In this work, Ingrid Monson juxtaposes musicians' talk and musical examples to ask how musicians go about "saying something" through music in a way that articulates identity, politics, and race.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Talking to Musicians 2: Grooving and Feeling 3: Music, Language, and Cultural Styles: Improvisation as Conversation 4: Intermusicality 5: Interaction, Feeling, and Musical Analysis 6: Ethnomusicology, Interaction, and Poststructuralism Coda Notes Interviews Recordings Bibliography Index