Jazz and Blues

by sound, by letter, by spirit

‘All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours………….

……..Then Creole stepped forward to remind them that what they were playing was the blues. He hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself, and the music tightened and deepened, apprehension began to beat the air. Creole began to tell us what the blues were all about. They were not about anything very new. He and his boys up there were keeping it new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness and death, in order to find new ways to make us listen. For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must always be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.‘

James Baldwin (born in Harlem, New York)

Jazz- musical form, often improvisational, developed by African Americans and influenced by both European harmonic structure and African rhythms. It was developed partially from ragtime and blues and is often characterized by syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, varying degrees of improvisation, often deliberate deviations of pitch, and the use of original timbres.

Jazz: Dictator of Fashion

The influence of jazz upon popular culture is perhaps the most apparent when looking at the developments in the fashion industry during the 1920s. This whole industry targeted a society that revolved around a certain kind of music. The flapper fashions ostensibly illustrate the importance of jazz to the consumer market of the Jazz Age. Because of the post-war economic boom, the consumer market was enormous, and the fashion industry followed the demands of the new and rising American youth culture.

Jazz music was the propelling force of this new culture. By 1925, The wild and primitive sound of jazz music filled the streets of every major city in the United States. The popularity of jazz music with the general populous was unprecedented. Part of the popularity of jazz music was due to the fact that it was incredible dance music. The Charleston quickly became the most popular dance in the dance halls across the United States. The Victorian clothing of the pre-war era was clearly unsuitable jazz apparel. The evolution in jazz music throughout the 1920s was accompanied by reflective changes in the fashion industry.

While women's fashion has always been an important part of the consumer target market, it did not become a craze in the United States until the 1920s. This is illustrated by the drastic increase in the number of fashion magazines sold in the 1920s. In "Ladies Fashions of the 1920s," Nolan states, "The 1920s saw the emergence of three major women's fashion magazines: Vogue, The Queen, and Harper's Bazaar" (Vintage Fashions, p.1). Nolan goes on to state that even thought Vogue was first published in 1892, it did not begin to influence the consumer market until the 1920s (Vintage Fashions, p.1).

In fact, there were very few fashion magazines that did not sell merchandise until the Roaring Twenties. Jazz music was so wildly popular in the twenties, that the fashion industry was barely able to satisfy the needs of its youthful consumers. Like the evolution of jazz music, jazz or "flapper" fashions evolved in stages. The first notable change in fashion came in 1921. "Drop-waist" dresses were introduced, and long strings of glass beads and pearls became very fashionable, due to Coco Chanel. The low-waisted dress was not yet popular, but neither was jazz music. The first mass marketed jazz recordings were made in 1923, and the popularity of jazz soared. Consequently, women's dresses became loosely fitted, and waistlines dropped to the hips. Upper and lower body freedom was essential when dancing the Charleston, so dresses were cut to reflect the ability to move freely while dancing.

In an article published in the New York Times on March 21,1926, one man stated that "The mannish look that women strive for today is ridiculous!" (New York Times, March 21, 1926). This was not quite correct. By "mannish" the man was referring to the trend of binding the torso and cutting hair short. These "mannish" fashion trends served a purpose. The fragile and precarious hairstyles of the pre-war era were unsuitable for jazz dancing. The "bobbed" hairstyle of the 1920s was not only a mark of rebellion, it was a practical style for the popular dance music. The Charleston was a very vigorous dance, and chest binding, while appearing "mannish" to some people, would have been a functional practice for many women.

In 1925 dresses began to resemble "shifts," which had been undergarments for hundreds of years. These dresses had no waistline and were loose, which allowed complete freedom of movement. Arms were cut loosely and skirts approached knee length. The period of 1925-1927 was the period that jazz enthusiasts often refer to as the "classic years" of early jazz recordings. It was during this time that Armstrong recorded his hot fives and sevens. Count Bassie, Earl Hines, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington also made some famous recordings during this period. The jazz music of this time was still wild and exciting dance music, which was reflected in the fashions of the day. In the Fashion Source book of the 1920s, Peacock states that an average ensemble for evening wear in 1927 would consist of: "A sleeveless mesh dress embroidered all over with gold sequins, a low V-shaped neckline, a loosely fitted bodice, and a flared short skirt.

