Review of Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons by Benjamin Barson

Much more than a pun, Benjamin Barson's book is an innovative rewriting of the history of the brass band music that came out of New Orleans during the transition from Reconstruction to the Jim Crow South, which played a crucial role in the emergence of jazz.By theorizing relationships between music and politics in the broader regional context of the Caribbean, Barson intervenes on several conventional narratives, ultimately offering a powerful depiction of the agency of Black musicking during a period of entrenching segregation.Barson defines "brassroots" as pointing to the "connections between the grassroots" and "community-led brass bands," which emerged out of the diverse Black, Caribbean, and Latin American communities that converged in New Orleans (p.3)."Brassroots democracy" refers furthermore to the transformative potential of the musical practices of these communities that accompanied or even prefigured political transformation and made New Orleans a "crucible of radicalism" (p.3).Barson's insistence on this emergent musical-political culture as a site of resistance counters conventional narratives of jazz radicalism as beginning with civil rightsera jazz musicians who supposedly challenged their apolitical predecessors.He argues that