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"Ain't you heard"?:
The Jazz Poetry of Langston Hughes
by
Kristin Taylor
A Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of
Requirements of the
for
Honors
CSU
in the
Honors Program
degree of
Bachelor of Arts
in
English Literature,
College of Arts and Letters,
Columbus
State University
'
Thesis Advisor _
Committee Member
*
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Committee Member
CSU
Honors Program Director
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"Ain't
you heard"?:
The Jazz Poetry of Langston Hughes
Like the waves of the sea coming one after another, always one after another, like the earth
moving around the
music with
its
humor, and
sun, night,
day
—night, day—night, day—forever, so
rhythm that never betrays you,
its
its
is
the
strength like the beat of the
undertow of black
human
heart,
its
rooted power.
-The Big Sea
Introduction
It
she told
all
me
began with a piano bench. At the age of
names of the
the
moving through
Though
I
keys. 'This
the entirety of a
C-major
touched the incorrect key,
realization that
my
Music
in
after
I
.
.
,"
I
in
I
remember being
Remembrance, and composed
in
I
I
core courses
intended to transfer to Berklee. However,
English course in the Fall of 2006, where
left
letter
little
later,
from the Berklee College of
of contemporary music
elected, because of the high cost of
at
Columbus
when
I
took
State University,
my
first
toward self-integration
after
and
upper-level
read Winnifred Eaton's autobiography,
my journey
F?"
wooden hammers
Me: A Book of
response to Eaton's text an autobiographical literary
essay - a piece of writing that catalyzed
is
fascinated by the
me. Thirteen years
institutions for the study
my
piano teacher, as
Afterward she asked, "Now. which one
partial scholarship,
Boston, to complete
first
she said, her finger touching each key.
received an acceptance
Boston - one of the world's premier
years,
.
my
next to
sat
hidden belly. That fascination never
senior year of high school,
and of living
two
scale.
E
instead of F,
and jazz. Despite receiving a generous
tuition
C, D,
I
could create music by depressing those keys, making
I
strike strings in the piano's
during
A
is
four,
critical
enduring a
devastating traumatic experience -
intersection of
life, literature,
Literature, but
I
background;
in fact,
When
I
had yet
I
I
to
discovered the transcendence that can result from the
and criticism. At
discover
began
I
how would
connect
I
to the poetry
Renaissance and
known
blues and jazz; in
fact,
is
that
II
study of literature to
my
in
English
musical
latter.
with Dr. Noreen Lape
often credited with being one of the
to
much of his
me
that while
in the
Spring of 2007,
musical form to the page without losing
musical background might give
than most critics possess and said
I
me
many
-
first
critics
folk idioms, such as the
if
not the
first
-jazz
poet.
have explored Hughes's jazz
poetry does, indeed, sound jazzy, none had yet to
elucidate the musical qualities of his jazz poetry, to
my
my
drawn from African-American
During the course, Dr. Lape explained
acknowledging
decided to obtain a degree
of Langston Hughes, a poet typically associated withjhe Harlem
for his poetry
he
I
former would preclude the
to think the
took African-American Literature
was reintroduced
poetry,
that point,
its
communicate how Hughes
translated a
inherent qualities in the process. She suggested that
greater insight into the musicality of Hughes's jazz poetry
should consider writing
my
term paper on the topic - a
project that later developed into this honors thesis.
In
working on
my
term paper,
I
began
to
such as "The Weary Blues" and "Jazzonia," but
poetry collections.
look
I
at
Hughes's traditionally canonized poetry,
quickly became focused on one of his latest
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951),
poems "Dream Boogie," "Theme
for English B,"
featuring the often-anthologized
and "Harlem."
I
soon realized
intended the collection to represent the poetic equivalent of a musical
innovative technique he outlines in his headnote to the collection.
fascinated with this idea and then with
as a
jam
session.
The more
I
my
attempts to explain
analyzed the collection, the more
I
jam
session
Hughes
- an
immediately became
how Hughes
I
that
began
sets
up the collection
to see its inherent jazzy
qualities and, later, the
structures,
As
way
I
in
Montage
also maintained the rhythms,
and idioms of jazz.
began
I
to
compose
musical background with
music,
which individual poems
in
my
the paper,
I
realized not only that
study of literature, but
could create a very unique niche for myself
comments on my
Lape would
later
like that for
sometime now. Your analysis
say in her
I
saw
also
in the
I
had found a way
that
through
realm of
to
my knowledge
literary criticism.
for
to literary criticism as well as
Hughes had united
my
his appreciation for
As
of
Dr.
essay, "I've been looking around for an explanation
seriously impressive."
is
I
had tapped into an
unexplored reservoir of knowledge vis-a-vis Hughes's jazz poetry - one that changed
approach
my
marry
perception of Hughes. In short,
I
my own
fell in literary
music with his work as a writer - a concoction
love,
that
ultimately transformed African-American literature.
While Hughes never studied music formally or played a musical instrument,
jazz grew deep like the rivers.
Of course, Hughes was
his love of
a prolific jazz writer, yet he not only
wrote individual jazz poems, but he also wrote two collections of poetry specifically focused on
jazz.
