Toni Morrison employs jazz in Jazz, not merely because jazz music represents the black culture but because it displays the life of the black in the 1920s in its theme, forms, and features. Jazz music originated from the cotton fields in the South and later it was brought to the North in the Migration as Jazz manifests. When it was developed in the city, the techniques of call and response, improvisation, the principles of chord-scale compatibility, the theme and AABA form of jazz (introduction-development-digression-conclusion) were furnished so that jazz music served as the medium to communicate by expressing deep feelings too painful for verbal expression to convey (Wynton 3-20). Toni Morrison, adopting jazz music into her novel Jazz, converted these musical features into verbal jazz as the following paragraphs show.
The diverse origins of jazz music establish it as a form of music containing multiple ways of performance and expression. As McLeod states in “The
Construction of Masculinity in African American Music and Sports,” jazz music
“grew directly out of field hollers, work songs, and spirituals,” so the black music
“represent[s] social rituals whose participants employ similar strategies of
competition, improvisation, affirmation, and communal celebration” (217). Since jazz music used to be sung by blacks to relieve the pain of heavy labor, particularly in the cotton fields, the revelry and the pain are mingled together. The subtle mixture of pleasure and pain is the feature which nudges jazz music to be funeral song in the countryside of the South and then in New Orland to express the bereavement and avoid the unaffordable sorrow (Li 15-16). When black people migrated to the North in the 1920s, jazz music was brought along to the North. In the northern cities, jazz continued the musical tradition of embodying happiness and sadness. In the North,
jazz music couldn’t be performed in the cotton fields but was instead played in bars or brothels and thus manifests themes close to the consumers, such as love, sex, and alcohol. The evolution and features of jazz music are carried out in the beginning of Morrison’s Jazz in the brief introduction of Joe’s love affair with Dorcas which is described as “spooky loves that made him so sad and happy” (1) to anchor on the main theme of Jazz.
In the North, jazz music was maturated in terms of performance and expression.
Call and response, one of the most representative forms of performance in jazz music, was developed into a form of wordless communication able to heal the pain of black people. Jazz’s tradition of communication is established with its name, since “jazz”
comes from a French verb, “jaser,”“connoting engagement in in animated dialogue”
(Newton-Matza 94). Jazz-style chatting, wordless as it seems, embroils the tacit communication. In the performance of jazz, the players use gestures to convey the message since “[i]nstantaneous wordless communication used in order to change tempos and rhythm is another common features of jazz group” (McLeod 215). The wordless communication is represented in call and response. Owing to jazz’s tradition of relieving the pain of heavy work in the cotton fields, call and response serves as the medium to express the trauma too painful for verbal language. Jazz’s power to
communicate and heal the wound is also noted by Mori: “[c]ommunal racial music, jazz, plays a significant role in healing the wounded and restoring the communication which has been lost between them” (327). As Eckstein argues in “A Love Supreme:
Jazzthetic Strategies in Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” chatting and communication in the songs to heal the trauma are the black oral tradition which Morrison widely employs in her novels. Call and response is adopted verbally in Jazz, the non-verbal
communication between Joe and Violet is presented in textual arrangement. Without words, they communicate and convey their childhood traumas. When black people try
to heal the traumas with communal music, jazz helps to develop the bond of a
community which develops into a communal identity of the black with the linkage to the audience (Gilroy 200, 203). With call and response, Joe and Violet develop a communal bond to embrace Felice as their family member. Call and response of jazz music is the telepathic communication employed in Jazz to demonstrate the complex healing process of Violet’s and Joe’s traumas.
Another feature of jazz music is improvisation. Jazz improvisation is pervasive in jazz music. Among the improvisations, the best is in a solo performance composed on the spot according to the previous chord progression. The soloist is able to declare their existence by expressing their feeling in complex improvisation (Marsalis 21-46).
At the same time, when the soloist digresses to individual expression, s/he improvises with the chord progression. Jazz improvisation, the combination of personal
expression and communal bond, is also prevalent in Jazz. From Chapter 4 to 9, the narrator digresses to Joe’s and Violet’s childhoods. This section, which functions as their musical solos, is for Joe and Violet to express their inner thoughts and feelings.
It is with the feature of improvisation that they trace back the childhood memory. And then, with the technique of call and response, Joe’s and Violet’s childhoods are
connected and it shows that they are able to express their true feelings. When Joe’s story is connected to Violet’s, they are mentally closer to each other and it becomes possible for Joe to form a family with Violet. The improvisation in Jazz, therefore, plays the role of true self-expression which leads to a linkage of their inner feelings.
