The Man Can't Bust Our Music

Right now while I'm in the middle of writing music for some upcoming projects, I've actually had a little time to read for fun. Like many people I have a stack of 'to read' books that I always plan to get to 'someday.' Sadly someday ends up being later than I hoped for and of course, my 'to read' stack gets taller than my shelf I stack them on.

One of those books I've been hoping to pull down off that shelf, and have now started, is A Power Stronger than Itself by George Lewis. Written in 2008, it is the account of American Experimental Music in the 1960s through today, especially as it relates to the neglected (or less heralded) exploits of African-American experimenters working contemporaneously as the more trumpeted 'New York' school of music avant-gardist in the 1960s like John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, Robert Ashley, Steve Reich et. al. And so far is an inspiring and fascinating read. Along with a dizzying cavalcade of musicians, both known and unknown to me, are the accounts and struggles of the artists both socially and musically (remember this was the 1960s when "race, itself was assumed to overdetermine the identity of the black creative artist"; actually, I think this statement might, in some ways, still be true  today). 

I'm only a few chapters in right now but I'm sensing this is going to be one those books that influences me on a deep level long after the book returns to my shelf of 'read' books...

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 10:49 PM 

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