One, which
Hughes
said
I
have already mentioned,
was influenced by "what
out of young people
—
Billy
—
[he] heard at Minton's in
Tad and
the
whom Hughes
the collection
festival
—
Harlem
—
the Eckstine
Monk" (Hughes,
second collection of jazz poetry. Ask Your
Armstrong
Montage of a Dream Deferred,
the male the female of them
Charlie Christian and Dizzy and
his
is
a
young music coming
and the Holiday-
"Jazz" 213). Hughes dedicated
Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz
(
1961
).
to
Louis
described as "the greatest horn player of them all" (Ask). Importantly,
was heavily influenced by
his attendance at the
1960 Newport Jazz Festival
(a
he attended regularly, even serving as an official for some time), where "musicians such
as Dizzy Gilespie, Gerry Mulligan, and Louis Armstrong," as well as "the
the
a collection that
Horace Silver Quintet,
Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson, the singer Dakota Staton. the jazz vocal
trio
of Lambert,
Hendricks, and Ross, and Ray Charles and his group" performed (Rampersad, Vol.
Hughes
also wrote children's literature that focused
Book of Jazz
Book of Rhythms
(1954), The First
(1955), suggesting that jazz
was so important
to
Famous Negro Music Makers
(1954), and
Hughes
musical accompaniment of jazz musicians. In what has
Hughes worked alongside such famous
Mingus and
the pianist Phineas
to-jazz albums, such as The
Leonard Feather
for
that he insisted
come
figures as
Newborn" (Rampersad,
upon sharing
to
be
known
II
we can
Thus,
is to
explain both
the idioms of jazz in his poetry
and how Hughes was able
through the written word. The
first
the debates during the
represent themselves in
and proclaimed
art,
that the use
for
it
initiating these artistic debates
Du
is
of jazz
of the greatest African- American
B.
of these purposes
Harlem Renaissance
the jazz scholar
is
its
why Hughes
alluring aural qualities.
continually returned to
to capture those
musical idioms
dependent upon an in-depth analysis of
that centered
on how African Americans should
during this time period that Hughes began writing jazz poetry
in art
was an
integral part
literary patriarchs,
of
Alain Locke, was highly influential
when he published The New Negro (1925) -
propagandism
members of the
intelligentsia,
that elevated the black race, both
called high art to bring relief
from race
men
One
fulfilling his artistic vision.
a debate that
in
W.
Bois furthered with his speech, "Criteria of Negro Art" (1926). While Locke longed
bring together black and white
is
Hughes's extensive use of
Still,
jazz in his writing speaks to more than a mere appreciation of jazz for
thesis
poetry-
see that Hughes's focus on jazz in his writing
a direct reflection of his love for jazz in the performative sense.
The twofold purpose of this
bassist Charlie
He even recorded
279).
with the
as poetry-to-jazz
Leonard Feather, "the
Vol.
it
his poetry to the
Weary Blues with Langston Hughes, "produced by
MGM" (280).
314-15).
on the subject of jazz, such as The First
emerging generation of young African- Americans. Hughes also performed
readings,
II
and
Du
E.
to
Bois found his ideal in
ultimately believed in the promise of so-
issues, suggesting that
by giving white audiences cultured
and upper-class portrayal of blacks
come
music), whites would
art
in art
(including the visual
arts, as
to respect the African- American race.
well as literature and
Thus, to Locke and
Du
Bois,
could, in turn, help to correct the malicious mistreatment of black Americans.
Hughes, however, saw an inherent flaw
addresses
in his essay,
"The Negro
Artist
in
Lockean and Du Boisian
logic
a flaw he
and the Racial Mountain" (1926). Hughes disapproved
of any respect garnered for blacks through
artistic portrayals that
overlooked lower-class African
Americans. Hughes could not have been more unconcerned with white perceptions of African-
American
art,
Du
and he certainly did not agree with Locke and
problem - a conviction he comments upon
in his short story,
Hughes's aesthetic ideal was centered on depicting the
trying to capture the idioms of their
aesthetic vision, jazz
emerged
as
art,
life
Bois that
art
could solve the race
"The Blues I'm Playing."
Instead,
of the black lower classes and on
own
particularly their music, in his
art.
Because of this
one of the primary sources from which Hughes drew
artistic
inspiration.
I
will
accomplish
my
second purpose -
to define
how Hughes was
able to capture the
musical idioms of jazz through the written word - with a close reading of Hughes's collection of
jazz poetry,
jam
Montage of a Dream Deferred. The
session poetically through
its
collection fulfills
its
goal to echo the musical
Modernist dialogic structure, featuring different speakers
collectively provide a composite portrait of 1940s Harlem.
Further,
all
who
of the poems focus on the
impact of the deferred African- American dream - a motif that Hughes verbally
riffs
upon
throughout the collection, just as jazz musicians would improvise upon a main musical motif
throughout a jam session.
From
the outset of the collection,
forms of jazz, such as boogie-woogie and bebop.
I
will
Hughes
relies
show how Hughes
upon
relies
the various
upon these
forms of jazz rhetorically and thematically, and by transcribing the collection's opening poem,
"Dream Boogie,"
into
rhythmic dictation,
I
will demonstrate musically
how Hughes
remains true
to the qualities
of jazz, even as he captures them through the language of poetry solely. Finally,
moving beyond
the silent page to the spoken word,
recordings ("Dream Montage,
from Montage
light
to the
1
''
1
musical accompaniment of Charles Mingus and Leonard Feather) to shed
on the jazzy nature of the poems within Montage
is
a
modern
structurally, aurally,
and thematieally.