Gold kid shoes and matching handbag, along with a long string of pearls" (p.58).

It would be a mistake to assume that flapper fashion only appealed to the youth of the 1920s. While the older generation of people often disparaged the wild new jazz culture, they very much adhered to the dictated clothing fashions of that culture. In an article published in The New Republic on September 9, 1925, Bilven wrote that "Flapper Janes" (young flappers) were not alone in their clothing styles. He stated that "These clothes are being worn by all of Jane's sisters and her cousins and her aunts. They are being worn by ladies who are three times Jane's age...Their use is universal" (The New Republic, p.12).

The flapper fashions were also widespread because they were easy to mass produce. The simple lines, loose bodice, and short skirts were easy to market, because they would fit almost any women (in various sizes). Sears Roebuck's mail order catalog was filled with flapper fashions, and they shipped these clothes to large and small towns across the United States. As jazz music evolved into Big Band music, which was slower paced more refined, women's fashions followed suit. In "1920s Haute Couture," Silvren states, "By the end of the decade, feminine curves, lower hemlines, and uncovered foreheads- all to return uncompromisingly in the Thirties-had already begun to reappear"(p.21).

Jazz and Women's Liberation

         Jazz music was a propelling force in the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States during the 1920s. Women had been the largest faction of supporters for the ratification of the 18th and 19th Amendments.  Prohibition and the Suffrage Movement were almost completely pursued by women's organizations. 

With these recent victories to pave the way for a more comprehensive empowerment for women, jazz music provided females of all ages with an outlet for rebellion. Jazz music helped to provide jobs for women within the music industry, and expanded the base of women as a consumer target market.  Frederick Allen stated that "Women were the guardians of morality; they were made of finer stuff than men and were to act accordingly" (Only Yesterday p.73).  This view of women was widely accepted before World War I, but was rejected by most women in  the 1920s, which was partly due to the success of the eighteenth and nineteenth constitutional amendments.

        Women rebelled against their traditional roles as daughters and mothers.  Women wanted to be seen as individuals outside of their familial roles. Jazz provided an outlet for rebellion in several ways. The dance halls, jazz clubs, and speakeasies were  places where women could escape from the traditional roles that were demanded of them by a rigid society. Here, women were allowed greater freedom in their language, clothing, and behavior.  Like the Freudian psychology that was rampant in the 1920s, jazz also encouraged "infantile" behavior; Flappers who frequented these establishment were often referred to as "Jazz Babies." Jazz encouraged primitive and sexual behavior through the uninhibited and improvisational feel of the music.  Jazz music was rejected by the older generation, and therefore, jazz music and jazz dancing were ideal ways for young women (and even men) to rebel against the society of their parents and grandparents.

    The Advertising Industry acknowledged the expanding base of women in the consumer market during the 1920s.  The younger generation of Flappers became the targeted as independent and carefree consumers.  During the course of the 1920s, young flappers or "jazz babies" became targeted for consumer goods which they were not previously expected to purchase, such as cars, radios, motors, land, life insurance, etc.  Young women were also seen as independent purchasers of many new consumer goods, most of these goods revolved around jazz culture, such as dancing garments, radios, recordings, cosmetics, and musical instruments.  The advertisements that were aimed at this new consumer group were distinctly different from previous advertisements that had targeted young women. 

The flapper advertisements reflected their independence from men, their parents, and their grandparents.  Advertisers strove to appeal to the flapper generation by reflecting their new ideas and morals.  For example, Holeproof Hosiery (left) ceased placing men in their advertisements, and showed that they were a "modern" product by displaying scantily clad women with short hair in their advertisements, whereas in the past Holeproof displayed women fully clothed and on the arm of a man. 

      This advertisement (left) for Philco Slotted Retainer Batteries (1923) is an excellent example of the expansion of women in the consumer market and how advertisers targeted flappers as consumers.  Like many advertisements aimed at "jazz babies," the Philco advertisement is devoid of men.  Flappers wanted to be viewed as independent and worldly women, and advertisers responded to this demand with adds that reflected the values of the young female consumers. 

        Jazz music provided many new jobs for

women during the 1920s. Women like Lil' Hardin, Bessie Smith, and Ma Rainy paved the way for women to pursue careers in the popular performing arts.  Prior the the 1920s, almost all popular music was performed exclusively by male musicians.  Due to the popularity of Hardin's compositions and Smith's wildly popular recordings, other women began to pursue careers in the music industry.  Jazz music motivated the first Broadway musical, Showboat, which opened in 1927. 

