Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

‘Una Escuela Rara’: Havana Meets Harlem in Montmartre

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 16; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/07407700500515050

1748-5819

Alexandra T. Vazquez,

Latin American and Latino Studies

This article analyzes the work of Graciela Pérez, best known as the vocalist for the New York based band Machito and His Afro-Cubans, a founding group for what comes to be known as ‘Cubop’ or Latin Jazz. Her overall oeuvre, however, spans from the early 1930s to 2004, travels through several continents, and by default, genres. I pay particular attention to an oral history Pérez recorded with the Smithsonian museum in 1998. I argue that the recording is a musical one that disrupts in-place approaches used in the writing and archiving of popular music. My analysis of Pérez is not undertaken to simply rectify the masculinist and nationalist tenor in discussions of genre. Instead, I'm more interested in the work that her oral history does, especially the ways in which it theorizes what I call the “methodological wanderlust” encountered when tracing the performance circuits of Cuban women musicians.