Tells the story of Sathima Bea Benjamin, a South African jazz singer who moved to the U.S. in the 1960s, in order to consider cultural and racial politics of jazz in a transnational context.

List of Figures ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xxiii
A Tribute by Abdullah Ibrahim: "Sathima" xxxi
Sathima: My Life's Journey as a Jazz Singer xxxiii
1. Beginnings 1
2. A Home Within 11
Call: Recollecting a Musical Past 11
Response: Entanglement in Race and Music 33
3. Cape Jazz 53
Call: Popular Music, Dance Bands, and Jazz 53
Response: Imagining Musical Lineage through Duke and Billie 95
4. Jazz Migrancy 128
Call: Musicians Abroad 128
Response: A New African Diaspora 167
5. A New York Embrace 189
Call: Coming to the City 189
Response: Women Thinking in Jazz, or the Poetics of a Musical Self 217
6. Returning Home? 242
Call: Cape Town Love / An Archeology of Popular Song 242
Response: Jazz History as Living History 260
7. Musical Echoes 271
Call: Sathima's Musical Echo 271
Response: Reflections on Echo 274
8. Outcomes-Jazz in the World 283
Notes 297
Selected References 325
Index 337

Carol Ann Muller is Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Focus: Music of South Africa and South African Music: A Century of Traditions in Transformation.

The South African jazz vocalist and composer Sathima Bea Benjamin is the founder of Ekapa Records and a Grammy-nominated musician who has released a dozen recordings, including Dedications, Cape Town Love, and Musical Echoes. In 2004, South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, honored her with the Order of Ikhamanga Silver Award in recognition of her musical artistry and antiapartheid activism. Benjamin lives in New York City.