This opened up a whole new realm of possible careers for women on stage, both on and off Broadway. Throughout the 1920s, radio shows became increasingly popular, and with this popularity came jobs for women. 

Jazz clubs, speakeasies, and stage shows were encouraged to have flappers employed at these establishments, in order to appeal to the "liberated" youth culture of the 1920s.  Women also found positions the  advertising, cosmetic, and clothing industries, all of which are related to the jazz culture of the time. 

Music and poetry have always been popular forms of artistic expression. These art forms have many similarities, which became evident in the 1920s. Since the turn of the century, many poets had been making significant contributions to the evolution of poetic thought. Poets like Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliot, Carl Sandburg, and E.E. Cummings had written their works with an increasing lack of formality and conventional style. The innovations taking place in poetics were juxtaposed with the evolution of jazz music in the early twentieth century. The simultaneous evolution of poetry and jazz music was not lost upon musicians and poets of the time. Amid the chaos of the 1920s, these two art forms merged and formed the genre of jazz poetry.

The earliest poets coined as "jazz poets" simply referred to jazz music in their works. Although the early "jazz poets" were influenced and intrigued by jazz, they were not all true "jazz poets." Many critics still argue about the definition of jazz poetry, yet most scholars acknowledge that jazz poetry must imitate jazz music in its rhythm and style. This is what separates "jazz-related poetry" from "jazz poetry."

In Jazz Poetry/jazz-poetry/"jazz poetry"???, Wallerman states that "A poem that alludes to jazz figures is not the real thing unless it also demonstrates jazz-like rhythm or the feel of improvisation" (AAR, p.665). The first poets to allude to jazz music, figures, or culture were Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sandburg, Mina Loy, and Hart Crane. The poems composed by poets are "jazz-related" works, due to the fact that their poems do not embody the music of the Jazz Age.

Scrapple from the Apple: Jazz & Poetry

by Sean Singer

Jazz poetry began during jazz’s infancy in the 1920s. Langston Hughes , the first poet especially devoted to jazz, got the idea to use it from Vachel Lindsay, his mentor1. In the 1920s and 30s, Hart Crane, Carl Sandburg, and Mina Loy were pioneers of jazz poetry. In the 1950s, jazz-related poetry was popularized by the Beat Generation, and there were frequent jazz-meets-poetry events.

"Obviously, when attempting to place African-American poetry in its historical and social perspective...it is impossible not to address the synthesis of verse and music (specifically jazz and blues)....And, yes, undoubtedly much of black poetry has been associated with black music, and at times almost stereotypically so; what is surprising, however, is to realize how widely jazz has influenced poetry outside the black community—internationally. The music has broken social and cultural barriers, leapfrogging the guard of the black literary community, and has significantly influenced much of contemporary poetry."

This breaking of cultural barriers was already true as early as 1926, as seen in the poetry of Langston Hughes and Hart Crane. These two poets used jazz in the same year and city (New York) as a catalyst for their poems, but in different ways. Hughes, for whom the blues form was indistinguishable from poetry, used a jazz aesthetic as a way of talking about culture, race, history, and as a choice—perhaps emblematic of the jazz aesthetic—to be joyful in spite of conditions. Crane, on the other hand, used a jazz aesthetic as a lens or rhythm by which he could discuss the city, his psychological state, and the mania of his enthusiasm for the freedoms jazz represents.

His poems are short, lyrical, filled with allusion—Biblical, historical, blues—and with voices of people in Harlem at the time. His early poems use jazz culture as a framework to discuss Africa, Lincoln, slavery, colonialism, Reconstruction, and apartheid. For Hughes, jazz is an anodyne to suffering; it is symbolic of a response to struggle, and it is the lexicon of Harlem’s streets, its nightlife, its emotional trajectory.

Hughes’s later jazz-related work was more directly about the music, as well as more layered and less straightforward. This shift can be seen in "Ask Your Mama—Moods for Jazz" and "Montage of a Dream Deferred," which he said was "like be-bop, marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms. " "Montage" was set to music by pianist Horace Parlan and Charles Mingus. During the jazz poetry trend in the late 1950s, Hughes read his work at the Village Vanguard with Mingus and pianist Phineas Newborn. "Ask Your Mama" was supposedly inspired by a July 1960 visit to the Newport Jazz Festival.

