“With its gorgeous retro cover art and deliberate golden age smarts Pachanga Time feels like a crate-digger’s rare find… it ‘manages to bottle the fun and liveliness of a genre with tongue-in-cheek flare.” Jane Cornwell.
“With its gorgeous retro cover art and deliberate golden age smarts Pachanga Time feels like a crate-digger’s rare find… it ‘manages to bottle the fun and liveliness of a genre with tongue-in-cheek flare.” Jane Cornwell.
This practice research by Prof. Sue Miller, Guillermo Davis and Dr Sarah Bowen is based on the analysis of a live performance on Cuban television of ‘Los Problemas de Atilana’ by Orquesta Aragón in the early 1960s, where musical gestures are shown to be embodied in the flute and dance solo ‘duet’ performed by Cuban flautist Richard Egües and dancer Rafael Bacallao. Through re-performance and re-presentation in the form of a recording and short animations, the many meanings embodied in the original performance are examined through analytical text, musical notation, visuals, recordings and animation film. The article will be published soon in the British Forum for Ethnomusicology Journal and below are some of the animations made to go with this article. Animations are by Cuban dancer-animator Guillermo Davis and the music is recorded by Sue Miller (flute) and her band Charanga del Norte.
I have studied and taught at a variety of Higher Education institutions and had some brilliant teachers and mentors along the way – but Bill stands out for his ability to teach, perform and entertain simultaneously. He was, in short, the best lecturer I have ever had. His piano playing in lectures on jazz harmony, for example, were both inspiring and so much fun – Bill himself said that if students are relaxed and having fun then they are more receptive to learning. He did not provide easy answers or shortcuts (as he said “questions open doors – answers close them”) – instead he fueled your curiosity and enabled latent creativity to be realized. He encouraged his music students to think deeply about what they were doing and to listen to the results closely.
Improvising Sabor: Cuban Dance Music in New York begins in 1960s New York and examines in rich detail the playing styles and international influence of important figures in US Latin music. Such innovators as José Fajardo, Johnny Pacheco, George Castro, and Eddy Zervigón dazzled the Palladium ballroom and other Latin music venues in those crucible years. Author Sue Miller focuses on the Cuban flute style in light of its transformations in the US after the 1959 revolution and within the vibrant context of 1960s New York.
Sue Miller was interviewed on the radio programme Tropicana Musical in Brazil by ethnomusicologist and broadcaster Edwin Pitre and is now available as a podcast.The interview on the history of Cuban charanga is mostly in Spanish and features music from Orquesta Tata Peireira, Arcano y sus Maravillas, Fajardo y sus Estrellas, Orquesta Aragon, Orquesta Belisario Lopez, Orquesta Broadway, Charlie Palmieri y su Charanga Duboney, Johnny Pacheco y su Charanga, Estrellas Cubanas, Orquesta Sublime and Charanga Rubalcaba.
You can get my new book Improvising Sabor: Cuban Dance Music in New York for only $20.21 until December 15th 2020 if ordered online which is a bargain especially for the hardback version.
My New Book comes out next year in hardback and paperback and if you pre-order there are really good discounts available from the University Press of Mississippi. More details here: https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/I/Improvising-Sabor
Dr Sue Miller is now on the editorial team for Flute Journal along with experts in the field of flute performance. Flute Journal Our goal at International Flute Journal is to bring together the finest performers and educators in the flute community worldwide. I have been thrilled by the encouragement and positive energy I have received from all […]
Sue Miller’s talk ‘The Sound is the Context’ was part of a round table discussion opening the 2018 Music Analysis conference at City University London 5-7 July 2018. Also taking part in the panel were Dr Chloë Alaghband-Zadeh (Manchester University) , Dr Joe Browning (University of Oxford), Dr Laudan Nooshin (City, University of London), Dr Lara Pearson (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics) and Dr Byron Dueck (the Open University).
The Leeds Arts Research Centre (LARC) brings together creative practitioners and academics across Leeds Beckett University whose research interests lie in the arts, whether that is music, film, fine art, design or performing arts.
LARC draws on staff from the School of Art, Architecture and Design and from the School of Film, Music and Performing Arts. It brings together cultural historians and theorists with arts practitioners at the cutting edge of practice as research. Providing a forum for debate, it is also a window on the exciting and innovate creative work going on across the two Schools. Here staff collaborate on new projects, showcase their research and build together the research culture