ABSTRACT
I have no quarrel with folklorists and ethnomusicologists … whose chief concern is with the “purest” music of their culture. But I choose to view music as a dynamic, ever-changing art, and I see the history of music in our country as retaining a high level of energy and innovation over such a sustained period of time precisely because new vitality has been brought to it periodically by the introduction and integration of music from a succession of different cultures.
