Nettl’s Elephant

Nettl (emeritus music and anthropology, U. of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign) has assembled 16 essays and lectures written since the middle 1980s, when he also began collecting small elephant statues; he devotes a page of the introduction to reflecting on connections between elephants and ethnomusicology. Next he explores central issues in history and the academy, all the while celebrating the field's principal organizations with a collage of commentary. Specific topics include a tradition of self-critique, the music of anthropology, The International Folk Music Council/International Council for Traditional Music and the development of ethnomusicology in the US, reflections on the Society for Ethnomusicology in 1955 and 2005, recalling some neglected classics in musical geography, and free associations around Kurt Weill. Annotation 穢2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)