Representing African Americans:
Aesthetic Ideologies in the
From
one of Hughes's poetry-to-jazz
which features Hughes himself reading several of his poems
/:
it
will analyze
perspective, the
Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
is
almost as though the two have always gone hand-in-hand.
so often associated with jazz that
One mention of the 1920s
invokes images of Harlem cabarets, house-rent parties, black pianists improvising syncopated
many key
rhythms, and Louis Armstrong performing with his iconic trumpet. Yet ironically,
figures of the
Harlem Renaissance
being Alain Locke.
New Negro
Huggins
.]
Many
critics
(qtd. in
even further emphasized by the
"New Negro
younger
flair
credit the publication
strongest opposers
of Locke's anthology. The
Locke's work on the volume "made him the father of the
Harlem Renaissance"
Rampersad, Introduction
fact that to writers
considering
New Negro
how
the
movement was
the spirit of the
Locke voiced
is
The
book
on which types of art
the
pivotal role of Locke's text
[.
is
a term that has only been applied in
poems, and artwork by older as well as
that defined with
Harlem Renaissance" (Gates and McKay 955).
his opinions
Negro and
centralized within Harlem.
pulls together "essays, stories,
writers, white as well as black, into a
xi).
New
of the day the movement was known as the
Renaissance"; the Harlem Renaissance
when
The
and historians
away from jazz- one of its
(1925), with catalyzing the Harlem Renaissance. In fact, as historian Nathan
asserts,
retrospect
actually shied
fulfilled his
incomparable
It is
New Negro
the
forum
criteria
clarity
in
and
which
opinions that
.
are represented not only by his
famous introductory essay
to the anthology,
but also by the pieces he chose to comprise the volume. Locke's essay
that ignited the debate
come
that
of
to associate
Locke was
its
on how blacks should represent themselves
is,
-
in art
with the Harlem Renaissance. However, in reading The
resistant to jazz, maintaining that
negative associations with lower-class
analyzing Locke's anthology,
life,
we can examine
it
undermined the
New
'The
New
Negro,"
in essence, the spark
a debate
New
we have
we
Negro,
learn
Negro agenda because
primitivism, and even sexual promiscuity.
his artistic vision
By
and better understand his
opposition to jazz.
In
"The
fact that the
New Negro/'
more
intelligent
Locke's views on
art are largely integrationist.
He bemoans
and representative elements of the two race groups have
at
"the
so
many
points got quite out of vital touch with one another" as "the most unsatisfactory feature of our
present stage of race relationships" (988).
intelligentsia to be a pivotal
component
He
considers uniting white and African-American
in finding a solution to the race
problem. Later
essay, he asserts "that the trend of Negro advance [as] wholly separatist"
concluding that "the choice
but between
fulfilled
American
is
not between one
institutions frustrated
way
for the
Negro and another way
that placing the race
the larger context of societal issues allowed "race pride to be a healthier,
caricatures and minstrelsy (991
out the
New Negro
).
impossible,
for the rest,
on the one hand and American ideals progressively
and realized on the other" (990). Locke believed
achievement," rather than one that wallowed
is
in the
in
more
problem within
positive
Old Negro stereotypes reinforced by Uncle
Tom
Ultimately, Locke entrusted the emerging artists with carrying
agenda and creating a place
for blacks in
American society
at large
- a place
he believed could only be created by putting the "Negro's" proverbial best foot forward so as to
be accepted by the white masses.
8
Although the ideas of Locke's essay are integrationist
they actually
become
demonstrate, the poetry Locke
to
As
assimilationist.
white audiences interested
the
in theory,
works within The
when
New Negro
anthology
deemed appropriate must be "Negro" enough
in race issues, but
put into practice,
in
content to appeal
not so "Negro" as to leave the white reader with
a negative view of African- American culture that could undermine Locke's agenda.
poems
find
harmony
racism with passive resistance, and
who
look optimistically -
prosper despite obstacles,
future.
of the
portray the African-American experience idealistically, featuring characters or .speakers
who
who
Many
Further,
Anglo forms and
in relationships
traditions strongly
Few works
in the
times naively - toward the
overpower the poems, and when the
anthologized writers do draw on traditionally black forms,
or the black sermon.
at
with whites or overcome
volume mirror
it
tends to be forms like the spirituals
the folk idiom of jazz because of
association with primitivism and unlearned improvisation at the time.
make an appearance,
Looking
it
in the
Johnson featured. The
the black
sermon - a
is
always
Even when jazz does
sublimated forms and with a white audience
in
"Negro Youth Speaks" section of the anthology, we
New Negro
it
mind.
James Weldon
would presumably not threaten white audiences and
New Negro
agenda
1
either.
