Vibing

“For years a shroud has hung over the music of Spain, the source of development of both its classical and popular forms being virtually unknown. Historians have claimed ignorance of its “progress” and even suggested that it was, in terms of its origin, set apart from other countries of Europe. One scholar declared that “modern Spanish folk-music had nothing to do with the middle ages.” At the same time many Spanish musicologist of today deny a Moorish influence on Spanish music, (although a Moorish civilization existed in Spain from the eighth to fifteenth century.) Rather they seek for all the roots of, and influences on, Spanish music in modern European music or ancient European culture. They do so in vain. For the history of Moors music may be fragmented, it’s contributions, for various reasons, denied or suppressed, but it is neither dead nor buried. It lives on, like a subtle and vital undercurrent, in the modern music of Andalusia, in parts of Africa, and even, like ghostly refrain, in the Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis and the Ole’ of John Coltraine.” Pg. 320, Golden Age of the Moors, Chapter 7:The Music of the Moors of Spain, by Yusef Ali, Ivan Van Sertima