Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music

by Michael Broyles

From colonial times to the present, American composers have lived on the fringes of society and defined themselves in large part as outsiders. In this stimulating book Michael Broyles considers the tradition of maverick composers and explores what these mavericks reveal about American attitudes toward the arts and about American society itself. Broyles starts by examining the careers of three notably unconventional William Billings in the eighteenth century, Anthony Philip Heinrich in the nineteenth, and Charles Ives in the twentieth. All three had unusual lives, wrote music that many considered incomprehensible, and are now recognized as key figures in the development of American music. Broyles goes on to investigate the proliferation of eccentric individualism in all types of American music-classical, popular, and jazz-and how it has come to dominate the image of diverse creative artists from John Cage to Frank Zappa. The history of the maverick tradition, Broyles shows, has much to tell us about the role of music in American culture and the tension between individualism and community in the American consciousness.

Genres: Music

400 pages, Hardcover

First published March 11, 2004

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book looks at a series of American composers, from William Billings through Meredith Monk, who had profound impact on American Music and partook of and defined the maverick tradition in music. Broyles looks at these composers life and works and the ways they fit into a particular American myth and tradition regarding artists and their creativity.
I really enjoyed Broyles' take on this particular slice of modern American music. His takes on the perceived dominance of serialism during the mid-twentieth century and the significance of John Cage. I also really enjoyed how he uses the story of contemporary American music to elucidate the tensions between eccentric individuality and the establishment and between rugged individualism and community in American art and society.