Routledge Music in American Society: From Puritan Hymn to Synthesizer

This book is the literary legacy of a national music festival in St. Louis, organized to identify as clearly as possible the specifically native character of music originating in the United States of America. The festival―the Bicentennial Horizons of American Music and the Performing Arts (B.H.A.M.)―sponsored more than 250 performances and workshops between Flag Day and Independence Day 1976. It was the only event of the Bicentennial celebration to address itself to a survey and evaluation of the musical development of this country. Review -Within Music in American Society, 1776-1976, journalist George McCue and a dozen diverse contributors have blended bicentennial spirit and a report on the state of the art. The volume examines: (1) Americanism in music . . . and (2) the interweaving of variant ethnic musics into the composite musical genre of today. . . . Among the examined American musics are black spirituals, field blues and jubilees, classical (Ives and electronic music), folk music, hymns, Indian music, jazz, music theater (opera, operetta, and musical comedy), and popular music. . . . Since our personal taste often limits us as students of the sociology of music, this volume can both supply missing information and challenge unwarranted presuppositions.- --Peter Hesbacher, Contemporary Sociology "Within Music in American Society, 1776-1976, journalist George McCue and a dozen diverse contributors have blended bicentennial spirit and a report on the state of the art. The volume examines: (1) Americanism in music . . . and (2) the interweaving of variant ethnic musics into the composite musical genre of today. . . . Among the examined American musics are black spirituals, field blues and jubilees, classical (Ives and electronic music), folk music, hymns, Indian music, jazz, music theater (opera, operetta, and musical comedy), and popular music. . . . Since our personal taste often limits us as students of the sociology of music, this volume can both supply missing information and challenge unwarranted presuppositions." --Peter Hesbacher, Contemporary Sociology "Within Music in American Society, 1776-1976, journalist George McCue and a dozen diverse contributors have blended bicentennial spirit and a report on the state of the art. The volume examines: (1) Americanism in music . . . and (2) the interweaving of variant ethnic musics into the composite musical genre of today. . . . Among the examined American musics are black spirituals, field blues and jubilees, classical (Ives and electronic music), folk music, hymns, Indian music, jazz, music theater (opera, operetta, and musical comedy), and popular music. . . . Since our personal taste often limits us as students of the sociology of music, this volume can both supply missing information and challenge unwarranted presuppositions." --Peter Hesbacher, Contemporary Sociology