Transforming Vòdún: Musical Change and Postcolonial Healing in Benin's Jazz and Brass Band Music

Transforming Vòdún examines how musicians from the West African Republic of Benin transform Benin's cultural traditions, especially the ancestral spiritual practice of vòdún and its musical repertoires, as part of the process of healing postcolonial trauma through music and ritual. Based on fieldwork in Benin, France, and New York City, Sarah Politz uses historical ethnography, music analysis, and participant observation to examine three case studies of brass band and jazz musicians from Benin. The multi-sited nature of this study highlights the importance of mobility, and diasporic connections in musicians' professional lives, while grounding these connections in the particularities of the African continent, its histories, its people, and its present.

Author: Sarah Politz
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 09/18/2023
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN13: 9780472075966
ISBN10: 0472075969
BISAC Categories:
- Music | Ethnomusicology
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | African Studies
- Religion | General

About the Author
Sarah Politz is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at University of Florida.