Winner of the Society of Ethnomusicology's Alan Merriam Prize (2006)

Drawing on his background as an ethnomusicologist as well as years of experience as an accomplished jazz musician, Paul Austerlitz argues that jazz--and the world-view or consciousness that surrounds it--embodies an aesthetic of inclusiveness, reaching out from its African American base to embrace all of humanity. Fans and musicians have made this claim before, but Austerlitz is the first to provide a scholarly basis for it. He examines jazz in relation to race and national identity in the U.S. and then broadens...

Merengue is a quintessential Dominican dance music. This work aims to unravel the African and Iberian roots of merengue. It examines the historical and contemporary contexts in which merengue is performed and danced, its symbolic significance, its social functions, and its musical and choreographic structures.