Temple University Press Sounding Salsa: Performing Latin Music in New York City (Studies In Latin America & Car)

This ethnographic journey into the New York salsa scene of the 1990s is the first of its kind. Written by a musical insider and from the perspective of salsa musicians, "Sounding Salsa" is a pioneering study that offers detailed accounts of these musicians grappling with intercultural tensions and commercial pressures. Christopher Washburne, himself an accomplished salsa musician, examines the organizational structures, recording processes, rehearsing, and gigging of salsa bands, paying particular attention to how they created a sense of community, privileged "the people" over artistic and commercial concerns, and incited cultural pride during performances. "Sounding Salsa" addresses a range of issues, musical and social.Musically, Washburne examines sound structure, salsa aesthetics, and performance practice, along with the influences of Puerto Rican music. Socially, he considers the roles of the illicit drug trade, gender, and violence in shaping the salsa experience. Highly readable, "Sounding Salsa" offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on a musical movement that became a social phenomenon. Review "[Washburne] offers a no-holds-barred, insider glimpse at 'how salsa was made' in New York City in the 1990s. By challenging conventional narratives about salsa's development and taking on contentious issues in its history, including drugs, violence and illegitimate business practices, Sounding Salsa should make a lot of folks look twice at a critical yet neglected moment in the industry's development. Washburne's ethnography of behind-the-scenes backstories, documented from his own vantage point on the bandstand, is the best quick read I've found on the industry's history and inner workings, supplemented by deep industry knowledge that fills in many ellipses in histories written mainly from the point of view of the consumer/ critic. While it offers musicological explanations on salsa's nuts and bolts technical aspects, such as clave, it's also an accessible guide to newcomers who may have wondered: What are those instruments? And why are all those guys wearing the same suits?" --IndyWeeks, 31st December 2008<br /><br />"A professional trombonist, Washburne writes from the vantage point of a practising musician as well as a scholar, offering a dynamic view of salsa as seen from the bandstand over an eighteen-year period during which he played with key orchestras of Tito Puento, Ray Barreto, Celia Cruz, Pete 'El Conde' Rodriguez and Hector Lavoe, among many others.... Apart from its undoubted academic merits, the book convinces through its insider-out perspective, incisive and evocative scenarios, and the way analysis and theory are embedded within its ethnography. In six highly readable chapters, the salsa scene in all its richnesss is described, unpicked, critiqued and celebrated....Washburne has written a book that is as entertaining, informative, and provocative as it is ground-breaking." --Popular Music, May 2009<br /><br />"Washburne does a good job of chronicling the second-generation surge of the popular Latin dance music salsa in the US, which occurred in New York City in the 1990s. The author bases his discussion on an impressive ethnographic methodology and on his own involvement with salsa as a performer. He introduces the reader to the major figures in the movement, provides glimpses of the music itself, and describes the broader cultural and sociological issues that affected the art form and its practitioners. The introduction provides a good overview of the historical development of salsa in the 1960s-70s and establishes a context for the discussion that follows." Choice "[Washburne] offers a no-holds-barred, insider glimpse at 'how salsa was made' in New York City in the 1990s. By challenging conventional narratives about salsa's development and taking on contentious issues in its history, including drugs, violence and illegitimate business practices, Sounding Salsa should make a lot of f