As music columnist for The Nation, Gene Santoro has established himself as an important new critical voice, able to write well on a broad spectrum of popular music and jazz without losing touch with the cutting edge of today's music scene. About Nat "King" Cole, Santoro comments: "adjectives can't describe the swinging, ingratiating self-confidence laced with tenderness that colors Nat "King" Cole's singing. His baritone/tenor is so airy and elemental, so palpably physical, it invites you in, then surrounds you glowingly..." And on the highly successful rock band Living Colour, Santoro is no less evocative: "hardcore metal raveups slam into bluesy ballads and psychedelicized pop, lilting Caribbean inflections collide with hiphop scrambles of prerecorded material and touches of funk."
Dancing in Your Head gathers Santoro's liveliest reviews and essays for the first time, introducing a fresh and provocative perspective on several decades of musicians and their work. Santoro covers a wide musical vista, from the legendary blues singer Robert Johnson to Public Enemy's controversial rap lyrics, from the long running clash between blues and African American gospel to the rock iconoclast Neil Young, from the great James Brown to George Hay, the founder of the Grand Ole Opry. Documenting the evolution of jazz, rock and roll, and rap, Santoro's observations are incisive, honest, and reflective. Of his early exposure to Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane and Bela Bartok, Santoro remarks, "That sense of wonder and discovery is what happens when you've been hit by art's immediate vatic power. It has never left me, has been touched and renewed by each encounter I've valued." Santoro examines the staying power of music legends Lou Reed, Eric Clapton, the Grateful Dead, and Sun Ra, the
freewheeling jazz artist who prefers to call himself a tone artist rather than a musician. Special highlights include several pieces on Miles Davis; book reviews, including one on Gunther Schuller's two-volume History of Jazz; a lively and detailed profile of the Neville Brothers; and a discussion of jazz great Ornette Coleman that compares him to Orson Welles and Charles Ives.
Taken together the pieces in Dancing In Your Head examine the historical roots of today's popular music while offering insight into performers and trends that dominate the current scene. Balancing a critical and historical sensibility with an unharnessed enthusiasm for all forms of music, Santoro is an ideal guide to the old and new.
Industry Reviews
"Succinct, candid, and sharp as a surgeon."--Gary Giddins, author of Faces in the Crowd
"Santoro...is an advocate of hard thinking about great music. We need more of those."--The Wire
"The 65 chapters that make up this fascinating trip through 20th-century popular music are consistently lively and thought-provoking. Santoro hasa great deal to say about music and the culture in which it thrives, and he syas it all with remarkable style and precision."--KLIATT, January 1996
"Santoro...brings a clear prose style and unflagging enthusiasm to his coverage of a wide range of American music, from avant-garde jazz to gospel pieces."--Daily News of Los Angeles
"Santoro's observations reflect a broad knowledge of music, film, art, and literature, resulting in a stimulating and thought-provoking read. Throughout, he writes in a lively style, colorfully descriptive and insightful....Santoro's craftsmanship with words is compelling."--Jazz Notes
"This collection of [Santoro's] essays, articles and critiques reveals a writer who demonstrates a knowledge and appreciation of his subject--as well as a reverence, respect and love for the musicians and their music."--Allegro
"Entirely readable....Most impressive is the breadth of Santoro's curiosity and the depth of his understanding of modern American musical forms, and his ability to explain the myth and meaning behind it all....Long after a reader finishes these elegant, finely detailed essays, Santoro's colorful, intimate impressions of the music remain, along with a burning desire to get to the source of it all--the recordings."--The Tampa Tribune
"Santoro's energy, interest in historical influences and metaphoric flair enliven the entire collection."--The Nation
"Santoro is a solidly knowledgeable critic conversant with many diverse areas of contemporary music. Remarkably, he never spreads himself too thin. His book includes cogent reviews of a potpourri of performers; free jazz explorers Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra, country music star k.d. lang, rap group Public Enemy, and rocker Neil Young are all insightfully profiled."--Booklist
"As readers of The Nation have long known, Gene Santoro maps out his own terrain in American music. He is a specialist at identifying the stylistic fissures and junctions in jazz and its relations at a time when generic boundaries are routinely trampled. Consider just his recurring examinations of guitarists, a winding path that ties Robert Johnson to Oscar Moore to Eric Clapton to Bill Frisel. Something is happening; Santoro--succinct, candid, and
sharp as a surgeon--can tell you what it is."--Gary Giddins, author of Rhythm-a-ning and Visions of Jazz
"Gene Santoro sees the whole picture--about the music, its audience, and the broader social context in which each exists--and he expresses what he sees with insight and eloquence. I learn something about every aspect of that whole, and about my responsibilities as a writer, every time I read his work."--Bob Blumenthal
"Gene Santoro's eclecticism is never an end in itself or symptomatic of a lack of intellectual commitment. He delights in finding common elements in jazz, pop, blues, country, downtown thrash, and whatever else moves him. As a good critic should, he challenges the categorical aversions of his readers."--Francis Davis, author of Outcats and In the Moment
"Santoro...is an advocate of hard thinking about great music. We need more of those."--The Wire
"There's plenty of meaty and provocative material about jazz musicians, their music, and initiatives....Santoro writes so well, you are likely to be engrossed even when reading about musical genres that you don't necessarily prefer....The remaining articles...are so well-written and engrossing that they alone justify your purchasing this book....I prefer this book above any other I've encountered for use as a text in such a course....Dancing in Your
Head stands on its own merit primarily because of the eloquent and wonderful writing skills of Santoro--and because of his fascinating manner of developing these pieces so that they are compelling to the reader.
In other words, this book makes for very enjoyable reading, regardless of your objective: pleasure, classroom text, resource for you to develop research, etc.--you are going to appreciate the "nugget" quality of this book."--Jazz Educators Journal