Johnson used colloquial forms and speech patterns
dialect because he found
Find
in
contains his poem, "The Creation," which mirrors the form of
folk idiom that
therefore, not a threat to the
its
In fact, as
in writing
many
as the sonnet
while
critics point out,
"The Creation," he refused
comic and derogatory. Works by Countee Cullen
draw on Anglo forms and idioms, such
is,
in the
to use
anthology
and the ballad. His poem. "Tableau." with
Spirituals," an essay from The New Negro, Locke venerates the form of the spirituals and explains
"have escaped the lapsing conditions and the fragile vehicle of folk art. and come firml\ into the
context of formal music" (199). He goes on to say, "In its disingenuous simplicity, folk art is always despised
In
"The Negro
that they
and rejected
at first;
Ironically, while
but generations after,
Locke could have
it
this type
flowers again and transcends the level of
its
origins" (199).
of insight into the value of the spirituals and the continuation of
-the folk art of his lifetime that he plays a part in "despis[ing]
and reject[ing]" - which, of course, has since "flowerfed] again and transcendjed] the level of its origin," just
their form, he never extends this insight to jazz
like the spirituals (199).
its
ballad stanzas, portrays a " black boy and
"|1
locked arm in arm"
dare
in
/
The
[i]n
),
( 1
white" (line 2)
"[o]blivious" (9) to those
unison to walk" (6-8). Cullen's
New
[a]
poem
is
a
who
who
are able to
are "[ijndignant that these
seems absurd
that the
The anthology
(9,6).
boys could be "oblivious"
also features
two should
prime example of the type of idealism found
Crow
Negro. Considering the historical backdrop of lynchings and Jim
Harlem Renaissance, the very idea
walk together,
to "indignant"
during the
onlookers
poems by Claude McKay, none of which
Home
contain the primitivism that will later pervade his novel,
to
Harlem (1928), which
demonstrates the effects of the rhythmic surges of African music and dance and of instinctual -
even animalistic - sexual urges. Instead, we are presented with poems such as "White Houses,"
who
a sonnet with a speaker
Oh,
must search
I
Deep
And
exclaims:
in
my
find in
To hold me
Oh must
I
for
wrathful
it
the
wisdom every
bosom
sore and raw,
superhuman power
to the letter
keep
hour,
my
of your law!
heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate, (lines 9-14)
These
lines
can be interpreted on two levels.
One can
underlying subversive message - that the poet
himself from the white man. But there
is
is
certainly argue that the
also a second,
more
This double-voiced strategy allows him to craft a
readership, but not too
acceptability.
Washington,
much
as the speaker
is
literal
reading that suggests the
poem
in his
if
it
requires self-
provokes a white
that
willing to repress his anger for the sake of social
In this regard, Cullen hints at the assimilationist philosophy
who
has an
forced to suppress violence so as to protect
speaker chooses to exemplify passive resistance for the greater good, even
sacrifice.
poem
famous "Atlanta Exposition Address," urged
of Booker T.
his fellow African
10
Americans
to
"mak[e] friends
in
every manly
way of the people of all
races by
whom
[they]
[we]re surrounded" and told whites that by doing the same, they could "be sure in the future, as
in the past, that [they]
and
[theirj families
[would] be surrounded by the most patient,
law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen" (595-96).
As Washington
romanticizes the conditions of slavery in his speech and argues for passivity,
McKay's use of Washingtonian philosophy - coupled with
would
certainly stay within the paradigms of the
When
his use of the
New Negro
it
Too" (1925). Hughes, who had
particularly
clear
how
agenda.
reading Hughes's poetry in the volume, the agenda guiding Locke's editorial
featured poetry includes works such as 'The
"I,
is
Anglo sonnet form -
decisions are of particular significance. Adhering to Locke's standards of high
and
faithful,
art,
Hughes's
Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1921), "Mazzonia" (1923),
a very
deep appreciation for the work of Walt Whitman,
Leaves of Grass, draws on an Anglo, Whitmanesque tradition
in
"The Negro Speaks
of Rivers."" The speaker transcends time and space to represent the collective voice of blacks
throughout history and uses the world's rivers to assert the proud, unwavering place of the
Negro. Looking back over the course of history, the speaker says:
2
Aboard
Euphrates when dawns were young.
I
bathed
I
built
I
looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above
I
heard the singing of the Mississippi
in the
my
hut near the
New
went down
to
bosom
all
turn
Congo and
it
lulled
me
to sleep.
when Abe Lincoln
Orleans, and I've seen
golden
it.
its
muddy
in the sunset, (lines 4-7)
which Hughes worked as he sailed toward Africa for the first and only time
his books into the sea because "they seemed too much like
everything [he] had known in the past [. .], like too much reading all the time when [he] was a kid, like life isn't,
as described in romantic prose" (Hughes, Big Sea 97). But Rampersad tells us that in an earlier draft of The Big
Sea, Hughes admitted he "saved his copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, saying, 'I had no intentions of
throwing that one away'" (Vol. 72).
the S.S. Malone, the ship on
in his life,
Hughes decided
to
throw a box of
.
I
11
What
noticeably absent from this journey through time, however,
is
of these rivers have with slavery. The white
sold
him
Pharaoh forced him
into slavery;
watched the Mississippi "turn
Lockean idealism,
all
the speaker
man
autonomously
many
the association that
took him from his "hut near the Congo" and
pyramids" above the Nile, and he
to "rais[e] the
golden" while
is
in a state
of captivity
asserts in the final line of the
an instance of
In
(4, 6, 7).
poem
that his "soul
has grown deep like the rivers" (10). Hughes's opts for a Romantic, Transcendental speaker,
who, while focusing on
which
his soul has
his race's inherent connection to nature, never explains to us the cost at
grown so deep -
Unlike the Romantics, his strength
strength.
ability to transcend
"I.
is
not
drawn
idyllic
solely from nature, but also from the
message. Despite the
darker brother" (line 2), he boldly asserts in the
first line, "I,
drawing on the Anglo tradition of Whitman, who proclaimed
white
man
comes"
is
myself
but on the white
who
1 ).