Moreover, in the end, the narrator predicts “one would kill the other” (220). However, this hostility turns into harmony since Joe, Violet, and Felice dance together. As the narrator demonstrates, the verbal unpredictability resembles unpredictable
improvisation in jazz (Bouson 187). Developing the communal bond by following the main theme and expressing their own feelings, the interaction between Joe and Violet
represents jazz improvisation.
Despite the harmony of call and response and improvisation, jazz music is also prominent for the compatible discords and scale. Unlike classical music composed of harmonious chords, jazz music appeals to the chords at the edge of discord as a token of rejecting the white definition of harmony, focusing on accords. In jazz music, there are “the principles of chord-scale compatibility” which mean that in the compatible range, it is acceptable that some notes are sharpened or flatted. As a result, the chord and scale of jazz music are compatible, but they are not always harmonious. Some of the chords in jazz are regarded as compatible disccords; however, it is the
compatibility of jazz chord and scale that specifies jazz music. The feature of compatible disccord in Jazz is reflected by the conflicts among the characters,
particularly Joe, Dorcas, and Violet. The involvement of mental break-down, betrayal, and jealousy in the triangulated love makes the narrator sure that “one would kill the other” (220); nevertheless, in the end, love makes their conflicts “compatible” so that Joe and Violet dance with Felice, who is close to Dorcas and who tells Joe Dorcas’s last words. They used to have conflicts, but they are tolerant enough to embrace each other. The principles of chord-scale compatibility, hence, are the musical
reconcilement changing the doom triangulated love.
Additionally, Jazz provides jazz music with an interpretation of love by thematic resemblance. The prevalent themes of jazz music are love, sex, and alcohol. Despite the popularity of these themes, they are frequently renewed by the players with various interpretations. The theme of the triangulated love in Jazz is a cliché.
Nonetheless, in the novel, Morrison brings new life to the triangulated love as she sheds new light on the consoling power of women which supports their family and love. Conventionally, jealousy and betrayal are poison for a romantic relationship.
However, Violet is consoled by her sisterhood with Alice and she is able to cooperate
with Joe to build a family. The healing power of women, in this aspect, cures the dying love and re-forms the theme of love.
Among the diverse jazz musical forms, AABA is the most representative form.
The AABA form of jazz contains a short introduction (A), the development of the main theme (A), the digression from the main theme (B) and a short reinforced conclusion (A). The AABA form, just like many features of jazz music, is employed in Morrison’s Jazz although the structural musicality of Jazz has gained less attention in current academic studies. The first chapter of the novel briefly introduces the main theme, the triangulated love among Joe, Violet, and Dorcas. Chapter two and three allude to A as they demonstrate the development of the love story. Chapter four to nine resemble B since they digress to the childhoods of Joe and Violet with the technique that frequently appears in the musical digression of jazz, improvised call and response. The last chapter is A as it returns to the love theme with a harmonious conclusion. The AABA structure of the novel resembles Joe’s relationship with women, such as his lovers and mother: “A” alludes to his triangulated love while “B”
stands for his mother. This structure, presenting the development of Joe’s relationship with women, suggests that Joe is finally consoled by women and he is able to re-form his black masculinity since the ending shows a harmonious love relationship through Joe’s awareness of familial bond and his masculinity.
Last but not least, all these features of jazz music are for one purpose—to deliver their inner feelings. The black have suffered from experiences too painful for any verbal expressions since slavery; thus, they spontaneously employ black oral tradition, the music that they are accustomed to in their living and working environment (i.e.
cotton fields), as an easier way to express their pain and rage caused by the oppression of the dominant society. Therefore, as a music form invented in the oral tradition of self-expression, jazz aims4 to deliver true feelings, rather than to commercialize black
culture. It rejects the stereotypical image of the black represented by the white and it serves as the irreplaceable role to re-form the deformed image of the black (Gilroy;
hooks, Let’s Get it on). Black men, because of their participation in jazz music, can express themselves and communicate with women so that they are able to re-form
their masculinity.
Jazz music records not merely the life in the 1920s but the black culture,
tradition, and aesthetics. With the techniques of call and response, improvisation, jazz music illustrates the pain of black people best. With the features of compatible discord and the themes, jazz music indicates black expression. Since jazz music demonstrates the true feelings of the black men, it can be the medium for the black men to search for and then re-form their identity. Jazz, with these musical techniques, provides a possible way for the black men and women to improve their relationships.