New Books in Music

In the 1930s, musical Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton identified the influence of Latin American rhythms like the habanera in jazz, as a sonic “tinge” that fundamentally shaped his style as a stride pianist. In the Seventies, disco presented its own Latin tinge. The Latin American and Latino influence on 1970s New York disco extended far beyond the familiar narratives of the Paradise Garage and Studio 54, creating vibrant spaces that celebrated cultural fusion and community. Clubs like the Ipanema Discotheque, Copacabana, and Roseland Ballroom became crucial venues where Latin rhythms, Brazilian beats, and Caribbean sounds mixed with emerging disco to create something entirely new. These spaces, often overlooked in mainstream disco histories, were essential to the genre's evolution—places where the infectious energy of Latin music met the innovative production techniques of American dance music. The DJs who commanded these dance floors brought not just technical skill but cultural knowledge, understanding how to weave together the musical traditions of their homelands with the cutting-edge sounds emerging from New York's studios and clubs. In the fourth episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares welcome DJs Ronnie Soares and Luis Mario Orellana Rizzo to explore the Latin American contributions to New York's disco revolution. Soares, born in Brazil and arriving in New York as a teenager, became a DJ by accident in 1974 when asked to spin a Brazilian night at the French club Directoire. Though initially a dancer, he quickly became resident DJ at the famed Ipanema Discotheque and went on to create "Midnight Disco" at Roseland Ballroom—the first club in the city to hold 5,000 people. Rizzo began his career at the very inception of club culture in 1969-70, learning from DJ Francis Grasso before working at legendary venues including Cork & Bottle and Copacabana. As the first DJ to tour nationally and internationally, Rizzo helped spread dance music globally while founding Legends of Vinyl, an archival project celebrating the art of DJing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

The forceful music that rolled out of Muscle Shoals in the 1960s and 1970s shaped hits by everyone from Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon. Christopher M. Reali's in-depth look at the fabled musical hotbed examines the events and factors that gave the Muscle Shoals sound such a potent cultural power. Many artists trekked to FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound in search of the sound of authentic southern Black music—and at times expressed shock at the mostly white studio musicians waiting to play it for them. Others hoped to draw on the hitmaking production process that defined the scene. Reali also chronicles the overlooked history of Muscle Shoals's impact on country music and describes the region's recent transformation into a tourism destination. Multifaceted and informed, Music and Mystique in Muscle Shoals (University of Illinois Press, 2022) reveals the people, places, and events behind one of the most legendary recording scenes in American history.Dr. Christopher Reali is an assistant professor of music at Ramapo College of New Jersey.Emily Ruth Allen (@emmyru91) holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Florida State University. Her current research focuses on parade musics in Mobile, Alabama's carnival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Adventurous and passionate” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks has established herself as one of the most communicative, and poetic artists of her generation. She has made a name for herself through commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well genre-bending, interdisciplinary projects, and inquisitive work with contemporary composers. This season, she gave the world premiere of Clarice Assad’s “Lilith” concerto, composed for her. Ljova’s “Voices” for piano and historical recording was composed for her and commissioned by the Milken Center of American Jewish Music in 2020.Faliks created a one-woman show “Polonaise-Fantasie, Story of a Pianist”, an autobiographical monologue for pianist and actress, premiered in New York’s Symphony Space and performed worldwide. A committed chamber musician, she has had notable collaborations with Rachel Barton Pine, Gilbert Kalish, Ron Leonard, Fred Sherry, Ilya Kaler, Colin Carr, Wendy Warner, Clive Greensmith, and Antonio Lysy, among many others.Inna Faliks has been featured on radio and television throughout the world. She co-starred with Downton Abbey’s Lesley Nicol in “Admission – One Shilling,” a play for pianist and actor based on the life of the great British pianist, Dame Myra Hess.Her CD releases, Reimagine: Beethoven and Ravel on Navona Records and The Schumann Project Volume 1, on MSR Classics, received rave reviews, and were named to several “best of 2021” lists. With her all-Beethoven CD release on MSR, WTTW called Faliks “High priestess of the piano, concert pianist of the highest order, as dramatic and subtle as a great stage actor.” Sound of Verse, was released in 2009, featuring music of Boris Pasternak, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. “Polonaise-Fantasie, Story of a Pianist” on Delos captures her autobiographical monologue-recital with short piano works from Bach to Carter.Faliks is founder and curator of Music/Words, an award-winning poetry-music series: performances in collaboration with distinguished poets. Her long-standing relationship with Chicago’s WFMT radio has led to multiple broadcasts of Music/Words, which she produced alongside some of the nation’s most recognized poets in performances throughout the United States.A past winner of many prestigious competitions, Inna Faliks is currently Professor of Piano and Head of Piano at UCLA. In Weight in the Fingertips: A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage (Backbeat Books, 2023) Faliks provides a globe-trotting account of her upbringing as a child prodigy in the Soviet Union, the perils of immigration, and the struggle to assimilate as an American. She chronicles years of training with teachers and her steady rise in the world of classical music. With a warm and playful style, Faliks helps non-musicians understand the experience of becoming a world-renowned concert pianist. The places she grew up, the books she read, and the poems she memorized as a child all connect to her sound at the piano. The way she hears and shapes a musical phrase illuminates both classical music and elite performance. She explores how a person’s humanity makes their art honest and voice unique, and how the lifelong challenge of retaining that voice is fueled by balancing the demands of musicianship and being human. Throughout, Faliks provides powerful insights into the role of music in a world of conflict, change, and hope for a better tomorrow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