In the beginning
But
in the
man
line. "I. too,
actually comprises
in
America"
"Song of Myself,"
/
( 1
8).
),
is
"the
again
celebrate
"I
how
the
When company
"Tomorrow,
shame
"how
/ I'll
will
beautiful
I
be
He
is
no longer a figure
in the
at the table
/
When
no longer be on the black man
am"
America," he asserts his place as not only one
it
(1
of "I, Too," the speaker portrays
that the
for failing to see for so long
am
too, sing
speaker
second stanza, the poems takes a swift turn as the speaker
The speaker foresees
(8-10).
fact that the
to eat in the kitchen
his hopeful vision for the future, saying,
company comes"
with the
(line
ashamed of him: "They send me
(lines 3-4).
announces
his inner-
unspeakable communal trauma, which these rivers represent.
Too," rings with a similar
myself, and sing
which he has drawn
the awful circumstances from
(16).
who
As
the
sings of
background, confined
poem
closes
America but
to the
metaphorical hidden kitchens of American society, but a person prominently and proudly
displayed in the foreground. But again, in the vein of the
message of "I, Too"
is
a beautiful one of hope,
it
is
one
New Negro
agenda, although the
that envisions a very
quick and seamless
12
transformation from a state of racial prejudice to racial acceptance, even
meant
passage of time
to be interpreted as a literal
The only anthologized poem by Hughes
obvious Anglo influence and
is
"[t]omorrow"
is
not
(8).
that focuses
on jazz, "Jazzonia" maintains an
noticeably different from most of Hughes's other jazz poetry.
"Jazzonia" describes a jazz performance, as Hughes writes
In a
if
in the
second stanza:
Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play
A
dancing
girl
whose eyes
Lifts high a dress
are bold
of silken gold, (lines 3-6)
Although the speaker describes jazz, the stanza
is
not jazzy.
adherence to iambic tetrameter more closely resembles a
someone
that
is
like Cullen,
who was known
for
poem
AABB
that
rhyme scheme and
might be attributed
some jazzy
qualities to the
the poem's opening lines, "Oh, silver tree!
/
example, after the second stanza (quoted above), Hughes writes, "Oh, singing
of the soul!" (7-8), and
rivers
of the soul!" (14-15). Looking
Hughes uses and reuses
poem
progresses.
later after the fourth stanza,
at the
poem, as
Oh, shining rivers
of the soul," interspersing variations on them between the longer stanzas of the
rivers
to
drawing on Anglo poetic forms, than the type of work
typically associated with Hughes. Granted, there are
Hughes verbally improvises upon
Its
poem
tree!
he writes, "O, shining
various presentations of this couplet,
(1-2).
Oh, shining
/
tree!
/
Oh,
we can
the adjectives "silver," "shining," and "singing" in different
For
silver
see that
ways
as the
Because these couplets appear as interjections between the larger stanzas, one
can imagine them as they might be heard in a jazz performance; the band would play the verse of
the song (the stanzas), and a single musician might play an improvised musical riff (the couplets)
between those verses, and of course, because the
previous one,
it
will never
be exactly the same.
riff is
We
improvised, while
can see
it
may
be similar to the
this quality in the slight verbal
13
variation
Hughes employs
improvisation
jazz poetry
is
tame
for
typically
is
throughout "Jazzonia." But even this type of poetic
in the couplets
Hughes, and the poem overall lacks the qualities of jazz
known
for
- inherent jazz rhythms,
that
Hughes's
the use of black vernacular, and urban
locale.
While
what
is
works
it
is
even more
interesting
telling in
enough
to consider the
Hughes's case are
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers,"
"The Weary
Blues'" focus
"I,
Too,'"'
to
historical evidence points
toward
publication of The
New Negro
work on
sponsor a
magazines,
to both,
and jazz - characteristics
I
is
the product of his
When
that
is
in the
work on
a
anthology,
Harlem
at the
possible that
at least
for certain if
that
that
Locke's
115).
Contemporaneous
that they
were going
1925 Opportunity dinner,
"Danse Africaine"
Hughes
would
would argue
I
category of poetry (114). Thus, while
like
that
edition of Survey Graphic
magazine publicized
winners were announced
in the
While one cannot say
New Negro" (When Harlem
Hughes ever submitted poems
would maintain
art.
David Levering Lewis informs us
the Survey Graphic, Opportunity
literary contest.
if
New Negro
this conjecture.
