Varieties of literary interpretations of jazz in American writings of the 1950s and 1960s

In modern-day America, jazz music lacks the widespread popularity and strong appeal to younger generations it once held. However, this has not stopped the ongoing efforts of novelists and poets such as Yusef Komunyakaa to create compelling new literary works referencing historic figures, performances, and characteristics of jazz. The following discussion will more closely examine the relationship between jazz music and African American literature during the four time periods introduced above: Jazz music has never existed in isolation: These are broad themes, all of which extend well beyond jazz music in their influence.

If one is to attempt to understand jazz music at any level, the cultural context is critical background that cannot be ignored. Literature is a particularly powerful avenue through which to analyze these themes in jazz music, as the work of writers and poets is often motivated by similar societal factors as musicians. The overarching idea of art as a means of expression and communication is one that has transcended both time and art medium, and certainly extends into jazz music and African American literature as well. The Harlem Renaissance was a key period for the development of a new African American identity in the United States, and was as much about art as it was about political movements and civil rights.

For this reason, it is somewhat surprising that jazz music was minimally referenced in black literature during this time. Michael Borshuk, author of Swinging the Vernacular: Jazz was suspiciously excluded from the unofficial race advancement project promoted by the black intelligentsia in the s…. This exclusion of jazz from the Renaissance, Borshuk further explains, can be attributed to a variety of factors including increased class consciousness among African Americans in the s and desire to distance the revitalized culture from long-standing stereotypes.

Perhaps to even a greater extent, the underrepresentation of jazz in Renaissance works may be consequence of a heightened cultural focus on European art, which came at the cost of appreciation of the African American musical tradition Borshuk, A notable exception to Renaissance figures keeping their distance from jazz music was 20 th century writer Langston Hughes, informally lauded as the Father of Jazz Poetry: Outside the context of the Harlem Renaissance, other writers in the United States—white modernists in particular— during the s caught wind of the significance of jazz music to national culture.

This influence manifested itself in modernist poems both through specific descriptions of jazz performances and in less direct, stylistic aspects.

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The end of World War II in marked tremendous change for the entire country. Jazz music was not exempt: Simultaneously, the influence of jazz in other art forms—particularly written works— increased. Neither point of view, however, necessarily excludes the other. Partly due to this amorphous definition of jazz poetry, it is difficult to compile an exhaustive list of works from this era. Joans speaks of jazz artists reverently, with a sense of closeness and devotion characteristic to many of his famous works.

Of all the jazz music subtypes to which jazz literature can be likened, bebop is perhaps the most complex source of inspiration. Bebop, a jazz style characterized by its complex harmonies and chord changes, rapid rhythm, and virtuosic display of harmonic and melodic creativity, burst into the musical scene in M. Improvisational Beat poetry, a style of writing vastly different from the styles examined above, was also influenced by jazz music during this time period.

Bob Kaufman, a poet known for his improvised poetry performances the words to which were rarely penned , drew a significant influence from alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. Following the momentum built during the preceding decades, the s were as much a time when diverse works of literature were created in homage to jazz. The Black Arts Movement, a pivotal point in the development of African American culture in the United States, was an opportunity for many young black writers to emerge on the literary scene. Among these were poets who often drew upon jazz music for influence in manners similar to their literary predecessors: One individual key in introducing younger Americans to jazz music through his writing was Amiri Baraka, whose famous works include a collection of essays entitled Black Music , which focused on experimental jazz.

Highlighting the influence of the Black Arts Movement is not to say unaffiliated artists were unimportant during the s and s— for instance, poet Michael S. Harper remains one of the best-read jazz writers even today. Such is observed in lines of the poem Harper, Yet another parallel to jazz music emerges here: Though the presence of jazz in the modern musical landscape has continued to decline, even today there are black writers who continue to incorporate jazz music into literary works.

The Jazz Poetry Anthology , is considered one of the key figures in modern jazz writing. In these times writers focussed more on John Coltrane as their spiritual leader, equating his music with Malcolm X and the Black Civil Rights movement. The former Beat poet LeRoi Jones renamed himself Amiri Baraka and became one of the major proponents of the revival of jazz poetry as a source of black pride. The quest of this movement included the search for a new black cultural consciousness that would as well embrace the heritage of African Americans. In conclusion, the heritage and social background of an author played a significant role in his choice of jazz as a model for his literary work.

