Appreciating ‘Latin Dance Music’ as Art : A Jazz Critic’s Cultural Bias

In reading Leonard Feather’s review of a performance by the Latin jazz band led by Poncho Sanchez (“Poncho Sanchez’s Conga Line,” Calendar, Feb. 3), I could barely contain my indignation at Feather’s colonialist attitude toward the music.

The last paragraph clearly reveals a smug cultural bias: “The idiom represented here,” he explains, “is essentially Latin dance music and entertainment. Assessing it as art would be a critical lack of judgment.”

How condescending! Does this imply that if an audience dances while the musicians play, it somehow renders the music less “artistic”? Must an audience sit quietly throughout the performance and nod at each other appreciatively on occasion and then applaud politely at the end for the music to be “assessed as art”? How European of you, Mr. Feather.

As an on-air programmer of Latin music for the last 12 years on non-commercial radio (formerly co-host of KCRW’s “Latin Dimensions” for 10 years), I am well aware of the distinctions some critics insist on drawing between “popular” and “art,” especially as it applies to Third World music.

Ultimately, these diviners of “art” would rightfully include someone like a Ravi Shankar, with the audience being passive and politely appreciative. However, a Fela Kuti, the Nigerian singer, or three-time Grammy nominee Poncho Sanchez, to whom the audience responds physically and even--dare I say it?--verbally, is clearly considered as something other than art . . . in this case just “Latin dance music and entertainment.”

Need Feather be reminded that American jazz musicians long fought for artistic recognition from the previous generation of critics. In fact, such jazz icons as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie made numerous recordings that were firmly based on this “Latin dance music.”

Clearly throughout the 20th Century both North American and European culture have been profoundly affected by Afro-Cuban, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian music.

One can trace the beginnings of New Orleans jazz as well as rock groups such as Santana, movie soundtracks and modern dance, to name just a few art forms, that have been influenced by “the idiom” Feather is so quick to dismiss.

It appears that unless non-European derived music is performed by musicians wearing tunics, loincloths, hula skirts or apparel suitable for a National Geographic documentary, and thereby qualifying for the convenient category of “folk artists,” our “art authorities” need to invent more differentiations to ensure that their “art” is not confused with these presumably lesser forms.

The most irritating facet of these cultural valuations is their persistence, and no amount of refutation will dissuade the Feathers from stating that, “Assessing it as art would be a critical lack of judgment.”