Musica!: The Rhythm of Latin America - Salsa, Rumba, Merengue, and More

by Sue Steward

Salsa, the irresistible dance music of the Spanish-speaking world, has made its way into the lives of millions around the globe. But salsa is only one of many popular Latin rhythms. The first... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811825663
• ISBN13: 9780811825665
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

A quick, classy, well-informed music guide

Wow. Weighing in at a mere 176 pages, this snappy little volume sure packs a wallop! This is the Cuban music equivalent of McGowan & Pessanha's "Brazilian Sound," but with more dynamic layout, and exceptionally precise writing. "Musica!" features several geographically-centered chapters, exploring salsa traditions in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Columbia and, of course, the explosion of modern salsa in New York and Miami. Brief overviews of the style's spread into Europe and Africa, and a look at modern salsa-pop crossovers. Each chapter features a central narrative, along with numerous sidebars that at first might seem unwieldy and distracting, but are tremendously informative and fun. These include profiles of artists ranging from the superstars to the obscure and the forgotten -- Tito Puente, Ruben Blades and Celia Cruz share the dance floor along with The Mambo Aces, Jesus Colon, and Maria Teresa Vera. The writing is remarkably compact and informative. Steward is especially effective at describing musical concepts and performance techniques, details that other writers often flounder over while trying to explain. The historical photographs, engravings and album reproductions are also illuminating and gorgeous-- laid out in crazy-quilt fashion, the colorful artwork alone makes this book a must for latin music fans. There are parts of this book which felt too short, but as an easily-assimilated guide to the music of four continents, this is pretty hard to beat. Highly recommended!

Enjoyable book on Salsa

This is a colorful book, full of pictures and printed on quality paper. Being new to Salsa, I can not vouch for its historical accuracy. However, it seems to me that every author on the topic has their own opinion on the "true" history of Salsa. If you aproach the topic with a light hearted curriosity, you will not be dissapointed by this book.

Some extra spice...

Great book for salsa lovers who want to know a bit more about the history and background of the sexiest, spieciest music and dance.

A "must read" for all Latin American music fans.

There's relatively little available on Latin American music by itself, which makes this new title so important. Chapters cover salsa, merengue, and Latin jazz using plenty of biographical portraits and cultural overviews to trace the evolution of these styles and the musicians who fostered them. The addition of many bright color photos and drawings enhances the attraction and easy reading of this survey, making it accessible to newcomers to the styles as well as prior fans. Highly recommended.

This is the book that I have been waiting for!

Last year I looked high and low for a good book on Latin American music but there seemed to be nothing around -- not currently in print nor out of print. But now this book comes along and it is great. The wonderful text is equally wonderfully illustrated, perhaps due to the author's position as a newspaper picture editor but she is wasted on such a task and should write more books.The detail is amazing and surely the product of some painstaking research. I won't grumble and gripe about how the book differs from one that I might have idealised but I will make two critisms. One is that it has no CD. Two is that Brazil is completely missing. These omissions are so obvious that I can only think that they were not oversights.All in all, not just a good book but a GREAT book.