When I was a jazz-obsessed undergraduate in Indiana, Komunyakaa taught me about the breadth and depth of jazz poetry. He was also the first person to tell me, a young white poet using jazz, that poetry was something to which I could dedicate my life. At that time, I had intended to be a newspaper reporter. Taking my cues from my poetic ancestors Hughes and Crane, I employ jazz both as a political force and as an aesthetic one. I used jazz in my first collection, Discography, as a way to talk about racism, colonialism, and the Holocaust. I also used it as a wider metaphor for invention in art, coming from the belief that art is a legitimate response to suffering and oppression. For me, jazz is a way of hearing and seeing. It is a way of making art that I aspire towards.

Langston HughesJames Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University.

During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature. Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties.

He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim,Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple's Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography (The Big Sea) and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.

The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance grew out of the changes that had taken place in the black community since the abolition of slavery, and which had been accelerated as a consequence of the First World War.It can also be seen as specifically African-American response to and expression of the great social and cultural change taking place in America in the early 20th century under the influence of industrialization and the emergence of a new mass culture. Contributing factors that lead to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance included the great migration of African Americans to the northern cities and the First World War. Factors leading to the decline of this era include the Great Depression.

Langston Hughes’s Harlem of 1926

"Harlem was like a great magnet for the Negro intellectual, pulling him from everywhere. Or perhaps the magnet was New York, but once in New York, he had to live in Harlem." —Langston Hughes, The Big Sea

The 1920s were an exciting time in Harlem. The end of World War I brought a large migration of African Americans to New York City seeking new economic and artistic opportunities. Musicians, writers, and artists converged on Harlem, living and working together, and developing a thriving artistic scene of literary magazines, cafes, jazz clubs.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Jazzy women

The first woman known to write about jazz in her poetry was Mina

Loy. In "Widow's Jazz," Loy alluded to the Chicago jazz scene, "The white

flesh quakes to the negro soul, Chicago! Chicago!" (Lunar Baedeker,

p.200). Loy referred to the jazz clubs and sounds in her poetry

Mina Loy

In 1921 Ezra Pound wrote to Marianne Moore: "... is there anyone in America except you, Bill [William Carlos Williams] and Mina Loy who can write anything of interest in verse?"

Mina Loy was born in London on December 27, 1882. She attended a conservative art school and was influenced early on by Impressionism. She achieved some success as a painter, and her paintings were included in the prestigious Salon d'Automne show in Paris, 1905. After several years in the heart of Parisian literary and arts society, Loy moved to the United States in 1916, although her reputation preceded her. While hailed as representing the New Woman and the last word in modern verse, Loy's poetry disturbed a few of her more conservative contemporaries. Also an artist, Loy has been labelled a Futurist, Dadaist, Surrealist, feminist, conceptualist, modernist, and post-modernist

Moreover, the Moon Face of the skies preside

over our wonder.

Fluorescenttruant of heavendraw us under.

Silver, circular corpseyour deceaseinfects us with unendurable ease,

touching nerve-terminalsto thermal icicles

Coercive as coma, frail as bloominnuendoes of your inverse dawnsuffuse the self;our every corpuscle become an elf.

Jean Toomer A special case of Harlem poet can be considered to be Jean Toomer, as he sometimes passed for white and therefore attracted critics from the Harlem community. Nevertheless, he did respect his black side and this shows from the great interest he took in the black-blooded writings. Jean Toomer was born in 1894 in Washington, D.C, the son of a Georgian farmer. Though he passed for white during certain periods of his life, he was raised in a predominantly black community and attended black high schools. In 1914, he began college at the University of Wisconsin but transferred to the College of the City of New York and studied there until 1917. Toomer spent the next four years writing and published poetry and prose in Broom, The Liberator, The Little Review and others.