White writers were mostly fascinated by the radicalization of traditional literary forms and the issues of individuality that bebop embodied. The deconstruction of traditional forms also attracted black writers, but, furthermore, they understood the music as epitomizing a link to their racial heritage as well. For them, the music was one of the most unique forms of African American artistic expression and was, thus, often applied as an opposing gesture towards the dominant white culture.

Before the background of this multifaceted diversity, it appears that a coherent definition and understanding of jazz literature is still outstanding. This thesis seeks to countervail the trend towards divergence in conceptions of jazz literature by analysing, and reconciling, selected works of authors indicative and representative of this genre. With regard to the abovementioned complex societal changes and artistic inventions, the present thesis features the analysis of the works of four different authors who appeared most representative of the variety of literary interpretations of jazz in the s and s in the United States.

Due to the fact that jazz music derives from the blues form, Baldwin was selected first in the sequence of portrayed authors as he can be considered closest to the musical reference disciplines of jazz. He symbolically uses the jazz musician as being representative for the American artist struggling to find his voice and place in post World War II society.

Holmes and Baldwin feature a similar approach to jazz insofar that both use it symbolically rather than formally. The following two authors, on the other hand, use the music mainly on because of its formal aesthetics, although they make symbolic implications as well. Implicitly, he aims at proposing an artistic alternative to societal problems and questions of identity in post-war culture. Especially through the use of diverse formal characteristics of jazz he attempts to create in his poetry a distinct African American voice that is able to at the same time question and re-define traditional American artistic forms.

This thesis is structured as follows. This discussion will later be used as a reference framework for a more in-depth discussion of selected jazz texts. Selected approaches of posts literary criticism will be briefly presented to then appoint an appropriate advancing of the multifaceted issue of literary interpretations of jazz.

Thereafter, the works of the four abovementioned authors will be analysed chapters 4 to 7.

"Jazz Is My Story:" A Historical Analysis of Jazz and 20th Century African-American Literature

As will be shown, the influence of jazz on literature was symbolic or representative Baldwin and Holmes , formal Kerouac and Baraka , and ideological all. This thesis also proves that the representation of jazz in literature was not only bound to a single genre but can be observed in a variety of literary forms. This thesis concludes in chapter 8 with a recapitulation of the main findings.

In the following, selected characteristics of jazz music will be recapitulated in order to allow the reader to form an appreciation of the most significant features of the music. This in turn will allow the reader to develop a comprehensive understanding of the background on which the subsequent elaborations in this thesis will be based. Especially the use of the abovementioned rhythmic patterns are a distinct characteristic of jazz. Although jazz music certainly obeys some form of standard or structure, [12] it is the feature of improvisation that clearly distinguishes jazz from other styles of music, which is especially the case with a style like bebop.

The structure of a tune, which has been previously agreed upon, most often incorporates basic chord progressions of a popular tune on which musicians then improvise. Improvisation may occur by the use of a single phrase, a whole musical idea through repetition or variation of more than one phrase , or at the level of an entire solo. Improvisation yields towards another important element in jazz performance.

By fusing temporal continuity as well as discontinuity, jazz addresses diverse levels of time in composition and performance alike. The music deals with different conceptions of time that are rooted in the African holistic view yet influenced by Western notions as well, remarks Wilfried Raussert: As an intercultural art form, jazz translates the tensions between an African and a Western sense of time rhythmically. During a live jazz performance, the audience and its immediate reaction to the performance on stage exemplifies another important feature of jazz.

The audience of a jazz improvisation thus attains an unusually high degree of intimacy with the music that can often not be achieved in any other situation. Aside from the abovementioned features, jazz is also significant on an ideological, cultural, and socio-political level. To post World War II society, it offered a model for the radical improvement of rigid societal structures, as Raussert remarks:.

Through a series of fast-paced changes in style - New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz, free jazz - jazz embodied the spirit of the avant-garde with its yearning for constant renewal. Writers welcomed the music enthusiastically and responded to it with highly personal poetry and prose.

Jazz music left its inextinguishable traces on the art of word, with the effect that it is still evident in contemporary artistic expression. The discussion about what exactly the definition of a jazz poem or jazz prose text is and what qualities or features it should enclose has evoked some heated discussions among writers and critics ever since the inception of these terms.

