Volume I of this two-part series followed the African roots of jazz across the Atlantic. (Read our review here.) It covered the knowable history with linguistic and musical analysis at a depth that no one but Gerhard Kubik could have reached. Calling on his 60 years at the forefront of jazz studies in Africa, he carefully avoids exaggerated claims of provenance and always respects the individual musicians whose efforts lie behind any music. Even when their names are lost to history he avoids the misleading trap of ascribing a music to a culture as if it sprung from the earth. Volume I gets far enough in the story to see music of the Americas finding its way back to Africa in the form of Calypso, Negro Spirituals, and traveling minstrel shows.
He continues that journey in Volume II by detailing the influence of jazz in Africa across the arc of the 20th century, most prominently in the period after de-colonialization.
Once again he makes no exaggerated claims. The first section of the book is an overview of the modern presence of jazz on the African scene, and a ready admission that it is minimal. The local popular musics that attach the word "jazz" to a band name or description use it for cachet and show little or no jazz influence. They use it the way someone may cast the terms "pop" or "rock" too broadly. Small highly educated communities and individual urban clubs with tie
