Recorded Music in American Life

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198026048
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis Recorded Music in American Life by : William Howland Kenney

Download or read book Recorded Music in American Life written by William Howland Kenney and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-07-08 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have records, compact discs, and other sound reproduction equipment merely provided American listeners with pleasant diversions, or have more important historical and cultural influences flowed through them? Do recording machines simply capture what's already out there, or is the music somehow transformed in the dual process of documentation and dissemination? How would our lives be different without these machines? Such are the questions that arise when we stop taking for granted the phenomenon of recorded music and the phonograph itself. Now comes an in-depth cultural history of the phonograph in the United States from 1890 to 1945. William Howland Kenney offers a full account of what he calls "the 78 r.p.m. era"--from the formative early decades in which the giants of the record industry reigned supreme in the absence of radio, to the postwar proliferation of independent labels, disk jockeys, and changes in popular taste and opinion. By examining the interplay between recorded music and the key social, political, and economic forces in America during the phonograph's rise and fall as the dominant medium of popular recorded sound, he addresses such vital issues as the place of multiculturalism in the phonograph's history, the roles of women as record-player listeners and performers, the belated commercial legitimacy of rhythm-and-blues recordings, the "hit record" phenomenon in the wake of the Great Depression, the origins of the rock-and-roll revolution, and the shifting place of popular recorded music in America's personal and cultural memories. Throughout the book, Kenney argues that the phonograph and the recording industry served neither to impose a preference for high culture nor a degraded popular taste, but rather expressed a diverse set of sensibilities in which various sorts of people found a new kind of pleasure. To this end, Recorded Music in American Life effectively illustrates how recorded music provided the focus for active recorded sound cultures, in which listeners shared what they heard, and expressed crucial dimensions of their private lives, by way of their involvement with records and record-players. Students and scholars of American music, culture, commerce, and history--as well as fans and collectors interested in this phase of our rich artistic past--will find a great deal of thorough research and fresh scholarship to enjoy in these pages.

The Beautiful Music All Around Us

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Author :
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 025209400X
Total Pages : 505 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis The Beautiful Music All Around Us by : Stephen Wade

Download or read book The Beautiful Music All Around Us written by Stephen Wade and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2012-08-10 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Beautiful Music All Around Us presents the extraordinarily rich backstories of thirteen performances captured on Library of Congress field recordings between 1934 and 1942 in locations reaching from Southern Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and the Great Plains. Including the children's play song "Shortenin' Bread," the fiddle tune "Bonaparte's Retreat," the blues "Another Man Done Gone," and the spiritual "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down," these performances were recorded in kitchens and churches, on porches and in prisons, in hotel rooms and school auditoriums. Documented during the golden age of the Library of Congress recordings, they capture not only the words and tunes of traditional songs but also the sounds of life in which the performances were embedded: children laugh, neighbors comment, trucks pass by. Musician and researcher Stephen Wade sought out the performers on these recordings, their families, fellow musicians, and others who remembered them. He reconstructs the sights and sounds of the recording sessions themselves and how the music worked in all their lives. Some of these performers developed musical reputations beyond these field recordings, but for many, these tracks represent their only appearances on record: prisoners at the Arkansas State Penitentiary jumping on "the Library's recording machine" in a rendering of "Rock Island Line"; Ora Dell Graham being called away from the schoolyard to sing the jump-rope rhyme "Pullin' the Skiff"; Luther Strong shaking off a hungover night in jail and borrowing a fiddle to rip into "Glory in the Meetinghouse." Alongside loving and expert profiles of these performers and their locales and communities, Wade also untangles the histories of these iconic songs and tunes, tracing them through slave songs and spirituals, British and homegrown ballads, fiddle contests, gospel quartets, and labor laments. By exploring how these singers and instrumentalists exerted their own creativity on inherited forms, "amplifying tradition's gifts," Wade shows how a single artist can make a difference within a democracy. Reflecting decades of research and detective work, the profiles and abundant photos in The Beautiful Music All Around Us bring to life largely unheralded individuals--domestics, farm laborers, state prisoners, schoolchildren, cowboys, housewives and mothers, loggers and miners--whose music has become part of the wider American musical soundscape. The hardcover edition also includes an accompanying CD that presents these thirteen performances, songs and sounds of America in the 1930s and '40s.