Such matter of indecision appears to be most aptly exemplified by two major questions that have repeatedly been raised:. Although most views differ in one way or another, all of them share a general acceptance of an actually existing connection between the two arts. Widely disseminated criticisms of jazz literature as a genre of its own standing have been rare. There are only few early critical writings, [21] and only from the s onwards has the genre found more widespread recognition by critics. As early as Hugh L. Along similar lines, Sascha Feinstein has allocated the influence of jazz on poetry to different categories.

The same problem occurs when references to jazz are in general rather implicit, in which cases form alone becomes the single available criterion. As a third example are considered critics Michael Jarrett and Gayl Jones who are concerned with the influence of jazz on any literary text. In similar ways, both divide jazz literature into two distinct groups, with Jones noting that in terms of literature, jazz can either affect subject matter or cause stylistic implications.

As this brief discussion reveals, there are numerous ways of exploring a jazz-related text regardless of its genre, origin, or theme. Consequently, the supposedly opposite schools of thought jazz-form versus jazz-subject should not be discussed as opposites but rather as part of a larger discussion that combines both approaches. Hence, jazz may have a thematic as well as a structural impact on both poetry and prose.

This assumption builds the framework upon which the following analyses are based. James Baldwin was born August 2, in Harlem as the first of nine children. When he was three years old, his mother married his would-be stepfather whom Baldwin would never quite come to terms with. He lived in Europe, mainly in France, for the rest of his life, but occasionally visited the United States to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, to work as a teacher and lecturer, and to write about the continuing issues of race and identity in the country of his birth.

Also, the motif of a father-son-relationship or derivatives of it repeatedly occurs in his fiction. Eight years later, after having published numerous other short stories, essays, plays, and novels, Baldwin included the story of a young jazz musician in his collection of short stories Going to Meet the Man. The narrator, whose name is not revealed, is the older one.

At the time the story is set most probably the late s or early s , he has achieved a respectable position as teacher, husband and father. Quite oppositely, his younger brother Sonny, a jazz musician, is struggling with heroin addiction. In his life, he has not pursued a steady way of living like his brother. In the course of the story, the narrator tells about different incidents in his life that all deal with his relationship to Sonny. In the beginning of the story, he lacks an emphatic view of his younger brother although he repeatedly tries to approach him in a helpful manner, as it appears to him.

Sonny, who has never assimilated to society the way his older brother has, struggles in his attempt to find a way to deal with his personal suffering that his status as an outsider being a drug addict and jazz musician confers upon him. He finally channels his feelings into music and, thereby, creates for himself a new identity, which his brother, however, does not comprehend.

In a way, the two brothers serve as symbols for the two sides of the African American experience: Sonny, on the other hand, symbolizes the other side insofar that he still searches for his own, individual way of living that may be a combination of both his racial heritage and his personal desires. This, in turn, can be seen as symbolizing the fracture that exists within African American culture on a larger scale. The story is told in retrospection in a first person point of view. Much of Dunbar's work, such as When Malindy Sings , which includes photographs taken by the Hampton Institute Camera Club, and Joggin' Erlong provide revealing glimpses into the lives of rural African Americans of the day.

Though Dunbar died young, he was a prolific poet, essayist, novelist among them The Uncalled , and The Fanatics , and short story writer. Other African-American writers also rose to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among these is Charles W. Chesnutt , a well-known short story writer and essayist. Mary Weston Fordham published Magnolia Leaves in , a book of poetry on religious, spiritual, and occasionally feminist themes with an introduction by Booker T. Harper — wrote four novels, several volumes of poetry, and numerous stories, poems, essays and letters.

Born to free parents in Baltimore, Maryland, Harper received an uncommonly thorough education at her uncle, William Watkins' school. Harper was hired by the Maine Anti-Slavery Society and in the first six weeks, she managed to travel to twenty cities, giving at least thirty-one lectures. Harper was often characterized as "a noble Christian woman" and "one of the most scholarly and well-read women of her day", but she was also known as a strong advocate against slavery and the post-Civil War repressive measures against blacks.

The Harlem Renaissance from to was a flowering of African-American literature and art. Based in the African-American community of Harlem in New York City , it was part of a larger flowering of social thought and culture. Numerous Black artists, musicians and others produced classic works in fields from jazz to theater; the renaissance is perhaps best known for the literature that came out of it.

