The Transformation of Black Music

Samuel A. Floyd Jr. is Founder and Director Emeritus of the Center for Black Music Research, which he established in 1983 at Columbia College Chicago. During his tenure at the CBMR, he authored/edited five books, launched two periodical series-including the Black Music Research Journal, and published numerous articles. He has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for American Music and has been named an Honorary Member of the American Musicological Society.Melanie Zeck is Managing Editor of the Black Music Research Journal, the peer-reviewed journal of the Center for Black Music Research (CBMR). Trained as a music librarian and historian, she joined the CBMR in 2005 to provide fact-finding and fact-checking services for the Center's staff and constituents. In this capacity, she has collaborated with and provided extensive informational support for researchers worldwide on a broad range of topics in black music research and history.Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop and The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History and the Challenge of Bebop.

The Transformation of Black Music explores the full spectrum of black musics in the Diaspora, spanning four continents and a full millennium. Authors Samuel Floyd, Melanie Zeck, and Guthrie Ramsey discuss how these musics have blossomed, permeated existing traditions, and created new practices. A companion to The Power of Black Music, this book brilliantly situates emerging, morphing, and influential black musics in a broader framework of cultural,political, and social histories. Filling in critical gaps thus far virtually ignored, this book will not only explore the inestimable value of black musics, but also the relevance of black music research to all musical endeavors.

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