He actively participated in literary society and was acquainted with such prominent figures as the critic Kenneth Burke, the photographer Alfred Steiglitz and the poet Hart Crane. In 1921, Toomer took a teaching job in Georgia and remained there four months; the trip represented his journey back to his Southern roots. His experience inspired his book Cane, a book of prose poetry describing the Georgian people and landscape. In the early twenties, Toomer became interested in Unitism, a religion founded by the Armenian George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. The doctrine taught unity, transcendence and mastery of self through yoga: all of which appealed to Toomer, a light-skinned black man preoccupied with establishing an identity in a society of rigid race distinctions. He began to preach the teachings of Gurdjieff in Harlem and later moved downtown into the white community. From there, he moved to Chicago to create a new branch of followers. Toomer was married twice to wives who were white, and was criticized by the black community for leaving Harlem and rejecting his roots for a life in the white world; however, he saw himself as an individual living above the boundaries of race. His meditations center around his longing for racial unity, as illustrated by his long poem "Blue Meridian." He died in 1967.

Song of the Son

Pour O pour that parting soul in song, O pour it in the sawdust glow of night, Into the velvet pine-smoke air to-night,

And let the valley carry it along. And let the valley carry it along.

O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,So scant of grass, so profligate of pines,Now just before an epoch's sun declinesThy son, in time, I have returned to thee,Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.

In time, for though the sun is setting onA song-lit race of slaves, it has not set;Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet

To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone,Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.

O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums,Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air,Passing before they stripped the old tree bare

One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes

An everlasting song, a singing tree,Caroling softly souls of slavery,

What they were, and what they are to me,Caroling softly souls of slavery.

Portrait in Georgia

Hair--braided chestnut, coiled like a lyncher's

rope,Eyes--fagots,

Lips--old scars, or the first red blisters,

Breath--the last sweet scent of cane,

And her slim body, white as the ash

of black flesh after flame.

Reapers

Black reapers with the sound of steel on stonesAre sharpening scythes.

I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done,

And start their silent swinging, one by one.Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds.

His belly close to ground. I see the blade.

Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.

Jazz Fan Looks Back by Jayne Cortez

I crisscrossed with MonkWailed with Bud

Counted every star with StittSang "Don't Blame Me" with Sarah

Wore a flower like BillieScreamed in the range of Dinah

& scatted "How High the Moon" with Ella Fitzgeraldas she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium

Jazz at the Philharmonic I cut my hair into a permanent tam

Made my feet rebellious metronomes Embedded record needles in paint on paper

Talked bopology talkLaughed in high-pitched saxophone phrases

Became keeper of every Bird riffevery Lester lick

as Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues& Blakey drummed militant messages in

soul of my applauding teeth & Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones

I moved in triple time with MaxGrooved high with Diz

Perdidoed with PettifordFlew home with Hamp

Shuffled in Dexter's DeckSquatty-rooed with Peterson

Dreamed a "52nd Street Theme" with Fats& scatted "Lady Be Good" with Ella Fitzgerald

as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium Jazz at the Philharmonic

It was by way of eavesdropping that poet Quincy Troupe discovered Miles Davis on a fish-joint jukebox in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. At the time, the 15-year-old Troupe was enrolled in an all-white high school, where students didn't listen to black musicians as much as they listened to Pat Boone's covers of black musicians.

But in the fish joint, he was intrigued by four black men with dark glasses and ascots speaking of "the homeboy across the river from East St. Louis," whose song was playing on the jukebox. That "homeboy" was Miles Davis, and he changed Troupe’s life. That "thing that he does" cannot be categorized as any one thing. He has penned or edited fourteen books, including seven volumes of poetry and the non-fiction books, Miles: The Autobiography, coauthored with Miles Davis, which earned him his second American Book Award, and Miles and Me, an account of his friendship with Davis and of the influence the jazz master had on his work.

Rudy Langlais, who produced the 1999 movie The Hurricane, based on the life of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, is currently turning Miles and Me into a film. In his poetry, Troupe has explained, he uses refrain and repetition to capture "a feeling of jazz, a feeling of the gospel, a feeling of sermon, a feeling of spirituals, a feeling even of rhythm and blues and rock 'n’ roll." His poem "Snake-Back Solo # 2" from the collection, Avalanche, invokes these feelings, as in this excerpt: with the music up high, boogalooin’ bass down way way low up & under, eye come slidin’ on in, mojoin’ on in, spacin’ on in on a rifful of rain riffin’ on in full of rain & pain spacin’ on in on a sound like Coltrane