Among the most renowned writers of the renaissance is poet Langston Hughes , whose first work was published in The Brownies' Book in Edited by James Weldon Johnson , this anthology featured the work of the period's most talented poets, including Claude McKay , who also published three novels, Home to Harlem , Banjo and Banana Bottom, a nonfiction book, "Harlem: Negro Metropolis" and a collection of short stories. Perhaps his most famous poem is " The Negro Speaks of Rivers ", which he wrote as a young teen.

His single, most recognized character is Jesse B.

Simple, a plainspoken, pragmatic Harlemite whose comedic observations appeared in Hughes's columns for the Chicago Defender and the New York Post. Simple Speaks His Mind is perhaps the best-known collection of Simple stories published in book form.

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Until his death in , Hughes published nine volumes of poetry, eight books of short stories, two novels and a number of plays , children's books and translations. Although Hurston wrote 14 books that ranged from anthropology to short stories to novel-length fiction, her writings fell into obscurity for decades. Walker found in Hurston a role model for all female African-American writers.

While Hurston and Hughes are the two most influential writers to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, a number of other writers also became well known during this period. They include Jean Toomer , author of Cane , a famous collection of stories, poems, and sketches about rural and urban Black life, and Dorothy West , whose novel The Living is Easy examined the life of an upper-class Black family. Another popular renaissance writer is Countee Cullen , who in his poems described everyday black life such as a trip he made to Baltimore that was ruined by a racial insult.

A Novel of Negro Life , which focused on intraracial prejudice between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance marked a turning point for African-American literature. Prior to this time, books by African Americans were primarily read by other Black people. With the renaissance, though, African-American literature—as well as black fine art and performance art—began to be absorbed into mainstream American culture.

During this Great Migration , Black people left the racism and lack of opportunities in the American South and settled in northern cities such as Chicago , where they found work in factories and other sectors of the economy.

African-American literature - Wikipedia

This migration produced a new sense of independence in the Black community and contributed to the vibrant Black urban culture seen during the Harlem Renaissance. The migration also empowered the growing Civil Rights Movement , which made a powerful impression on Black writers during the s, '50s and '60s. Just as Black activists were pushing to end segregation and racism and create a new sense of Black nationalism, so too were Black authors attempting to address these issues with their writings.

One of the first writers to do so was James Baldwin , whose work addressed issues of race and sexuality. Baldwin, who is best known for his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain , wrote deeply personal stories and essays while examining what it was like to be both Black and homosexual at a time when neither of these identities was accepted by American culture. Baldwin's idol and friend was author Richard Wright , whom Baldwin called "the greatest Black writer in the world for me".

Wright is best known for his novel Native Son , which tells the story of Bigger Thomas, a Black man struggling for acceptance in Chicago. Baldwin was so impressed by the novel that he titled a collection of his own essays Notes of a Native Son , in reference to Wright's novel. However, their friendship fell apart due to one of the book's essays, "Everybody's Protest Novel," which criticized Native Son for lacking credible characters and psychological complexity.

The other great novelist of this period is Ralph Ellison , best known for his novel Invisible Man , which won the National Book Award in Even though he did not complete another novel during his lifetime, Invisible Man was so influential that it secured his place in literary history. After Ellison's death in , a second novel, Juneteenth , was pieced together from the 2,plus pages he had written over 40 years.

A fuller version of the manuscript was published as Three Days Before the Shooting The Civil Rights time period also saw the rise of female Black poets, most notably Gwendolyn Brooks , who became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize when it was awarded for her book of poetry, Annie Allen. Along with Brooks, other female poets who became well known during the s and '60s are Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. During this time, a number of playwrights also came to national attention, notably Lorraine Hansberry , whose play A Raisin in the Sun focuses on a poor Black family living in Chicago.

Another playwright who gained attention was Amiri Baraka , who wrote controversial off-Broadway plays. In more recent years, Baraka became known for his poetry and music criticism. It is also worth noting that a number of important essays and books about human rights were written by the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Beginning in the s, African-American literature reached the mainstream as books by Black writers continually achieved best-selling and award-winning status.

