The culmination of almost 60 years of field research and immense learning, Jazz Transatlantic is a remarkable contribution to the academic literature and a milestone achievement for Gerhard Kubik. To a degree never before achieved it distills what can be known of the African cultural and musical contribution to jazz.
Gerhard Kubik became interested in jazz as a teenager in Austria after World War II. He went on to become a prominent ethnomusicologist, cultural anthropologist, and psychoanalyst studying cultures in Africa and in the Americas. In captivating passages, he brings the reader to the scene of recordings he made African musicians as early as 1959.
His experiences have taught him to respect the musician as an individual rather than a representative of a static culture. People who see ethnic music in “collectivist” terms, he says, “ignore the tremendous investment of individual self training, contemplation, and organizational talent that is necessary for acquiring instrumental skills, constructing vocal polyphonies, and organizing performance.” He encourages the same respectful restraint when suggesting an African genesis for specific musical ideas presented by American musicians, while also carefully analyzing themes for cultural continuity.
Kubik claims both that the direct African contribution to jazz is broader than usually recognized, and that a “culture
