DOC Passenger: All The Little Lights by Wise Publications in Arts-Photography

Description

In A Language of Song; Samuel Chartersmdash;one of the pioneering collectors of African American musicmdash;writes of a trip to West Africa where he found ldquo;a gathering of cultures and a continuing history that lay behind the flood of musical expression [he] encountered everywhere . . . from Brazil to Cuba; to Trinidad; to New Orleans; to the Bahamas; to dance halls of west Louisiana and the great churches of Harlem.rdquo; In this book; Charters takes readers along to those and other places; including Jamaica and the Georgia Sea Islands; as he recounts experiences from a half-century spent following; documenting; recording; and writing about the Africa-influenced music of the United States; Brazil; and the Caribbean.Each of the bookrsquo;s fourteen chapters is a vivid rendering of a particular location that Charters visited. While music is always his focus; the book is filled with details about individuals; history; landscape; and culture. In first-person narratives; Charters relates voyages including a trip to the St. Louis home of the legendary ragtime composer Scott Joplin and the journey to West Africa; where he met a man who performed an hours-long song about the Europeansrsquo; first colonial conquests in Gambia. Throughout the book; Charters traces the persistence of African musical culture despite slavery; as well as the influence of slavesrsquo; songs on subsequent musical forms. In evocative prose; he relates a lifetime of travel and research; listening to brass bands in New Orleans; investigating the emergence of reggae; ska; and rock-steady music in Jamaicarsquo;s dancehalls; and exploring the history of Afro-Cuban music through the life of the jazz musician Bebo Valdeacute;s. A Language of Song is a unique expedition led by one of musicrsquo;s most observant and well-traveled explorers.