Poetic Form: Blues Poem One of the most popular forms of American poetry, the blues poem stems from the African American oral tradition and the musical tradition of the blues. A blues poem typically takes on themes such as struggle, despair, and sex. It often (but not necessarily) follows a form, in which a statement is made in the first line, a variation is given in the second line, and an ironic alternative is declared in the third line. African-American writer Ralph Ellison said that although the blues are often about struggle and depression, they are also full of determination to overcome difficulty "through sheer toughness of spirit." This resilience in the face of hardship is one of the hallmarks of the blues poem. Some of the great blues poets include Sterling A. Brown, James Weldon Johnson, and Langston Hughes. The title poem of Hughes’ first book, The Weary Blues, is also an excellent example of a blues poem.

Riverbank Blues

by Sterling A. Brown

A man git his feet set in a sticky mudbank,A man git dis yellow water in his blood,

No need for hopin', no need for doin',Muddy streams keep him fixed for good.

Little Muddy, Big Muddy, Moreau and Osage,Little Mary's, Big Mary's, Cedar Creek,

Flood deir muddy water roundabout a man's roots,Keep him soaked and stranded and git him weak.

Lazy sun shinin' on a little cabin,Lazy moon glistenin' over river trees;

Ole river whisperin', lappin' 'gainst de long roots:"Plenty of rest and peace in these . . ."

Big mules, black loam, apple and peach trees,But seems lak de river washes us down

Past de rich farms, away from de fat lands,Dumps us in some ornery riverbank town.

Went down to the river, sot me down an' listened,Heard de water talkin' quiet, quiet lak an' slow:"Ain' no need fo' hurry, take yo' time, take yo'

time . . ." Heard it sayin'--"Baby, hyeahs de way life go . . ."

Towns are sinkin' deeper, deeper in de riverbank,

Takin' on de ways of deir sulky Ole Man--

Takin' on his creepy ways, takin' on his evil

ways,"Bes' git way, a long

way . . . whiles you can. "Man got his

sea too lak de Mississippi Ain't got so long for a whole lot longer way,

Man better move some, better not git rooted

Muddy water fool you, ef you stay .

Dat is what it tole me as I watched it slowly rollin',But somp'n way inside me rared up an' say,

"Better be movin' . . . better be travelin' . . . Riverbank'llgit you ef you stay . . ."

Towns are sinkin' deeper, deeper in de riverbank,Takin' on de ways of deir sulky Ole Man--

Takin' on his creepy ways, takin' on his evil ways,"Bes' git way, a long way . . . whiles you can. "Man got

hissea too lak de Mississippi Ain't got so long for a whole

lot longer way,Man better move some, better not git rooted Muddy

water fool you, ef you stay .

The Bluesy Color Purple“You Just Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down”: Alice Walker sings the

blues

African American Review, Summer, 1996,

by Maria V. Johnson

Oh - Just can’t keep a real good woman downOh - Just can’t keep a

real good woman downIf you throw me down here Papa, I rise up in

some other town (Miller)

Alice Walker has been profoundly influenced and inspired both by African American music and musicians and by writers whose work is grounded in music and in the expressive folk traditions of African Americans. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and the blues music of blues women like Bessie Smith rank among Walker’s most significant musical/literary influences ‘Music is the art I most envy... musicians [are] at one with their cultures and their historical subconscious. I am trying to arrive at that place where Black music already is; to arrive at that unself-conscious sense of collective oneness; that naturalness, that (even when anguished) grace.’

Alice Walker- Nineteen Fifty -Five“Couldn't be nothing worse than being famous the world over for something you don't even understand. That's what I tried to tell Bessie. She wanted that same song. Overheard me practicing it one day, said, with her hands on her hips: Gracie Mae, I'ma sing your song tonight. I likes it.Your lips be too swole to sing, I said. She was mean and she was strong, but I trounced her.Ain't you famous enough with your own stuff? I said. Leave mine alone. Later on, she thanked me. By then she was Miss Bessie Smith to the World, and I was still Miss Gracie Mae Nobody from Notasulga.”

