| Contents |
Origins. Bailes and fandangos: music and social division in the nineteenth century -- The dawning of a new age: musical developments, 1910 to 1940 -- The Mexican American era. Orquesta's social base: the Mexican American generation -- The formative years of orquesta: the Texas-Mexican connection -- The Los Angeles tradition: triumph of the anti-ranchero -- The Chicano era. The Chicano generation: conflict, contradiction, and synthesis -- La onda chicana -- Ethnography: the orquesta tradition in Fresno. |
| Abstract |
The Mexican American orquesta is neither a Mexican nor an American music. Relying on both the Mexican orquesta and the American dance band for repertorial and stylistic cues, it forges a synthesis of the two. The ensemble emerges historically as a powerful artistic vehicle for the expression of what the author calls the "dialectic of conflict." Grounded in ethnic and class conflict, this dialectic compels the orquesta and its upwardly mobile advocates to waver between acculturation and ethnic resistance. The musical result: a complex mesh of cultural elements--Mexican and American, working- and middle-class, traditional and contemporary. This book traces the evolution of the orquesta in the Southwest from its beginnings in the nineteenth century through its pinnacle in the 1970s and its decline since the 1980s. Drawing on fifteen years of field research, he embeds the development of the orquesta within a historical-materialist matrix to achieve the optimal balance between description and interpretation. Rich in ethnographic detail and boldly analytical, his book is the first in-depth study of this important but neglected field of artistic culture. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-342), discography (pages 327-328), and index. |
| LCCN | 99006098 |
| ISBN | 029276586X (hardcover) |
| ISBN | 0292765878 (pbk.) |