Record Makers and Breakers

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Author :
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252094018
Total Pages : 642 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Record Makers and Breakers by : John Broven

Download or read book Record Makers and Breakers written by John Broven and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2011-08-11 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is an engaging and exceptional history of the independent rock 'n' roll record industry from its raw regional beginnings in the 1940s with R & B and hillbilly music through its peak in the 1950s and decline in the 1960s. John Broven combines narrative history with extensive oral history material from numerous recording pioneers including Joe Bihari of Modern Records; Marshall Chess of Chess Records; Jerry Wexler, Ahmet Ertegun, and Miriam Bienstock of Atlantic Records; Sam Phillips of Sun Records; Art Rupe of Specialty Records; and many more.

George Szell

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252080036
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis George Szell by : Michael Charry

Download or read book George Szell written by Michael Charry and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first full biography of George Szell, one of the greatest orchestra and opera conductors of the twentieth century. From child prodigy pianist and composer to world-renowned conductor, Szell's career spanned seven decades, and he led most of the great orchestras and opera companies of the world, including the New York Philharmonic, the NBC and Chicago Symphonies, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and Opera, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. A protégé of composer-conductor Richard Strauss at the Berlin State Opera, his crowning achievement was his twenty-four-year tenure as musical director of the Cleveland Orchestra, transforming it into one of the world's greatest ensembles, touring triumphantly in the United States, Europe, the Soviet Union, South Korea, and Japan. Michael Charry, a conductor who worked with Szell and interviewed him, his family, and his associates over several decades, draws on this first-hand material and correspondence, orchestra records, reviews, and other archival sources to construct a lively and balanced portrait of Szell's life and work from his birth in 1897 in Budapest to his death in 1970 in Cleveland. Readers will follow Szell from his career in Europe, Great Britain, and Australia to his guest conducting at the New York Philharmonic and his distinguished tenure at the Metropolitan Opera and Cleveland Orchestra. Charry details Szell's personal and musical qualities, his recordings and broadcast concerts, his approach to the great works of the orchestral repertoire, and his famous orchestrational changes and interpretation of the symphonies of Robert Schumann. The book also lists Szell's conducting repertoire and includes a comprehensive discography. In highlighting Szell's legacy as a teacher and mentor as well as his contributions to orchestral and opera history, this biography will be of lasting interest to concert-goers, music lovers, conductors, musicians inspired by Szell's many great performances, and new generations who will come to know those performances through Szell's recorded legacy.

Lost Sounds

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252090632
Total Pages : 656 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Lost Sounds by : Tim Brooks

Download or read book Lost Sounds written by Tim Brooks and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking history of African Americans in the early recording industry, Lost Sounds examines the first three decades of sound recording in the United States, charting the surprising roles black artists played in the period leading up to the Jazz Age and the remarkably wide range of black music and culture they preserved. Drawing on more than thirty years of scholarship, Tim Brooks identifies key black recording artists and profiles forty audio pioneers. Brooks assesses the careers and recordings of George W. Johnson, Bert Williams, George Walker, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, W. C. Handy, James Reese Europe, Wilbur Sweatman, Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Booker T. Washington, and boxing champion Jack Johnson, plus a host of lesser-known voices. Many of these pioneers struggled to be heard in an era of rampant discrimination. Their stories detail the forces––black and white––that gradually allowed African Americans to enter the mainstream entertainment industry. Lost Sounds includes Brooks's selected discography of CD reissues and an appendix by Dick Spottswood describing early recordings by black artists in the Caribbean and South America.

Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252029158
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (291 download)

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Book Synopsis Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture by : Patricia R. Schroeder

Download or read book Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture written by Patricia R. Schroeder and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2004-06-14 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suddenly Robert Johnson is everywhere. Though the Mississippi bluesman died young and recorded only twenty-nine songs, the legacy, legend, and lore surrounding him continue to grow. Focusing on these developments, Patricia R. Schroeder's Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture breaks new ground in Johnson scholarship, going beyond simple or speculative biography to explore him in his larger role as a contemporary cultural icon. Part literary analysis, part cultural criticism, and part biographical study, Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture shows the Robert Johnson of today to be less a two-dimensional character fixed by the few known facts of his life than a dynamic and contested set of ideas. Represented in novels, in plays, and even on a postage stamp, he provides inspiration for "highbrow" cultural artifacts--such as poems--as well as Hollywood movies and T-shirts. Schroeder's detailed and scholarly analysis directly engages key images and stories about Johnson (such as the Faustian crossroads exchange of his soul for guitar virtuosity), navigating the many competing interpretations that swirl around him to reveal the cultural purposes these stories and their tellers serve. Unprecedented in both range and depth, Schroeder's work is a fascinating examination of the relationships among Johnson's life, its subsequent portrayals, and the cultural forces that drove these representations. With penetrating insights into both Johnson and the society that perpetuates him, Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture is essential reading for cultural critics and blues fans alike.

Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing

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Author :
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252020414
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing by : Cary Ginell

Download or read book Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing written by Cary Ginell and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Milton Brown is one of the great unsung heroes of American music; and one of the true fathers of western swing. Ginell's biography offers a wealth of new information on Brown and his times and paints a marvelously detailed portrait of the rich Texas music scene of the Depression era." -- Charles K. Wolfe, Middle Tennessee State University

Doowop

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252065064
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Doowop by : Robert Pruter

Download or read book Doowop written by Robert Pruter and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chicago Tribune's Bill Dahl praised Robert Pruter's Doowop for "vividly describ ing] an enchanting time on the local music scene, when a handful of teenagers could taste rock 'n' roll stardom with harmonies they cooked up on a street corner." Pruter foraged sources from fanzines to the Chicago Defender and conducted extensive interviews in cooking up Doowop, which chronicles the careers of such legendary 1950s groups as the Flamingos, the Moonglows, the Spaniels, and the El Dorados, along with virtually every other Chicago doowop group that contributed to that era.

Long Lost Blues

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252056043
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Long Lost Blues by : Peter C. Muir

Download or read book Long Lost Blues written by Peter C. Muir and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2024-03-18 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mamie Smith's 1920 recording of ""Crazy Blues"" is commonly thought to signify the beginning of commercial attention to blues music and culture, but by that year more than 450 other blues titles had already appeared in sheet music and on recordings. In this examination of early popular blues, Peter C. Muir traces the genre's early history and the highly creative interplay between folk and popular forms, focusing especially on the roles W. C. Handy played in both blues music and the music business. Long Lost Blues exposes for the first time the full scope and importance of early popular blues to mainstream American culture in the early twentieth century. Closely analyzing sheet music and other print sources that have previously gone unexamined, Muir revises our understanding of the evolution and sociology of blues at its inception.

Bird

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252095170
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Bird by : Chuck Haddix

Download or read book Bird written by Chuck Haddix and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saxophone virtuoso Charlie "Bird" Parker began playing professionally in his early teens, became a heroin addict at 16, changed the course of music, and then died when only 34 years old. His friend Robert Reisner observed, "Parker, in the brief span of his life, crowded more living into it than any other human being." Like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, he was a transitional composer and improviser who ushered in a new era of jazz by pioneering bebop and influenced subsequent generations of musicians. Meticulously researched and written, Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker tells the story of his life, music, and career. This new biography artfully weaves together firsthand accounts from those who knew him with new information about his life and career to create a compelling narrative portrait of a tragic genius. While other books about Parker have focused primarily on his music and recordings, this portrait reveals the troubled man behind the music, illustrating how his addictions and struggles with mental health affected his life and career. He was alternatively generous and miserly; a loving husband and father at home but an incorrigible philanderer on the road; and a chronic addict who lectured younger musicians about the dangers of drugs. Above all he was a musician, who overcame humiliation, disappointment, and a life-threatening car wreck to take wing as Bird, a brilliant improviser and composer. With in-depth research into previously overlooked sources and illustrated with several never-before-seen images, Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker corrects much of the misinformation and myth about one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century.