Hughes's "The Weary Blues" won
determine
published. In contrast to works
and "Jazzonia," the poems "Danse Africaine" and
exclude Hughes's folk poetry
magazine, entitled "Harlem: Mecca of the
to
New Negro was
folk culture as reflected in the forms of the blues
Locke purposefully chose
to
from the anthology -
on primitive representations of black music or on lower-class African-
unquestionably challenge Locke's criteria for
to Locke's
that are absent
"Danse Africaine" (1922) and "The Weary Blues" (1925), both of which were
like
American
poems
his
published prior to or in 1925, the same year The
like
message of Hughes's anthologized poems,
to either
it
is
impossible
of these
submitted "The Weary Blues"
considering that both magazines were considering submissions simultaneously. What's
more, Arnold Rampersad informs us that "Langston made sure that Locke had almost a complete
file
of his poems for the special Negro number of the Survey Graphic' (Rampersad, Vol.
I
101
).
14
Thus, the
of Hughes's aforementioned works were already published or being
fact that all
composed by 1925 (Hughes began working on "The Weary Blues"
in
1923) makes one
hypothesize that works like "Danse Africaine" or "The Weary Blues" did not appear in The
Negro because they were contrary
is
guided by his
own
to
New Negro
New
Any
editor will find that his
agenda, and Locke would be no exception. With that
some of Hughes" s absent poems can give
with the
philosophy.
us greater understanding as to
in
why
New
work
mind, analyzing
they do not
fit
in
Negro agenda.
The most obvious connection between
all
of Hughes's non-anthologized poems
is
that
they draw on black folk idioms like the blues and jazz and even the musical influence of the
primitive
-
all
New Negro
of which contradict
does make an appearance
and with a white audience
in
in
mind.
the
way many whites perceived
the
New
York Times
in the
New Negro,
The
as
it
As we have
seen, even
does with "Jazzonia,"
is in
it
when jazz
sublimated forms
easy to understand Locke's resistance to jazz based on
during the Harlem Renaissance. For example, an article from
it
1920s
It is
philosophy.
states:
poetry,' so-called, is to real poetry,"
"Jazz
is to real
music exactly what most of the 'new
going on to say that "both were the work "not of innovators,
but of incompetents" (qtd. in Rasula 170). This idea of jazz being associated with a lack of
education
is
echoed again when Jed Rasula points
was
out, "It
also widely
musicians had no formal training, and improvisation was regarded as the
could not read music"
( 1
58).
black intellectual explains
ignorance.
Still,
The
fact that the
why Locke was
despite his opposition,
it
New Negro
this
is
last resort
would be nearly impossible
it
that black
of those
for
was published during
its
associations with
Locke
to
exclude jazz
the height of the Jazz
dilemma by distinguishing cultured jazz of high
which he approves from jazz of the low-down
folks,
who
centered on the role of the
so reluctant to accept jazz and
completely from his anthology, considering that
Age. Locke carefully navigates
agenda
assumed
society of
which he believes contradicts the
New
15
Negro agenda. But
in so doing,
he diminishes the importance of an inherently blaek
ultimately constructs an entire ideology that appropriates
Anglo forms and appeals
art
form and
to the
white
majority.
In an essay
from the The
New Negro
echoes
New
"[i]t is
rapidly being sublimated" by
Negro philosophy when he says
anthology entitled "Jazz
in the artistic
development of jazz was done by Negro
backing" means jazz has "had to yield ground
jazz music" (221
Symphony
at the
literature" (221
).
He goes on
time: "Jazz
And
).
later
[.
.
to
j
is
artists
[.
.
.
that
.],
because
while the "pioneer work
difficulties
of financial
that are
now
demonstrating the finer possibilities of
an important contribution to modern musical
Rogers says about jazz venues:
intellectual, the artist
Bohemianism
a certain
for the
and the well-to-do. But the average thing
substitute for the saloon
and the wayside
housemaid and the poor elevator boy
the tonic for
A. Rogers
white orchestras of the type of the Paul
The cabaret of better type provides
the
J.
quote Serge Koussevitzsky, the conductor of the Boston
to
.
Home,"
that "|m|usically jazz has a great future"
"famous jazz orchestras," and
Whiteman and Vincent Lopez organizations
at
inn.
in
The
tired
is
Negro
too
much
the
longshoreman, the porter,
search of recreation, seeking in jazz
weary nerves and muscles are only too apt
gambler and the demi-monde who have come there
to find the bootlegger, the
for victims
and
to
escape the
eyes of the police. (223)
Clearly, Rogers has expressed an appreciation for jazz only
even leaving
it
to
when
it
is
in upper-class venues,
"white orchestras" to "demonstrat[e] the finer possibilities of jazz music" and
using the voice of a white orchestra conductor to validate jazz's artistic value (221
looks
down upon
the lower classes,
who would
venues, ironically overlooking the fact that
it
is
seek amusement from jazz
those
low-down
folks
who
in
).
Rogers
non-cultured
created jazz.
16
Considering that Rogers's essay adheres to Locke's agenda,
it
gives us a clearer perspective
through which to view Hughes's jazzier poems that did not appear
"Danse Africaine,"
in
The
New Negro
anthology.
example, turns to the primitive that Rogers eschews from
for
very
its
opening, as Hughes writes:
The low beating of the tom-toms.
The slow beating of the tom-toms
Low
.
Slow
.
.
slow
.
.
low
.
your blood.
Stirs
Dance!
