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The jazz culture and history of the United States have had a significant impact on American literature. Culture, social inequality, oppression, prejudice, and their hardships and frustrations are discussed in this literature, which comprises short tales, poems, and novels. To include these issues, oral techniques such as rap, blues, gospel music, spirituals, and sermons were utilised. Slavery, prejudice, and pogroms were part of the Western worlds efforts to eradicate dreaded illnesses. To keep African Americans from discovering their true identities, they have been subjected to alienation, neglect, and rejection. As a result of this conflicting situation, writers such as Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, created identities based on their challenges and difficulties (Thornton, 734). Compositions were written during this time; for example, they became jazz music as they applauded their hard work, and it was the only time they could rejoice after being slaves for so long. Jazz music evolved from these early tunes after slavery was abolished, and it became a vehicle for conveying the message of slaverys hardships. For them, racial prejudice was a significant issue. These writers centered their work on promoting equal rights and ending racial discrimination.
The vivid imagery, sublime topics, and unique vocabulary of their literary works, such as songs and poetry, are linked to their enormous contribution to world culture. Due to their double awareness, African American writers were able to find their actual selves in a variety of ways. For instance, James Baldwin moved to Europe in order to express his true self, something he was unable to do in the United States due to socioeconomic constraints on Afro american self-determination. Because they belonged to two races, the Negros had difficulty determining their ethnicity and cultural direction. African American authors like as Hurston, Genetumer, and McKay rejected the racial insurgency of the Harlem Renaissance and instead expressed themselves via cultural studies, poetry, and theater in African American literature (Thornton, p. 736). African American poets collaborated with musicians and composers in choral works, symphonic poems, opera, jazz, and other song genres.
The search for a connection between jazz lyrics ideals and traditional poetrys definitions can be seen as the catalyst for the relationship between jazz and poetry. Many people evaluate songs solely based on their poetry or poems. Lewis Allens initial poetry work influenced Billy Holidays song Strange Fruit. As per Hayden Carruth, the twentieth-century relationship among poetry and jazz is a random improvisation of personal and conventionally prescribed forms. He says that jazz is an impromptu, open-ended, indefinite, and unpredictable poetry. Its also worth noting that twentieth-century African American poets cooperated with musical models like jazz because music has such a tremendous impact on poetic dictions in American society. Musical models also set the poetic concepts in action since musical lyrics include a lot of poetry.
The origins of jazz and music can be traced back to the religious gatherings of plantation Africans. Jazz was encouraged to be written about by African American poets because it was extremely electric and blended nicely with the idiomatic expressions of brothel, betting, dance, music, casinos, and larceny. Jazz and blues were utilized as inspiration for African American literary works because they expressed the essence of Negro, the spirit of Africa (Benston 339). When recording his poems, Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) incorporated jazz music into many of them. Amiri Barakas poetry and jazz are combined in the infamous Black Daddy Nihilism, an apocalyptic and horrifying piece from 1965. Amiri Barakas writing was marked by a powerful rhythm, a clear vision, and a sophisticated, complex message (Wallenstein, pg. 613). Ralph Ellison incorporated European-American frames, blues, sermons, folklore, and other popular elements into his creative work. To create a cultural matrix of African Americans, he collaborated with black music, particularly the blues, to form the backbone of Ellison and Barakas literary works. African American jazz performance reflects African American history and has aided African Americans in breaking through in their lives.
Through the reconstruction and continuation of previous mythical experiences, they comprehended both their past and present. According to Gail (pg. 11), storytelling and setting the stage for the story through songs entails informing the audience about rituals, pure celebrations, and the storys essence. In Jazz and African American literature, oral traditions, religions, dramas, folk songs, and African sacred ibis for secular performance were used. The performance reflected this, which weaved and collaged the story to communicate meaning and perception. Specific symbolic language and behavioral patterns in jazz performances are a historical record and narrative of African Americans, displaying knowledge and control of the current worldview of duality for cultural survival. Folklore, autobiography, spirituals, and the blues are just a few of African Americans art forms produced and disseminated through literature. With its symbolic deeds and writings, as well as its own linguistic, ethical, and ritualistic systems, literature is an example of African philosophy of culture.
Works Cited
Jackson, Gale. The Way We do: A Preliminary Investigation of the African Roots of African American Performance. Black American Literature Forum, vol. 25, no. 1, 1991, p. 11.
Jennings, Regina. The Black Panther Party, Poetry Performance, and Revolution. The Black Urban Community, 2006, pp. 415-426.
Thornton, Jerome E. The Paradoxical Journey of the African American in African American Fiction. New Literary History, vol. 21, no. 3, 1990, p. 733
Wallenstein, Barry. Poetry and Jazz: A Twentieth-Century Wedding. Black American Literature Forum, 25.3 (1991): 595-620
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