What? Music! - international music

Whole Earth Review, Summer, 1992 by Jonathan E

FUSION CONFUSION

Cross-fertilization of musical styles is reaching a feverish pitch. Traditional ethnic and folk forms mutate into local pop, local pop assimilates Western/Northern pop trends, hip-hop and dance music borrow ever more explicitly from Jamaican antecedents, jazz ("the black classical music of America") and neoclassical musicians collaborate with African composers, the transatlantic trade is ceaseless. As far as progressive musicians are concerned, the global village is in full effect -- not even the museum relics of the past or of far away remain in place; many have been jackdawed out of their cases and into the modern world of samples or delivered onto disk.

Opinions about these musical meetings vary widely. Some critics complain from a "politically correct" theoretical viewpoint of cultural dilution and imperialism. Others complain from a more practical stance of musical weakness and dilettantism. Often, however, these complaints seem to be based on a philosophical objection to musical miscegenation. Then there are those (such as myself) who applaud all such musical communication in theory, but reserve judgment on a projectby-project basis.