This was also the time when the work of African-American writers began to be accepted by academia as a legitimate genre of American literature. A number of scholars and writers are generally credited with helping to promote and define African-American literature as a genre during this time period, including fiction writers Toni Morrison and Alice Walker and poet James Emanuel. Negro Literature in America , a collection of black writings released by a major publisher. Toni Morrison , meanwhile, helped promote Black literature and authors when she worked as an editor for Random House in the s and '70s, where she edited books by such authors as Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones.

Morrison herself would later emerge as one of the most important African-American writers of the 20th century. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye , was published in Among her most famous novels is Beloved , which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in This story describes a slave who found freedom but killed her infant daughter to save her from a life of slavery.

Another important novel is Song of Solomon , a tale about materialism , unrequited love , and brotherhood. In the s novelist and poet Alice Walker wrote a famous essay that brought Zora Neale Hurston and her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God back to the attention of the literary world.

An epistolary novel a book written in the form of letters , The Color Purple tells the story of Celie, a young woman who is sexually abused by her stepfather and then is forced to marry a man who physically abuses her. The novel was later made into a film by Steven Spielberg. The s also saw African-American books topping the bestseller lists. Among the first to do so was Roots: A fictionalized account of Haley's family history—beginning with the kidnapping of his ancestor Kunta Kinte in Gambia through his life as a slave in the United States— Roots won the Pulitzer Prize and became a popular television miniseries.

Haley also wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X in African-American poets have also garnered attention. Cassells is a recipient of the William Carlos Williams Award.

Lesser-known poets such as Thylias Moss also have been praised for their innovative work. Most recently, Edward P. African-American literature has also crossed over to genre fiction. A pioneer in this area is Chester Himes , who in the s and '60s wrote a series of pulp fiction detective novels featuring "Coffin" Ed Johnson and "Gravedigger" Jones, two New York City police detectives.

Himes paved the way for the later crime novels of Walter Mosley and Hugh Holton. African Americans are also represented in the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, with Samuel R. Delany , Octavia E. Saunders , John Ridley , John M. Faucette , Sheree Thomas and Nalo Hopkinson being just a few of the well-known authors. Finally, African-American literature has gained added attention through the work of talk-show host Oprah Winfrey , who repeatedly has leveraged her fame to promote literature through the medium of her Oprah's Book Club.

At times, she has brought African-American writers a far broader audience than they otherwise might have received. While African-American literature is well accepted in the United States, there are numerous views on its significance, traditions, and theories. To the genre's supporters, African-American literature arose out of the experience of Blacks in the United States, especially with regards to historic racism and discrimination, and is an attempt to refute the dominant culture's literature and power.

Varieties of literary interpretations of jazz in American writings of the 1950s and 1960s

In addition, supporters see the literature existing both within and outside American literature and as helping to revitalize the country's writing. To critics [ who? In addition, there are some within the African-American community who do not like how their own literature sometimes showcases Black people. Throughout American history, African Americans have been discriminated against and subject to racist attitudes.

This experience inspired some Black writers, at least during the early years of African-American literature, to prove they were the equals of European-American authors. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr, has said, "it is fair to describe the subtext of the history of black letters as this urge to refute the claim that because blacks had no written traditions they were bearers of an inferior culture. By refuting the claims of the dominant culture, African-American writers were also attempting to subvert the literary and power traditions of the United States.

Some scholars assert that writing has traditionally been seen as "something defined by the dominant culture as a white male activity. By borrowing from and incorporating the non-written oral traditions and folk life of the African diaspora , African-American literature broke "the mystique of connection between literary authority and patriarchal power. This view of African-American literature as a tool in the struggle for Black political and cultural liberation has been stated for decades, perhaps most famously by W.

According to Joanne Gabbin, a professor, African-American literature exists both inside and outside American literature. Even though African Americans have long claimed an American identity, during most of United States history they were not accepted as full citizens and were actively discriminated against. As a result, they were part of America while also outside it. Similarly, African-American literature is within the framework of a larger American literature, but it also is independent.

As a result, new styles of storytelling and unique voices have been created in relative isolation. The benefit of this is that these new styles and voices can leave their isolation and help revitalize the larger literary world McKay, This artistic pattern has held true with many aspects of African-American culture over the last century, with jazz and hip hop being just two artistic examples that developed in isolation within the Black community before reaching a larger audience and eventually revitalizing American culture.

Since African-American literature is already popular with mainstream audiences, its ability to develop new styles and voices—or to remain "authentic," in the words of some critics—may be a thing of the past.

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