Table of Contents

Part 1 The background of black music 1800-1950

a jet ornament to society - black music in 19th-century Britain
Afro-American symphony - popular black concert hall performers
fearsome means of discord - early encounters with jazz
London is the place - Caribbean music in the context of the empire

Part 2 From the fifties to the present

African connexions - London's hidden music scene
young, gifted and black - Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean music
Trinidad all stars - the steel pan movement in Britain
Bhangra - fusion and professionalization, in a genre of South Asian dance music
Qawwali in Bradford - traditional music in Muslim community