The imperative
in the sixth line
ancestral music
was believed
way
that
it
seems
read the poem,
as
we
- "Dance!" - speaks
to
impose upon the
though the tom-tom music
are
drawn
When
the listener
this
is
permeation
itself is the
is
we
complete,
poem, which
third
and fourth
believed to have to the sexual.
poem, the sexual
is
lines,
By
is
is
one issuing the command. As we
- both
literally
the listener until
it
we
reaches his
when
also arrive at the
positioned very near to the middle - the
center
literal
unable to overlook the sensual imagery and hypnotic
underscoring the intrinsic connection that the primitive was
the time the "night-veiled girl"
mirror the continued music:
the
with Hughes's indented
not only reach the imperative of the sixth line,
no longer implied, but explicit
And
of control that such
lughes positions the line in such a
1
tom-tom music permeates
- of the poem on the page. Further, one
the
listener.
forced finally to concede to his primitive impulses, but
furthest indented line of the
rhythm of the
to the animalistic lack
further and further inward
lines as well as metaphorically, as the
core.
(lines 1-6)
tom-toms
beat.
(7.8).
As
who
the
"[w]hirls softly" enters
poem
closes,
Hughes's
lines
17
And
And
the
tom-toms
the
beat.
low beating of the tom-toms
your blood. (12-15)
Stirs
Since the tom-tom music has already
made
its
impact on the speaker,
we
are left with the impact
of the music extending to the reader, as Hughes uses the second-person pronoun "your," for the
first
time in the
enough
blood
within
to
is
poem
Ultimately,
(15).
that the
music's impact
continue beyond the poem's composition and the act of reading
stirred in the final line
its
Hughes suggests
pages, the tom-tom
is still
beating,
still
asserting
however, promoting the connection of primitive music
undermine the
New Negro
its
power
in
even as our
that
somewhere
our core. For Locke,
would only
to animalistic instinct
agenda of making a respected place
pervasive
for
it,
and we close the book of poetry, we imagine
is
in society for the
black
intellectual.
"The Weary
New
Blues,'"
now one of Hughes's most
Negro agenda by presenting
blues.
As
the
title
suggests, the
anthologized poems, works against the
the idea that an intellectual could be
poem draws on
the vernacular so as to portray the life of a
drawn
in helplessly
by the
the musical form of the blues while also using
common "Negro"
musician as he
is
seen through the
eyes of the poem's speaker. James Smethurst points out that there are inherent separations
between the speaker and the musician, the
voice of a blues singer
a
somewhat
is
first
being a result of the fact that "the black folk
framed by the slightly colloquial, but more or
alienated African
American
intellectual (121).
the speaker says:
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune.
Rocking back and
I
forth to a
heard a Negro play.
mellow croon.
less "standard"
Consider the opening
English of
lines in
which
18
Down on Lenox Avenue
By
To
There
is
the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He
did a lazy
sway
He
did a lazy
sway
is
Weary
the tune o' those
he
if
.
.
.
.
.
Blues, (lines 1-8)
attempting to parrot the blues idiom, but as Smethurst maintains,
is
certainly a " 'standard' English" quality to the speaker's
not use the vernacular like the musician,
got
.
a bluesy feel even to the intellectual's retrospective account of the musician's-
performance, almost as
there
the other night
nobody but ma
who
says, "Ain't got
critic
nobody
Further, while the speaker
self* (lines 19-20).
blues, he does not replicate the authentic blues
Steven Tracy,
words (121). The speaker does
of Hughes's blues poetry, portrays just
how
Analyzing the second instance of the musician's use of the blues
C
23
1
got de weary blues
4
And
I
2
3
4
1
234
123
can't be satisfied
F
12
4
3
Got de weary blues
4
234
1
And
234
1
12
3
can't be satisfied
G
12
4
I
ain't
3
happy no mo'
C
4
1
And wish
I
234 1234
that
I
1234
had died. (Tracy 76-77)
world,
/
Ain't
obviously influenced by the
form the musician uses
in his
performance.
closely the musician's song
adheres to the blues, usually a twelve-bar form in 4/4 time with a
I
is
in all this
1,
IV. V,
in lines
I
chord progression.
25-30, Tracy writes:
One can
see that, true to the blues,
repetitions of the
the
1, 2, 3,
movement from
4 sequence of beats) and the
C
the
Hughes employs both
chord
I,
the twelve-bar form (with the twelve
IV, V,
G, and back to
to F, then
C
I
chord progression (as found
for the final
two
noted that
we can never known
poem -
any; however, Tracy provides us with a generalized example of
if
which chords Hughes intended
for certain
to
bars).
It
should be
accompany
how
the
the
poem could
be chorded (since
C major
G, C, which
most basic blues chord progression). Through Tracy's example, we can
is
the
how
understand
is
the
most basic musical key signature,
in the
in
example, he uses C,
F,
the blues musician remains true to the blues form, while the speaker has only
provided a pale imitation.
The second separation between
poem
is
the speaker and the musician
both an insider and an outsider" (Smethurst 121).
from the opening of the poem, the speaker
is
is
drawn
eventually
an outsider because, as
much
like the
becomes an
".
.