What do the world's loneliest whale, a black hole, and twenty-three people doing Tae Bo all have in common? In 2011, a skyscraper in South Korea began to shake uncontrollably without warning and was immediately evacuated. Was it an earthquake? An attack? No one seemed quite sure. The actual cause emerged later and is utterly fascinating: Twenty-three middle-aged folks were having a Tae Bo fitness class in the office gym on the twelfth floor. Their beats had inadvertently matched the building's natural frequency, and this coincidence--harnessing a basic principle of physics--caused the building to shake at an alarming rate for ten minutes. Frequency is all around us, but little understood. Musician, composer, TV presenter, and educator Richard Mainwaring uses the concept of the Infinite Piano to reveal the extraordinary world of frequency in a multitude of arenas--from medicine to religion to the environment to the paranormal--through the universality of music and a range of memorable human (and animal) stories laced with dry humor. Whether you're science curious, musically inclined, or just want to know what a Szechuan pepper has to do with physics, What the Ear Hears (and Doesn't): Inside the Extraordinary Everyday World of Frequency (Sourcebooks, 2022) is an immensely enjoyable read filled with "did you know?" trivia you'll love to share with friends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Swiz (Akashic Books, 2025). Swiz was a Washington DC hardcore punk band that existed from April of 1987 through August of 1990, cutting their teeth and carving their place in the scene that birthed trailblazers and contemporaries like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Dag Nasty, Fugazi, Ian MacKaye, Dave Grohl, and Henry Rollins. Featuring original Dag Nasty singer Shawn Brown, Swiz’s faster, darker, and more aggressive take on the D.C. sound ran counter to the melodic, experimental, and poppy direction the scene had been leaning toward in the years before Nirvana broke the underground. In the thirty-five years since their demise, Swiz’s popularity and infamy have only grown. This first in-depth look into the band is timed perfectly to coincide with the 2025 release of their remastered musical catalog by Dischord Records. The volume is penned by all of the band members, combining historical interviews and personal journals, with present-day conversations, anecdotes, recollections, and reflections yielding new poetry and prose. The writing is complemented by over one hundred unpublished images. This mix of styles touches on band facts and timelines while also spotlighting the negative space around the band: personal and interpersonal moments of its members and the broader community and culture in which they were immersed. Swiz is a deep dive into the band and its members, a celebration of warped memory, and a unique snapshot of a time and scene that continues to inspire musicians, artists, and fans alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Few politicians produced the musical reaction that Ronald Reagan did. His California-branded conservatism inspired countless young people to pick up guitars and thrash out their political angst. Punk bands across the United States took aim at the man, his presidency, and the idea of America he was selling to voters nationwide. Small yet vibrant scenes across the country emerged to challenge the communal norms and social values projected on them by the popular media and consumer culture. Punk enthusiast Robert Fitzgerald argues that these songs' lyrics aren't just catchy and fun to scream along with; they also reveal the thoughts and feelings of artists reacting to their political environment in real, forthright, and uncensored time.In Hardcore Punk in the Age of Reagan (UNC Press, 2025), Fitzgerald shows how these lyrics illustrated what young adults felt and how they reacted to one of the most influential and divisive leaders of the era. Punk lyrics are seemingly simple, the author argues, but they sketch out a complex, musically inspired countermovement that is as canonical in the American songbook as the folk and rock protest music that came before. Robert Fitzgerald is a laboratory school administrator and a lifelong punk fan. Robert Fitzgerald on UNC Press’s website. Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and Frank Zappa's America (LSU Press, 2025). He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and is the director of its music film festival. His forthcoming book is U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, October 2025). Bradley Morgan on Facebook and Bluesky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

