1909773790bd3

I'll admit I didn't finish the book. Though I love what I know, I don't have a very strong knowledge of Brazilian music. Veloso tries to make the history approachable for the uninformed, but he's talking about music, mostly, so without knowing what these things SOUND like, it's all just too abstract to follow the chains of influence. This isn't helped by the writing style - I respect that he takes his subject so seriously, but it seems a bit overly academic and intellectual, and leans towards long, fairly convoluted sentences which I could probably parse if I wasn't also keeping tabs on who everybody was and what songs they sang, etc. To be fair it's hard to know how much of this is Veloso's intention and how much is the work of a translator. What I loved about the book was the sense of he and his peers building a cultural movement that mattered, mostly because they believed it did. This belief that art has a power (beyond its power as a commodity) to transform life is one of the main things missing in america today! I'd love to steep myself in the music of some of the main reference points and come back to the book someday.

2022-08-30 11:57