Introduction to Focus: Dues and Blues: Reviewing Jazz-related Literature

Page 4 American Book Review Dues and Blues: Reviewing Jazz-related Literature introduction to Focus: sascha Feinstein, Focus editor I was recently asked to speak on Jazz and American Identity, and the topic became a little more tangled than I expected. The host of the symposium had anticipated a Ken Burns-like presentation, where jazz was represented in the spirit of baseball, which is to say, inextricably connected with American identity. But while jazz can and should be considered America’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, most Americans do not identify themselves with or by the music—and this has been true since the inception of jazz at the turn of the twentieth century. The reasons for this, of course, have a lot to do with fear: racism, certainly, as well as sexual anxiety and the stereotypical association of jazz and narcotics. In addition, there’s the issue of abstraction—addressed directly in Martin Williams’s classic text, Where’s the Melody? (1966)—and the fact that many of the magisterial early jazz sessions were recorded on rudimentary equipment, which irritates our spoiled, modern ears. Afew months ago, Stanley Crouch spoke to me about jazz and literature, and talked at some length about why jazz has never been in the forefront of America’s consciousness. “Part of the reason,” he said, is that jazz musicians have tended to be like professional magicians in that they basically don’t tell you much; if you see the trick and can figure it out, good for you—but they’re not going to tell you how they do it because there’s a certain kind of competition. (“If he hears this, then he might start playing it, and he might become more successful than I am.”) Crouch also mentioned the absence of jazz inAmerican fiction and American film. “All of these things, when you add them up,” he said, “create over a long period of time a very superficial perspective of the music.” It is therefore not surprising to find that poets— those practicing the most neglected and least understood literary genre—have so frequently turned to and celebrated jazz, even if their work has escaped the public’s radar. Consider for a moment a writer like John Sinclair. When I interviewed him in 2002, I said, “You’ve been working on a book of Thelonious Monk poems for about twenty years,” and he replied, “Since 1982.As I told you, nobody’s asked me about it.” Some poets whose work has been shaped by the music receive greater (and due) attention. (Michael Harper, for example, has just submitted a massive greater attention from the press than, say, jazz-related fiction and poetry, but, here too, so much more could be done. I don’t believe, for example, ABR reviewed Dan Morgenstern’s magnificent Living with Jazz (2004), or Gary Giddins’s award-winning Visions of Jazz (1998), or Whitney Balliett’s Collected Works (2002). In terms of jazz criticism, I would describe these books (and critics) as crucial sources. Although I keep returning to the issue of neglect , and may sound more dyspeptic than I intend, my indirect point is one of praise: It’s wonderful that ABR has chosen this focus, and I’m so pleased to be in a position to promote the cause. The relationships between jazz and language continue to guide my life as a writer, and, as the founding editor of Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature, I’m reminded daily of the expansive and expanding interest for others across the country. Whatever disappointment I may express regarding jazz and American identity should also be seen as a challenge to make our music more central to communal experience. Last October at the Langston Hughes Festival, I received some heat for referring to Jayne Cortez, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Ntozake Shange as “cultural luminaries.” The person questioning my phrase wanted to know how this could be when all three were so removed, ultimately, from the consciousness of America. The point of my presentation—and the substance of my response to her—had to do with the distinction between popular success and artistic brilliance. Hughes himself, I pointed...