Music by Black Artists

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Preamble

This page contains sample items in Western Libraries, instructions on how to find more books, and instruction on where to find journal article databases.

Example Books

This section contains sample items in Western Libraries. This list does not represent everything available from Western Libraries. Additional relevant resources can be found by searching Omni.

African American Music by Mellonee V. Burnim (Editor); Portia K. Maultsby (Editor)
Call Number: ML3508.1.A37 2006
...a collection of thirty essays by leading scholars which survey major African American musical genres, both sacred and secular, from slavery to the present.
Black Lives Matter and Music by Fernando Orejuela (Editor); Stephanie Shonekan (Editor)
Publication Date: 2018
In this collection of critical studies, contributors draw from ethnographic research and personal encounters to illustrate how scholarly research of, approaches to, and teaching about the role of music in the Black Lives Matter movement can contribute to public awareness of the social, economic, political, scientific, and other forms of injustices in our society.
Black Music by Amiri Baraka
Publication Date: 2010
In the 1960s, LeRoi Jones--who would later be known as Amiri Baraka--was a pioneering jazz critic, articulating in real time the incredible transformations of the form taking place in the clubs and coffee houses of New York City. In Black Music, he sheds light on the brilliant young jazz musicians of the day: John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, and others.
Black Music Matters by Ed Sarath
Call Number: MT1 .S268 2018
...one of the first books to promote the reform of music studies with a centralized presence of jazz and black music to ground American musicians in a core facet of their true cultural heritage. ... Combining a visionary perspective with an activist tone, Sarath installs jazz and black music in as a foundation for a new paradigm of twenty-first-century musical training that will yield an unprecedented skill set for transcultural navigation among musicians. ... Sarath's work engages all those who share an interest in black-white race dynamics and its musical ramifications, spirituality and consciousness, and the promotion of creativity throughout all forms of intellectual and personal expression.
The Garland Handbook of African Music by Ruth Stone (Editor)
Call Number: ML350.G54 2000
This single volume provides a comprehensive set of essays on all aspects of African music. Featuring a 60 minute audio CD, glossary and guide to publications, recordings, film and video, the handbook is an invaluable, one stop reference.
Music of Black America by Eileen Southern
Call Number: ML3556 .S74 1997
This text provides comprehensive coverage of black American music, from the arrival of the first Africans in the English colonies to contemporary developments in African-American history. The book draws on authentic documents, from colonial times to the present, to illuminate the history of black music.
Readings in Black American Music by Eileen Southern; David A. Snow
Call Number: ML3556 .S75 1983
In this companion volume to The Music of Black Americans, Eileen Southern draws on letters, journals, memoirs, ledgers, books, articles, and even slave advertisements in newspapers to illuminate the story told that historical survey, now in its Third Edition.

Finding More Books

Western Libraries uses Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to facilitate the discovery of information within Omni. We acknowledge that some of these subject headings contain offensive or discriminatory language. Please see Problematic Language in the Library Catalogue: Statement of Acknowledgement.

Subject headings can be used in Omni to find additional relevant resources. Useful subject headings can usually be identified via one or more of the following approaches:

Looking at the "Subject" section of relevant resources in Omni.
Adding the answers to the following questions to your search:
- What is the race, ethnicity or nationality of the person(s)?
- What is the country, region or continent?
- What is the genre?
Selecting any relevant terms below to add to your search:
- "composers," "musicians," "music" or "singers"
- "bibliography," "bio-bibliography," "dictionaries," "discography," "encyclopedias"
- "genre & styles," "history and criticism," "social aspects," "political aspects," "religious aspects"

Finding Articles

Journal articles often provide the most current, in-depth investigation into a specific topic.

Relevant articles can be found using the databases listed in the Music Library Research Guides.