In Nineteen Fifty-five and The Color Purple, Walker employs the character, language, structure, and perspective of the blues to celebrate the lives and works of blues women, to articulate the complexity of their struggles, and to expose and confront the oppressive forces facing Black women in America. In her portraits of blues women, Walker shows us the vitality, resiliency, creativity, and spirituality of African American women, illuminating the core aesthetic concepts which have been crucial to their survival in a society that has largely used and abused them for its own purposes. Indeed, in Walker’s works, African American women performers and their performances symbolize vitality and aliveness, and the will and spirit not only to endure but potentially to flourish. The blues woman, whose song is true to her own experience and rooted in the values and beliefs of the community, empowers those who love her and effects change in those around her. Her outer struggles and inner conflicts reflect issues of oppression in society as they have been internalized within the community.

In addition to blues characters, Walker employs blues forms, themes, images, and linguistic techniques. Her forms - letters and diary entries - are like blues stanzas in their rich compactness and self-containedness; like blues pieces, her works take shape from the repetition and variation of these core units. Walker’s focus on the complexities and many-sidedness of love and relationship repeats the subject of many blues. As in Their Eyes and the blues, paradox and contradiction are explored in the context of relationships, projected via responses to the “traditional situations” of these relationships and articulated using contrast and oppositional structures. The blues women’s motto “You can’t keep a good woman down,” which is at the heart of Nineteen Fifty-five, also resonates the struggles and triumphs of many women in The Color Purple.

Celie:

Dear God,I love this woman!My friend, Sofia.Harpo, he love herAnd he smile ev'rytime he see her.I ain't never seen such a vision!Cow bossin' the bull around.Ain't afraid o' nothin'When she lay her law down.Took harpo's hand,Now she havin' his babies.She rule the house an' its drivin' him crazy.She give him lip and now he just fit to be tied.

CELIE

GOT ABOUT A MILLION TINGLESSNEAKIN' ON UP MY SPINE.I WASH HER BODY AND IT FEEL LIKE I'M PRAYIN.TRY NOT TO LOOK, BUT MY EYES AIN'T OBEYIN'.GUESS I FOUND OUT WHAT ALL OF THE FUSS IS ABOUT.NOT LIKE NETTIE, NOT LIKE SOFIA,NOT LIKE NOBODY ELSE UP IN HERE.

SHUG AVERY!SHUGThis who they talkin' about.CELIEI know that.SHUGAND EVERYTHING THEY SAY IS TRUE, TOO,SO YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!CELIESHUG AVERY . . .

Harpo:Alright, alright now! Ladies and gentlemen! I want yall to fill yo' glasses up and sit yo' asses on down! Cause tonight atHarpo's Juke Joint!

Man:Where?!

Harpo:Harpo, fool! We bringin' yall the finest in southern nobility: The Queen Honey Bee!

Ensemble:Shug Avery!

Harpo:Whoo! Come on, now, yall!

(Men and women shout)

Shug Avery:Now there's somethin' 'bout good lovin' that all you ladies should know.If you wanna light yo' man on fire, you gotta start it real slow.Keep on turnin up the voltage til that man begin to glowLike you switchin on a light bulb: Watch the juice begin to flow!

Now that I've got your attentionHere's what you men need to hear:You want your lady racin' with youYou gotta get here in here!Keep the key to let her know ya find the spot to rev her bestIf you dont know where it is give her the stick!She'll do the rest! Oh Ohh Ohh!

Push da button!(Push da button!)Push da button!(Push da button!)You gotta push it if you wanna come in!

Oh! Push da button!(Push da button!)Give me somethin'!(Push da button!)To let ya baby know it aint no sin!

Now if you wanna feel the train comin' yo' way!Baby, push da button and pull the window shade!

Now listen all you red-hot loversYou ought to know what to do!(You oughta know what to do!)There aint nothin' wrong with nothin'That's right with both of you!(That's right with both of you!)

So when tonight, you make ya lover cry out like a lion roarTell the neighbor your new kitten found the cream it'd been lookin' for! Ohh oohh yeah!

Push da button!(Push da button!)Push da button!(Push da button!)You gotta push it if you wanna come in! Ohh!

Oh! Push da button!(Push da button!)Give me somethin'!(Push da button!)To let ya baby know it aint no sin!

Now if you wanna feel the train comin' yo' way!Baby, push da button and pull the window shade! Come on and!

Ensemble:Push, push, push, push!

[Musical break]

Ensemble:Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!!

Shug Avery:Push da button!(Push da button!)Push da button!(Push da button!)You gotta push it if you wanna come in! Heeyy!

