Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana

by Steven Feld

In this remarkable book, Steven Feld, pioneer of the anthropology of sound, listens to the vernacular cosmopolitanism of jazz players in Ghana. Some have traveled widely, played with American jazz greats, and blended the innovations of John Coltrane with local instruments and worldviews. Combining memoir, biography, ethnography, and history, Feld conveys a diasporic intimacy and dialogue that contests American nationalist and Afrocentric narratives of jazz history. His stories of Accra's jazz cosmopolitanism feature Ghanaba/Guy Warren (1923–2008), the eccentric drummer who befriended the likes of Charlie Parker, Max Roach, and Thelonious Monk in the United States in the 1950s, only to return, embittered, to Ghana, where he became the country's leading experimentalist. Others whose stories figure prominently are Nii Noi Nortey, who fuses the legacies of the black avant-gardes of the 1960s and 1970s with pan-African philosophy in sculptural shrines to Coltrane and musical improvisations inspired by his work; the percussionist Nii Otoo Annan, a traditional master inspired by Coltrane's drummers Elvin Jones and Rashied Ali; and a union of Accra truck and minibus drivers whose squeeze-bulb honk-horn music for drivers' funerals recalls the jazz funerals of New Orleans. Feld describes these artists' cosmopolitan outlook as an "acoustemology," a way of knowing the world through sound.

Genres: Music, Jazz, Africa, Nonfiction

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Alex C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book on many levels. Hard to summerize, it has great stories about people, history and purpose. It's purpose is broad and specific at the same time. Trying to come to grips with what constitutes cosmopolitanism, jazz, art, and culture, Feld uses specific stories and personal experience to try and answer the questions.
Having seen the films and heard the CDs (I'm playing on one of them) I felt enlightened by many of the back stories and historical narratives. After reading the book I had a better understanding of these people, their world and my own. I read a physical copy of the book but I could strongly recommend an electronic version to be able to quickly reference the Internet and follow the many ideas and footnotes that abound throughout.

[Phil Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feld's approach to researching and writing this book provides a template that all ethnomusicologists should strive to emulate. Resulting from 5 years of collaborative multimedia projects in Ghana, Feld does a wonderful job of letting his collaborators tell their own stories and talk about their own cosmopolitanism in their own words. I was immensely impressed by this book.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is more of a memoir than an academic title, and I wish I had known that before before diving in. The good part of this is that it made for a quick read. The bad is that I came away without much of a sense of what his main points were. It's an experimental book, but it read like Feld just dropped into a discussion that's been happening in global jazz scholarship for a long time without really engaging with it. And that made me sad.

[Sara-Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

a story much better told through his triology of films, i think:

"accra trane station"
http://vimeo.com/43231027

"african hallelujah chours"
http://vimeo.com/43227051

"a por por funeral for ashirifie"
http://vimeo.com/44961733