Stir It Up: Musical Mixes from Roots to Jazz

According to Gene Santoro, the saxophonist Joe Lovano "understands the music's history, not as dogma but as living, evolving art that reconciles and even transcends definition." The same thing might be said of Santoro himself, a critic for the Nation and author of one previous collection, Dancing in Your Head. As always, Santoro is wonderfully attentive to the qualities of each artist, from Ornette Coleman to Elvis Costello, from P. J. Harvey to Manu Dibango. The heart of his book, though, is the cross-pollination of cultures. Nobody is better at describing those genres--like Tex-Mex or South African mbaqanga--in which (musical) worlds collide.