The Day Is So Long and the Wages So Small: Music on a Summer Island

In the summer of 1958, jazz and blues historian Samuel Charters traveled with Ann Danberg to Andros, a remote island on the wrong side of the wind in the Bahamas. Living within a small local community descended from a handful of Bahamian slaves, they discovered how the unique historical fusion of disparate cultures on Andros, from Africa and Europe, had resulted in a wealth of traditional music that had stubbornly resisted the influx of modern styles. Combining rare travel and musical elements with Danberg’s evocative photographs, Char-ters describes their search for a song so rich and startling in its resonance, they had to follow it to its source. Just about the best ‘what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation’ report ever written. —Booklist (starred review)