Ebron Review

Ebron’s main point is this section is that “African music is a music of encounters,” that its music crosses the boundaries of politics, nationalism, and continents.  The encounters are the combination of performers, audiences, and producers, who distribute their music.  These encounters lead to different interpretation and understanding of their music, which affects the structure of feeling of their music, which is how performers play their music and how the audience participates in it.  This can lead to want performers play where, what audiences listen to their music, and where producers distribute them.  Ebron focuses on the Jalis of West African, specifically those in Gambia.  In West African, the jalis are used as a political maneuver to unite different people, support policies, and instill nationalism and pride.  On the other hand, in American, jalis was seen as music of African roots, especially by African Americans.  Both structures of feelings are similar in that they both admire and complexity of the music, but the outcome and the way they are received are different.

            The power of Jalis and their structure of feeling have different effects on different people, audiences, nations.  It can inspire pride or remind them of their history and legacy or simply be enjoyed for its musical mastery.  The jalis incorporate different musical styles and seek many avenues to distribute their music to different audiences, but by incorporating so many different styles and trying to appease so many audiences, are jalis losing the initial aspects of their art?  Are they becoming too globalized, moving away from what Jaliya music was supposed to be?  Or like Diawara said, is praising the people and the feeling of the past keeping West African from moving forward, and that revitalizing Jayila for modern ears is better for the tradition?