In the third episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares take you on an immersive journey through the hot nights and wild streets of Lower Manhattan during the Seventies. For this episode, Jesse Rifkin, a New York-based music historian and the owner and sole operator of Walk on the Wild Side Tours NYC, designed a specialized tour for Soundscapes NYC that explores key venues in the history of disco. Clubs like Paradise Garage, Nicky Siano’s Gallery, and repurposed residential spaces like David Mancuso’s Loft were all critical incubators of the sound and culture we call disco today. This is dense cultural geography, hardly more than one square mile, within and around a neighborhood known today as “Soho”. But in the Seventies it was sometimes known as “Hell’s Hundred Acres” do to the propensity of building collapses and fires among the old hotels and loft builds that constellated the area. Soundscapes NYC welcomes back Jesse Rifkin, who appeared on Season One on the queer history of punk culture (S1.E4. Sounds of the City Collapsing). Rifkin is the author of This Must Be the Place: Music, Community, and Vanished Spaces in New York City (Hanover Square Press, 2023), and his work has been celebrated in the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveller, among others. His Substack (Walk on the Wild Side NYC) is a trove of incisive music criticism and revealing interviews with dynamic artists from the Seventies to today. Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

The Beatles’ sojourn in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg during the early 1960s is part of music legend. As Julia Sneeringer reveals in A Social History of Early Rock ‘n’ Roll in Germany: Hamburg from Burlesque to The Beatles, 1956-69 (Bloomsbury, 2018), though, this was just the most famous episode in the neighborhood’s momentous engagement with rock ‘n’ roll during that period, one of importance not just to music history but to the history of modern Germany. Located as it was outside the walls of the medieval city, St. Pauli was known for centuries as the entertainment quarter of Hamburg. The neighborhood had only recently recovered from the hardships of the postwar era when German club owners began booking English bands to play the new style of music that had just been introduced in Europe. The performances quickly proved a hit among teenage Germans, who flocked to out-of-the-way venues to watch the acts perform. As Sneeringer details, the encounters changed everyone involved, giving the musicians the chance to hone their skills and develop their style while through their participation the young men and women in the audience pushed against the conservative social boundaries imposed on them by their families and their society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

From his early albums with the Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa established a reputation as a musical genius who pushed the limits of culture throughout the 1960s and 1970s, experimenting with a blend of genres in innovative and unheard-of ways. Not only did his exploratory styles challenge the expectations of what popular music could sound like, but his prolific creative endeavors also shaped how audiences thought about the freedom of artistic expression. In Frank Zappa's America (LSU Press, 2025), Bradley Morgan casts the artist as an often-misunderstood figure who critiqued the actions of religious and political groups promoting a predominantly white, Christian vision of the United States. A controversial and provocative satirist, often criticized for the shocking subject matter of his songs, Zappa provided social commentary throughout his career that spoke truth to power about the nefarious institutions operating in the lives of everyday Americans. Beginning in the late 1970s, his music frequently addressed the rise of extremist religious influence in American politics, specifically white Christian nationalism. Despite commercial and critical pressure, Zappa refused to waver in his support for free speech during the era of Reagan and MTV, including his pointed testimony before the U.S. Senate at the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) hearings. Throughout the 1980s, and until his death in 1993, Zappa crafted his art form to advocate for political engagement, the security of individual liberties, and the advancement of education. Music became his platform to convey progressive views promoting the rights of marginalized communities most at risk in a society governed by the principles of what he perceived as Christian radicalism. Frank Zappa's Americexamines the musician's messaging through song, tracing the means by which Zappa created passionate, at times troubling, art that combats conservativism in its many manifestations. For readers in the twenty-first century, his music and public advocacy demonstrate the need to preserve democracy and the voices that uphold it. Bradley Morgan, a media arts professional based in Chicago, is the author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America. He manages partnerships for CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and directs the station's music film festival. Morgan also interviews authors of music and pop culture books for the New Books Network podcast. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

With the rise of the gramophone around 1900, the shellac disc traveled the world and eventually became the dominant sound format in the first half of the twentieth century. Format Friction brings together a set of local encounters with the shellac disc, beginning with its preconditions in South Asian knowledge and labor, to offer a global portrait of this format.Spun at seventy-eight revolutions per minute, the shellac disc rapidly became an industrial standard even while the gramophone itself remained a novelty. The very basis of this early sound reproduction technology was friction, an elemental materiality of sound shaped through cultural practice. Using friction as a lens, Gavin Williams illuminates the environments plundered, the materials seized, and the ears entangled in the making of a sound format. Bringing together material, political, and music history, Format Friction decenters the story of a beloved medium, and so explores new ways of understanding listening in technological culture more broadly. Nathan Smith is a PhD candidate in Music Theory at Yale University nathan.smith@yale.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music