Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Zouk: world music in the West Indies

1994; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 31; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5860/choice.31-5364

1943-5975

Robert Witmer,

Music History and Culture

Jocelyne Guilbault, with Gage Averill, Edouard Benoit, and Gregory Rabess. Zouk: World Music in the West Indies. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. xxv, 279 pp., compact disc included. ISBN 0-226-31041-8 (hardcover), ISBN 0-226-31042-6 (paperback). This publication covers lot of geographical, socio-cultural and intellectual territory. While it is at base historical and descriptive study of zouk - recently emergent popular originating in the French Caribbean - it is also tour de force in the presentation and representation of contemporary expressive cultures in their manifold complexities. The complexities in this case are many. The phenomenon Guilbault takes on is micro-evolutionarily innovative popular style traceable in large degree to the creativity of small cadre of professional musicians based in Martinique and Guadeloupe in the 1970s and 1980s. Their innovations were consolidated and polished in the recording studios of Paris and the resulting product has been well received not only in the source (French Caribbean) communities but in other world markets as well. The basic ingredients of this scenario echo tale familiar in the histories of numerous regional New World vernacular musics, to be sure-e.g., the rise and diffusion of Jamaican reggae, early New Orleans jazz, and so on. What most connects the success of zouk to the histories of other initially obscure regional styles which have achieved transnational prominence is the confluence of marketing savvy, artistic distinctiveness and favorable socio-cultural climate. When operating in sync, these factors make it possible for narrowly-practiced style to quickly become broadly significant. Guilbault's study is one of the most detailed and informed to date on this fascinating and multidisciplinarily important phenomenon. This work is in many ways model of to do popular studies in an academically fruitful way. Guilbault expertly combines the narrative engagement of the best of 'popular' popular writing with the analytic rigours of musicology and ethnomusicology - and she adds to the mix her knowledge of current methods and paradigms in cultural studies and the social sciences at large. Even cursory perusal of her bibliography reveals the wide range of intellectual stances that have informed her presentation of zouk. Like most publications about I admire and respect, Guilbault's study leads me inexorably to experience/re-experience the musical sounds themselves. I also appreciate its enthusiatic and advocatory stance, although this is sometimes perhaps excessive-as when zouk is described as a major contemporary force in the popular field helping to shape economic, political, and social change worldwide ... (xv). Not to dismiss the significance of zouk, this statement seems to me bit overblown in light of the evidence presented. Guilbault's introductory chapter lays out the scope, aims and theoretical underpinnings of the study in clear and concise manner. Paramount among her concerns is to explicate zouk from multiple perspectives to establish popular, mass-distributed has evolved and it has been received by four distinct populations [i.e., those of Dominica, St. Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe] (xvii). Her concern with how various cultures respond to the same music (xvii) is arefreshing slantrare in ethnomusicological work, albeit not so uncommon in historical musicology (viz., reception history). Guilbault also voices hope that her study will further the appreciation of world music (xxi). To this end she includes much that could lead receptive reader to an informed appreciation (and perhaps even an aficionado's connoisseurship) for zouk and related styles, beginning in chapter 2 which traces the rise of zouk and in particular its most renowned band to date, Kassav. Part II of the book (chapters 3-7) deals with a network of relations (48) connecting zouk to other musical styles and genres. …