wondered whether these festivals, were as popular in Latin America.
I was hoping to find some festivals that reflected what I have come to be used to experienceing. These features included on-site camping, and especially the erection of a brief community, or near-municipality. However, as with looking for bands with similar followings to what I am used to, the festivals I found were much more like concert series than American festivals.
I found a wealth of music festivals in Latin America. By far the most were in Argentina, including: Cosquin Rock, Pepsi Music Festival (formerly Quilmes Music Festival), Personal Fest, SAMC (South American Music Coference).
Cosquin is a folk festival, which takes place in the city of Cosquín. Along with the Buenos Aires Jazz festival, it is the only large scale festival that is not named after its top sponsor. It also seems to be the oldest festival in Argentina, dating back to 1961. Cosquin was originally conceived to bolster the tourism industry, and is scheduled for a prime vacation time.
Cosquín has developed into a full scale festival complete with folklorists, workshops, artist meet-and-greets, and workshops for people of all ages. In large part because my Spanish is so poor, I am having a hard time finding information about camping. I think it is safe to say that, because of the tourism focus, camping is at least deemphasized.
The series of corporate-sponsored rock festivals all take place in large cities, especially Buenos Aires. Personal Fest, which is sponsored by a telecom company, as well as Nokia, will be taking place this weekend. I will tune in to some of the simulcast, which is available on the festival website. The festival, like most large scale Argentinean rock festivals, includes American (non-South-American) bands, as well as Argentinean and South American bands. Though, Personal Fest seems particularly Argentinean focused, despite American and European headliners. The festival takes place over two days in a club that has both a sports and social focus.
The Pepsi festival (formerly Quilmes) seems to be almost entirely Latin American based bands this year. A seemingly official (though not as official as Personal’s personalfest.com.ar website) notes which countries foreign bands are from. Though last year seems to have featured bands like Dave Matthews Band and Kiss, this year’s mentions no American acts. Total attendance over several days is on the order of 200,000.
Going forward, I intend to spend time on youtube, looking at concert footage, and hopefully footage from outside the concerts themselves. I will also watch some of the Personal Fest live broadcast, and find interviewees, both native Argentinean and American students studying abroad.

Mexican Deejays

Article discusses the Mexican population in the New York area- about 300,000, half of whom are young men, many of whom came to work to support their families in Mexico. The sonidero bailes are dancehall events with a series of five, or so sonideros (DJ's). They each play half hour sets which take the same form. Firstly, a mostly pre-recorded pump-up/"lift-off", which includes boasting (especially about the caliber of their sound system). The musical portion consists of a series of 4 or 5 longer, non- commercial cumbias, over which the sonidero reads, word for word, dedications given to him by attendees. After the performance, many of those for whom the sonidero read dedications buy a tape of the performance (from the sonidero) to send to relatives in Mexico or other cities. Throughout the performance, the sonidero makes travel references (especially space travel, incorporating his use of effects to distort his voice) and jumps between Mexico and New York references.

One of the most important pieces is the sending back (and forth- relatives in Mexico send tapes to relatives in America, as well) of tapes, much like post cards. Whereas postcards tend to draw attention to something different or unique about a place, these seem to say that despite the distance, there are still cultural elements available in America.

Question: The author focuses almost entirely on the sonidero. What do you think the scene is like outside the sonidero "booth"? Also, do you think those who buy tapes make copies for themselves- why/why not?

Which parts of the performance seem most important- music, effects and sound systems, or personality of the sonidero?

Project Topic

Pending (email) replies from people I have contacted, I will be looking into some aspect of live music in Latin America. I'm particularly interested in live music, rather than studio recordings. Moreso, I hope to focus on live music that is considerably different than a playlist of studio tracks reflecting setlists.

I will look for either:
"Unscripted" concerts. Are there formal (paid concerts, rather than informal sessions) performances that feature variety in their setlists, individual songs, etc. I have a sense that popular music in Latin America is very formulaic and one-size-fits-all. But there must be a segment of popular music that takes chances and explores new ideas in a public setting. I'm admittedly biased toward American "jam bands", but there doesn't seem to be much of a "jam band" scene in Latin America. I wonder what other types of music have similar characteristics, fan bases, and/or business models.
(I know that "jam bands" is a vague term, and probably as disliked in its current usage by academia as it is by me, but it's easy to use.)

The other possibility is to look into the fan bases themselves. Are there bands or genres of music that garner cross-country/cross-continent followings? What makes these bands and these fans different than others- musically, economically, culturally? On the other hand, are there events that draw both large numbers of bands and large numbers of fans to one place for an extended event? I will also try to find some niche performers that draw significant crowds with relatively little publicity.

I'm worried that these will end up proving pretty contrived, and turn up some really obvious answers-in the case of the former- or absolutely nothing- in the case of the latter. I have contacted two bands in Latin America and three friends who have studied or are living or studying in Latin America. Communication has been slow. I have looked through some of the library's resources and found very little, so I will rely on direct communication particularly for early research leads.

If all else fails, I will look at the "festival" idea. In America in the 80's, after Woodstock, it was thought that the large scale rock festival was dead, forever. Meanwhile Jazz and Folk Festivals, though hardly attracting hundreds of thousands, and not involving camping or two-day cities, were continuing on with some success. What is the history of festival concerts in Latin America, what makes them successful, and who goes to them? Who produces them and what are their effects on popular music in Latin America?

(This doesn't show that it's been edited?)

Shelemay

More often than not, the ethnomusicologist becomes a(n often significant) part of what s/he is studying. (Shelemay became a significan part of Syrian/Sephardic Jewish music in New York, developed friendships, and more professional relationships). There are three ways that fieldworkers are often involved. Firstly, preserving tradition- multiple scholars were told they would eventually be the last living vestige of the music. Also memorializing musics, as with a book memorializing a musician (or a type of music). The third, mediating, refers to participation in the distribution and education processes. Lastly, Shelemay sets forth some guidelines for responisble and effective interaction with subjects.