Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana

A successful fusion of anthropology and aesthetics that illuminates the musical and cultural links—and differences—between African and American jazz, this is also a fascinating memoir of one person’s attempt to understand the urban culture of Ghana in an age of globalization. Feld is a musician, filmmaker, and professor of anthropology and music at the University of New Mexico whose work revolves around the ideology of cosmopolitanism: the idea that all ethnic groups are connected and that individuals from these groups need to form relationships that lead to understanding and respect. In the case of Accra, Feld explores how the lives and practices in a “global city” can reveal “how histories of global entanglement are shaping contemporary African musical life-worlds.” But Feld never becomes mired in academic jargon. He shows the connections between Africa and America by focusing on the lives of specific musicians who embody the idea of cosmopolitanism. Most notably, he superbly recounts the life of Ghanaba, a percussionist who traveled to the U.S. in the 1950s. Under the name Guy Warren, he worked under jazz legends like Charlie Parker and Max Roach and introduced both to new African rhythmic ideas, only to return to Ghana after his uncompromising Afrocentric recordings “did not approach the necessary exotica threshold to be a commercial hit.” (Mar.)