Oh! Push da button!(Push da button!)Give me somethin'!(Push da button!)To let ya baby know it aint no sin!

Now if you wanna feel the train comin' yo' way!Baby, Baby! Come on!

What are you gonna do?

(Push da button!)

Push da button, yeeaah!!MISTERGo on, git! Git outta my house! Leave me alone! Get out of . . . Get out! No! Leaveme alone, you - No! Goddamn bats get out of my -! No! Stop! Get away fromme! Ow! HELP!!!!!What you lookin' at? Bunch of damn fools. I don't have to stay here, worthless town.I can walk right down this road. By myself. Never see nobody I know ever again.

NOBODY TO PUT UP WITH.NOBODY TO MESS WITH ME.NOBODY TO PUSH ME AROUND.NOBODY TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO.NOBODY TO EXPECT SOMETHIN' OF ME.NOBODY TO TELL ME WHO I AMAND WHO I AIN'T.Nobody!I GOT PLENTY TO BLAME.MY DADDY BEAT ME,FOR MY OWN GOOD, HE SAY.MY FIRST WIFE GOT KILTWHEN SHE RUN AWAY.MY KIDS IS ALL FOOLS,MY CROPS IS ALL DEAD,ONLY WOMAN I LOVEWON'T LIE IN MY BED.

A BLACK MAN'S LIFECAN'T GET ANY WORSE'LESS HE WASTIN' AWAYUNDER MISS CELIE'S CURSE!SO TELL ME HOW A MAN DO GOODWHEN ALL HE KNOW IS BAD?HARPO HAPPY.WHAT RIGHT HE GOT TO BE HAPPY?WIFE LEAVE,GIRLFRIEND LEAVE HIM, TOO.HIS MAMA DIE IN HIS ARMS.SOMEBODY TELL MEHOW HE KEEP FINDIN'SO MUCH GOOD FROM SO MUCH BAD?HIS WIFE COME BACK,HIS BUSINESS FINE.

EVERYONE SAYHARPO SHINE.FOR ALL THEY BEEN THROUGH,THEY DO JUST FINE.NOTHIN' I SAYCHANGE PEOPLE MIND ABOUT ME.AIN'T GON' BE NOTHIN' I SAY,GON' BE SOMETHIN' I DO.MAYBE ALL MY GOOD LAY AHEAD OF ME.AIN'T GON' BE NOTHIN' I SAY,GON' BE SOMETHIN' I DO.MAYBE EVERYTHING I DO.

A New Black Identity

Novels Sherwood Anderson — Dark Laughter (1925)

Jessie Redmon Fauset — There is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1928), The Chinaberry Tree (1931), Comedy, American Style (1933)Rudolph Fisher — The Walls of Jericho (1928), The Conjure Man Dies (1932)Langston Hughes — Not Without Laughter (1930)Zora Neale Hurston — Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)Nella Larsen — Quicksand (1928), Passing (1929)Claude McKay — Home to Harlem (1927), Banjo (1929), Gingertown (1931), Banana Bottom (1933)George Schuyler — Black No More (1930), Slaves Today (1931)Wallace Thurman — The Blacker the Berry (1929), Infants of the Spring (1932), Interne (1932)

Jean Toomer — Cane (1923)Carl Van Vechten — Nigger Heaven (1926)Eric Walrond — Tropic Death (1926)Walter White — The Fire in the Flint (1924), Flight (1926)DramaCharles Gilpin, actorEugene O'Neill, playwright—Emperor Jones, All God's Chillun Got WingsPaul RobesonPoetryLangston Hughes, poetJessie Fauset, editor, poet, essayist and novelistCountee Cullen, poet — The Black Christ and Other Poems (1929)Claude McKay, poetJames Weldon Johnson, poetArna Bontemps, poetRichard Bruce Nugent, poet

Popular entertainmentCotton ClubApollo TheaterBlack Swan RecordsSmall's ParadiseConnie's InnSpeakeasiesRent partyMusicians/ComposersNora Douglas Holt Ray[2]Louis ArmstrongEubie BlakeBessie SmithFats WallerBillie HolidayCount BasieDuke EllingtonReferences^ The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Norton, New York, 1997, p. 931^ http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/pdf/505_noraholt.pdf