Jazz the music and Jazz the book

by: Clayton Mandly, Emma McGirr, and David Odenwelder

Jazz (the music) and Jazz (the novel) are very similar in style and structure. Both are always changing but rooted in a particular style. Jazz music is improvisation-based and therefore the performers have to feed off of one another. There are many different instruments that are used to play jazz music and each instrument has its own individuality. Just as the performers are individuals, the instruments they play have specific roles and work together. The text is almost rhythmical, giving a variety of different tempos and timbre, which contribute to the distinctive qualities of each instrument or player. Throughout the book, there are many different narrators who are used to enrich the detail of the story. Each character has their own story to tell and the reader can see their individuality, which is pieced together in the novel to form a collective and collaborative piece of writing. This multiple voice and multiple perspectives is the same with jazz music. Each instrument adds a little more something to the big picture of the musical piece that they are performing.

In Jazz the novel, the narrator observes what is taking place in the novel while making presumptions about what the outcome of the characters’ lives will be. But, the narrator learns that their lives were not predictable. In the end of the novel, the narrator was surprised that the outcome he was expecting did not occur. One could compare the narrator to an audience member watching jazz music. Jazz music is not predictable. It is made up of a set path that will be loosely followed and during the journey down the path different instruments will improvise, creating music and rhythms on the spot. The audience may try to guess at what the musicians will do next. But again it is hard to predict an improvisational art. Even the musicians do not always know what to expect.

Morrison’s format of the book is also reminiscent of jazz music. She uses a single blank page to separate the sections in the book. She also does not label the sections or title them. This makes it very similar to jazz music because the music flows from one point to another without complete stops. It has section changes when one instrument starts a solo, but no real apparent or drastic stop to a new movement. In the novel, Morrison makes the sections flow well together. For example at the end of one section, she writes, “She buttoned her coat and left the drugstore and noticed, at the same moment as that Violet did, that it was spring. In the City” (Morrison, 114). Then at the start of the next section she writes, “And when spring comes to the City people notice one another in the road” (Morrison, 117). These sections are connected but at the same time it switches focus on a related subject.

Jazz music began its development in New Orleans during the early 20^th century and then broadened its’ reach to other major cities. The novel Jazz is set in a place called “the City” in the winter 1926. It is set in during the time when jazz music was spreading and very popular. Though the city described in the novel is never specifically identified, it is possible to stay that it was New York City. This novel took place during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, which was an explosion of African American culture in the arts including the blues and jazz music.

The idea of double-consciousness is apparent throughout the novel and can be noticed when analyzing the characters of Joe and Violet. We learned about this idea while reading Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark and Morrison stresses the idea a lot in Jazz. Double-consciousness can also be applied to jazz music and the varied meanings of the musical piece being played. One example from the novel is when Violet is contemplating saying, “No! That Violet is not somebody walking around town, up and down the streets wearing my skin and using my eyes shit no that Violet is me!” (Morrison, 95-96).

One difference between jazz the music and Jazz the novel is the concept of the “not me.” The “not me” is considered to be one way people identify themselves by projecting all the qualities they don’t like onto a person of another race. The “not me” doesn’t exist in jazz music but it does in Toni Morrison’s novel. In Jazz, the character Golden Gray has grown up thinking that he is a white man and when he learns that his father is black he goes to find and kill his father. Golden Gray makes assumptions about what his father is like and gives him all negative qualities because he is of another race. In contrast, Golden Gray’s father Henry Lestory projects Golden Gray as the “not me.” When addressing his son for the first time he says, “Be what you want – white or black. Choose. But if you choose black, you got to act black, meaning draw your manhood up – quicklike, and don’t bring me no whiteboy sass” (Morrison, 173). Henry Lestory is assuming the white characteristics to be weak and prissy. Jazz music is a collaborative art form and calls for everyone to work together despite their differences resulting in the nonexistence of the “not me.”