Mormonism and Music

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252071478
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (714 download)

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Book Synopsis Mormonism and Music by : Michael Hicks

Download or read book Mormonism and Music written by Michael Hicks and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Mormon faith and people as they use the art of music to define and re-define their religious identity

Southern Soul-Blues

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252094778
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Southern Soul-Blues by : David G. Whiteis

Download or read book Southern Soul-Blues written by David G. Whiteis and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Attracting passionate fans primarily among African American listeners in the South, southern soul draws on such diverse influences as the blues, 1960s-era deep soul, contemporary R & B, neosoul, rap, hip-hop, and gospel. Aggressively danceable, lyrically evocative, and fervidly emotional, southern soul songs often portray unabashedly carnal themes, and audiences delight in the performer-audience interaction and communal solidarity at live performances. Examining the history and development of southern soul from its modern roots in the 1960s and 1970s, David Whiteis highlights some of southern soul's most popular and important entertainers and provides first-hand accounts from the clubs, show lounges, festivals, and other local venues where these performers work. Profiles of veteran artists such as Denise LaSalle, the late J. Blackfoot, Latimore, and Bobby Rush--as well as contemporary artists T. K. Soul, Ms. Jody, Sweet Angel, Willie Clayton, and Sir Charles Jones--touch on issues of faith and sensuality, artistic identity and stereotyping, trickster antics, and future directions of the genre. These revealing discussions, drawing on extensive new interviews, also acknowledge the challenges of striving for mainstream popularity while still retaining the cultural and regional identity of the music and maintaining artistic ownership and control in the age of digital dissemination.

The Music of Bill Monroe

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252031210
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis The Music of Bill Monroe by : Neil V. Rosenberg

Download or read book The Music of Bill Monroe written by Neil V. Rosenberg and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning over 1,000 separate performances, The Music of Bill Monroe presents a complete chronological list of all of Bill Monroe's commercially released sound and visual recordings. Each chapter begins with a narrative describing Monroe's life and career at that point, bringing in producers, sidemen, and others as they become part of the story. The narratives read like a "who's who" of bluegrass, connecting Monroe to the music's larger history and containing many fascinating stories. The second part of each chapter presents the discography. Information here includes the session's place, date, time, and producer; master/matrix numbers, song/tune titles, composer credits, personnel, instruments, and vocals; and catalog/release numbers and reissue data. The only complete bio-discography of this American musical icon, The Music of Bill Monroe is the starting point for any study of Monroe's contributions as a composer, interpreter, and performer.

San Antonio Rose

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252013621
Total Pages : 508 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (136 download)

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Book Synopsis San Antonio Rose by : Charles E. Townsend

Download or read book San Antonio Rose written by Charles E. Townsend and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fine, engaging, and valuable biography of a man who merged the spontaneity of country fiddling with the Big Band Sound, giving birth to Western Swing. A landmark in country music!

Temples of Sound

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Publisher : Chronicle Books
ISBN 13 : 9780811833943
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (339 download)

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Book Synopsis Temples of Sound by : Jim Cogan

Download or read book Temples of Sound written by Jim Cogan and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts the stories of the music world's most notable recording studios and of history-making records that were made at each, from the John Coltrane sessions in Rudy Van Gelder's living room to Frank Sinatra's recordings at Capital Records.

Mountains of Music

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Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252068157
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (681 download)

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Book Synopsis Mountains of Music by : John Lilly

Download or read book Mountains of Music written by John Lilly and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From fiddle tunes to folk ballads, from banjos to blues, traditional music thrives in the remote mountains and hollers of West Virginia. For a quarter century, Goldenseal magazine has given its readers intimate access to the lives and music of folk artists from across this pivotal state. Now the best of Goldenseal is gathered for the first time in this richly illustrated volume. Some of the country's finest folklorists take us through the backwoods and into the homes of such artists as fiddlers Clark Kessinger and U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, recording stars Lynn Davis and Molly O'Day, dulcimer master Russell Fluharty, National Heritage Fellowship recipient Melvin Wine, bluesman Nat Reese, and banjoist Sylvia O'Brien. The most complete survey to date of the vibrant strands of this music and its colorful practitioners, Mountains of Music delineates a unique culture where music and music making are part of an ancient and treasured heritage. The sly humor, strong faith, clear regional identity, and musical convictions of these performers draw the reader into families and communities bound by music from one generation to another. For devotees as well as newcomers to this infectiously joyous and heartfelt music, Mountains of Music captures the strength of tradition and the spontaneous power of living artistry.

Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music

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Author :
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252067785
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (677 download)

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Book Synopsis Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music by : Steven Joseph Loza

Download or read book Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music written by Steven Joseph Loza and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A multifaceted portrait of "El Rey", the king of Latin music, this is the first in-depth historical, musical, and cultural study to trace the career and influence of Tito Puente. 57 photos.