Jazz
as a Literary Art Form
In
the Poetry of
Langston
Hughes
African American music, such as jazz, has always been connected to
African and African American literature and spoken word. This was evident
in the era of the Harlem Renaissance, when jazz was prevalent in African
American culture. The rhythmical concepts of jazz were incorporated into
Langston Hughes’ Young Gal’s Blues and Dream Boogie.
In order to understand how these authors create effective usage of jazz
in their writing, the origins of jazz and jazz itself must first be defined.
African American music has of course been influenced by its own roots:
African music. There are many complex rhythmical concepts involved in
African music alone, most notably symbolized in the researched song
“Adzida Dance.” (Floyd, 30) In fact, African music is greatly tied to
cultural lingual aspects. The fact that Hughes has incorporated the music
of his culture into his writing can also be traced back to African roots.
This can explain the trans-genre use of jazz in writing; both in poetry
as
our subject Hughes employed it, or as prose as other studied authors
such as Baldwin have exemplified.
“Bebey… for example tells us that in African music, the ‘prime motive of
the instruments is to reconstitute spoken language.’ … And Wilson
maintaines that ‘the pre-existing repertoire of drum patterns used by
master drummers in many African cultures is based on musical patterns
derived from selected genres of oral poetry.’” (Floyd 28)
Even the chanted language in many African songs reinforces the
connection of musical rhythm to lingual rhythm. In “Gankogui,” the
syllables “GO” and “dzi” are used to indicate which beat the musician is
to
place the accent on. This song is in 12/8 time, and in addition to being
in
a more complex meter, this song has other parts which accent different
beats. (Floyd, 29) These complex rhythms remained in place in African
American music and evolved into what is now known as jazz.
Jazz itself is not easy to define. Jazz master Duke Ellington himself was
opposed to having his music categorized under a single label. (Ponce, 2)
Bruce Raeburn, who worked on the recent Ken Burns jazz television series,
defines jazz as “… a style of interpreting a piece of music in a personal
way. There are certain essential conventions, all of which can be
interpreted very broadly.” (Ponce, 2)
After such a long period of oppression, African American music finally
exploded into American culture with the dominance of jazz. Jazz began to
gain respect as an anthem of black culture and was even officially
recognized by civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois. (Floyd, 114)
Jazz is so radically different from any other form of music that it has
not
only its own musical scales, but also its own writing. Hughes’ Young Gal’s
Blues is a prime example of twelve bar blues. Reading the poem aloud, one
can evenly divide this poem into twelve bars and hear the type of tune
that would accompany this writing. As a poem and song, it is rather
self-reflective (literally and figuratively) and symmetrical in form.
Traditionally, many jazz musicians have often favored symmetrical form.
(Martin, 41) Twelve bar blues often also contain the rhyming scheme
present in this Hughes poem. (Martin, 43) Thematic material present in
many blues songs such as poverty, lust, death and loneliness are
expressed in Young Gal’s Blues.
In Dream Boogie, Hughes employs similar use of rhyme. Though Young
Gal’s Blues, like any blues song, runs the risk of being misinterpreted
or
taken at a surface value, Dream Boogie is more assertive. It is a mesh
between jazz form and poetic form. In Dream Boogie, Hughes employs an
AAAB form, which is typical of more evolved jazz (music that was created
after the blues, which is a subgenre of jazz). Thematically, Hughes makes
a radical change. While still maintaining jazz-inspired form, rhythm, and
rhyme, his outwardly expressive message of contempt for inequality and
unfairness creates a combination that helps define the style of the
author. Also significant are the dates of these poems; Young Gal’s Blues
was written in 1927 and Dream Boogie in 1951. (ed. McMichael, pp. 1384
& 1386)
The connection between jazz and literature was also reinforced by several
popular jazz publications, some of which still publish currently today.
Author Ralph Ellison published an anthology of works, entitled [sic]
Shadow and act (1967) that had original publication in magazines. Many
of these were about jazz.
“Ellison is a fluent writer who is comparable to Le Roi Jones, Langston
Hughes and James baldwin for quality of work and deep interest in the
Negro musical heritage.” (Kennington, 53)
Language and jazz are in fact so well connected that Jorge Heredia has
even translated Hughes poems into Spanish and read them over music by
jazz greats Charles Mingus and Leonard Feather. (Heredia, 1)
Writer Gerald Early has also commented on jazz, saying that “You had
people who created a music that’s really celebrating democratic
possibilities: liberation, freedom of the spirit, a soaring above adversities
--who really hadn’t experienced everything that democratic society had
to offer, but you could look around and see the promise embedded in the
society. Jazz is a kind of lyricism about the great American promise and
our inability to live up to it.” (Ponce, 1)
This describes the purpose of Dream Boogie very well. The type of
injustice that infuriates the speaker of this poem is completely fueled
by
the incapability of America to live up to certain promises. When analyzing
the form of this poem, it is also clear that although rooted in traditional
blues form like Young Gal’s Blues, Dream Boogie is more free in style.
The
last seven lines most poignantly reflect not only the pent up freedom
inspired by jazz music, but also the irony of being oppressed and unhappy.
Early, who is also a professor of English, further notes that jazz is “…
also
the most inclusive. Jazz is a music that will take anything.” (Ponce, 1)
Therefore, jazz is rather suited to embrace African American literature,
and vice-versa. Hughes, a hero of the Harlem Renaissance, has embraced
this by combining music and poetry.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Hughes, Langston. "Dream Boogie." Anthology of American Literature, 7th
edition, Volume II: Realism to the Present. Ed. McMichael, Levinson, Marx,
Smith, Claxton, Bunn. NJ: Prentice Hall, .
Hughes, Langston. "Young Gal’s Blues." Anthology of American Literature,
7th edition, Volume II: Realism to the Present. Ed. McMichael, Levinson,
Marx, Smith, Claxton, Bunn. NJ: Prentice Hall, .
Secondary Sources:
Floyd, Samuel A. The Power of Black Music. New York: Oxford, 1995.
Heredia, Jorge. Weary Blues/Blues Abatido. 5/3/01
<http://www.geocities.com/ xxxjorgexxx/hughes1.htm>.
Ponce, Pedro. Jazz-An American Elixir. National Endowment for the
Humanities. 5/3/01 <http://www.neh.gov/ publications/humanities/
2000-07/jazz.html>.
Kennington, Donald. The Literature of Jazz. Chicago: American Library
Association, 1971.
Martin, Henry. Enjoying Jazz. New York: Schirmer Books, 1986.
Writing Main
All writing is copyright its
author, 2002.
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