Music of the African Diaspora #9: Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba

Music and Revolution provides a dynamic introduction to the most prominent artists and musical styles that have emerged in Cuba since 1959 and to the policies that have shaped artistic life. Robin D. Moore gives readers a chronological overview of the first decades after the Cuban Revolution, documenting the many ways performance has changed and emphasizing the close links between political and cultural activity. Offering a wealth of fascinating details about music and the milieu that engendered it, the author traces the development of dance styles, nueva trova, folkloric drumming, religious traditions, and other forms. He describes how the fall of the Soviet Union has affected Cuba in material, ideological, and musical terms and considers the effect of tense international relations on culture. Most importantly, Music and Revolution chronicles how the arts have become a point of negotiation between individuals, with their unique backgrounds and interests, and official organizations. It uses music to explore how Cubans have responded to the priorities of the revolution and have created spaces for their individual concerns.

Copub: Center for Black Music Research

"The Cuban reality reveals itself in many forms, perhaps none as compelling as its music. Through the rhythm, by way of the melody, within the lyric, and in the arrangement and performance, the music speaks to the Cuban condition, past and present. Few have conveyed knowledge of this relationship with the originality and thoroughness that Robin Moore demonstrates in this book. Music and Revolution offers insight and understanding of the Cuban Revolution unobtainable by any other means. It will assume a place of prominence among those books considered obligatory reading."--Louis A. Pérez Jr., author of To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society

Robin D. Moore is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of Texas, Austin, and the author of Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920-1940 (1997).

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction: Music and the Arts in Socialist Cuba

1. Revelry and Revolution: The Paradox of the 1950s

2. Music and Social Change in the first years

3. Artistic Institutions, Initiatives, and Policies

4. Dance Music and the Politics of Fun

5. Transformations in Nueva Trova

6. Afro-Cuban Folklore in a Raceless Society

7. Ay, Dios Ampárame: Sacred Music and Revolution

8. Music and Ideological Crisis

Conclusion: Musical Politics into the New Millennium

Appendix:Publications on Music from Revolutionary Cuba

Notes

Glossary

Works Cited

Index