Critical Review #6

Waterman, Richard. “African Influence on the Music of the Americas.” Acculturation in the Americas.  Ed. Sol Tax.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952. 207-218.

In his chapter on the influence of the music of Africa on American music, Waterman makes a great number of soaring generalizations and characterizes the music of an enormous region by outlining very simple elements that are common.  His oversimplification of the subject allows him to draw any conclusions he might like, and so he shows the influence of African rhythms on jazz in an unconvincing argument.  This article shows the earliest attempts at ethnomusicology, and the reader can still see the attempt by the scholar to put everything into categories and into a system understandable by the Western reader (for example, he cites three Western rhythms to be played at once in order to understand the African rhythms). 

What can we gain from this article today?  Can we still learn anything from Waterman’s study?