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Traveling Spirit Masters: Moroccan Gnawa Trance and Music in the Global Marketplace
Contributor(s): Kapchan, Deborah (Author)
ISBN: 081956852X     ISBN-13: 9780819568526
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
OUR PRICE:   $26.96  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: October 2007
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Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Annotation: A group of ritual musicians and former slaves brought from sub-Saharan Africa to Morocco, the Gnawa heal those they believe to be possessed, using incense, music, and trance. But their practice is hardly of only local interest: the Gnawa have long participated in the world music market through collaborations with African-American jazz musicians and French recording artists. In this first book in English on Gnawa music and its global reach, author Deborah Kapchan explores how these collaborations transfigure racial and musical identities on both sides of the Atlantic. She also addresses how aesthetic styles associated with the sacred come to inhabit non-sacred contexts, and what new amalgams they produce. Her narrative details the fascinating intrinsic properties of trance, including details of enactment, the role of gesture and the body, and the use of the senses, and how they both construct authentic Gnawa identity and reconstruct historically determined relations of power. Traveling Spirit Masters is a captivating and elucidating demonstration of how and why trance--and indeed all sacred music--is fast becoming a transnational sensation.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Music | Ethnomusicology
- Social Science | Popular Culture
Dewey: 306.484
LCCN: 2007016405
Series: Music/Culture (Paperback)
Physical Information: 1" H x 5.97" W x 9.05" (1.15 lbs) 362 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - North Africa
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
The sacred and musical phenomenon of trance

A group of ritual musicians and former slaves brought from sub-Saharan Africa to Morocco, the Gnawa heal those they believe to be possessed, using incense, music, and trance. But their practice is hardly of only local interest: the Gnawa have long participated in the world music market through collaborations with African-American jazz musicians and French recording artists. In this first book in English on Gnawa music and its global reach, author Deborah Kapchan explores how these collaborations transfigure racial and musical identities on both sides of the Atlantic. She also addresses how aesthetic styles associated with the sacred come to inhabit non-sacred contexts, and what new amalgams they produce. Her narrative details the fascinating intrinsic properties of trance, including details of enactment, the role of gesture and the body, and the use of the senses, and how they both construct authentic Gnawa identity and reconstruct historically determined relations of power. Traveling Spirit Masters is a captivating and elucidating demonstration of how and why trance--and indeed all sacred music--is fast becoming a transnational sensation.