.
insider, for his perspective
merges with
the speaker enters into the music and
with the bluesman that the speaker
is
inside the singer's
is
the speaker has clearly
we
see
moved from
that
poem
progresses, and he
of the musician. Smethurst
by the end of the poem so bound up
bedroom (and head)
over" (121). The speaker's insight into the musician's psyche
when
of the
speaker of "Danse Africaine,"
further and further inward by the musician's song as the
observes that
final lines,
is
that "the speaker
not the musician himself- only his observer; as he
says in the third line, "I heard a Negro play." But
he
He
is
is
after the
show
is
demonstrated by the poem's
relaying what he observed during the
musician's performance to relaying what he imagines the musician does after the performance:
"The singer stopped playing and went
He
slept like a rock or a
man
that's
permeates the speaker's mind
account of the performance.
is
to
bed
dead"
/
While the Weary Blues echoed through
(lines 33-35).
The degree
to
his head.
which the musician
also revealed in the influence of the blues
on
his retrospective
/
20
When we
that the use
enough
to
consider "The
Weary Blues"
conjunction with Locke's agenda,
in
of folk culture and the glorification of a lower-class musician
undermine the
New
African-American experience
Negro agenda. After
in a
the key to that revaluation of the
way
Locke maintains
all,
that is palatable to
in
is
it
likely
Harlem would be
that portraying the
white audiences "should
in turn
prove
Negro which must precede or accompany any considerable
further betterment of race relationships"
("New"
But the
993).
poem poses an even
greater threat
- possessing the dangerous ability to draw in Locke's intelligent reader, turning him away from
the call for high art and interracial connections
The
New Negro,
amongst the
poem's speaker.
just as the blues has possessed the
With a similar mindset
W.
as Locke,
E. B.
Du
with his speech, "The Criteria of Negro Art," given
Like Locke,
Du
which black
color of the artist's skin. But
own
order to validate the
sake:
this aesthetic
dinner hosted by the
at a
"Thus
it
is
the
art
was often considered
NAACP
own
art
the degree to
work
all
the
echoes of Keats,
work of a black
artist.
Du
Bois
bounden duty of black America
methods
Du
Bois
that
lists
men have
1926.
the first of these
handmaid of imagination,
The second method
is
as the
Goodness, which
of the
which
calls for
to
approval of the
artist for
begin this great work of the
we must
use
used before" ("Criteria" 782). With unmistakable
methods as Truth, which he says should be used
"not as a scientist seeking truth, but as one upon
highest
in
by white standards and needed the approval of white
creation of Beauty, of the preservation of Beauty, of the realization of Beauty, and
in this
debate
inferior simply because
more importantly, he was concerned with
African Americans judged their
his
Bois weighed into
Bois was concerned with the perception whites had of African Americans,
particularly the degree to
critics in
intelligentsia as they are presented in
whom
Truth eternally thrusts
itself as the
one great vehicle of universal understanding" (782).
is
used "not for sake of an ethical sanction but as the one
21
true
method of gaining sympathy and human
interest" (782).
With these definitions
in
Du
mind,
Bois then famously proclaims:
Thus
Art
all
propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the
is
stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art
I
purists.
1
have for writing has been
used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy.
I
do not care a damn
when propaganda
is
for
any
art that is
not used for propaganda. But
confined to one side while the other
is
do care
I
stripped and silent.
(782-83)
What Du Bois disapproves of is
the unjust disproportion
whites and the amount that favors blacks.
Du
Bois wants
Americans; he wants for blacks the same rights
white blood divine, infallible and holy" (783).
"fight[ing] their
way
sacrifice authenticity, but for
Thus, jazz, with
jazz
is
Du
American
for propaganda, just as
evident in the
art that
to
propaganda
that allows
He
entrusts the
"new young
all its
it
Of course,
Bois, the loss
is
less
that favors
favorably represents African
people to "believe
artists"
freedom" through propagandism - by no longer allowing
to
side" to be "shamelessly emphasized" (783).
casting the African
between the amount of art
to define art as
with
their "worst
propaganda
important than what he feels
is
is
to
gained from
solely in a positive light.
negative stereotypes, certainly would not align with
does not align with Locke's
comments he made about
his Pulitzer Prize-winning
biography of
Bois's daughter, Yolande,
was deeply
Du
New Negro
agenda.
his daughter's beau,
Du
who was
Du
Bois's call
Bois's distaste for
a jazz musician.
Bois, David Levering Lewis informs us that
in love
Du
with the jazz musician, Jimmie Lunceford, yet
Du
Bois objected to Yolande's marriage to him. As Lewis summarizes the situation:
[Du Bois
said,]
develop into
'a
'I
am
fine
not taking Jimmie very seriously' [...]. Lunceford might
man
but that
is
In
yet to be learned.' In any case, such a union
22
idiotic than to see
two human beings without cultivated
to live
for
Du
and without power
on
love.
tastes,
without trained
themselves together and trying
(Biography 108)
Bois longed for Yolande to marry (and she did) Countee Cullen who, unfortunately
perhaps find links to his
artistic
Du
Bois's marital preferences for his daughter,
Indubitably, he associated jazz with the
preferences.
lower class and ignorance - both of which contradicted his
Hughes entered
Artist
told,
to earn a living locking
Yolande, was actually homosexual (108). In
we can
was more 'disheartening and
'Nothing,' she [Yolande]
abilities
Instead,
was
was unthinkable.
the debate in 1926
and the Racial Mountain"
aesthetic view,
which stood
Hughes's decision
in
when he published
in stark contrast to that
racial
his
The Nation. Not only does
propaganda.
famous essay "The Negro
this essay present
of Locke and
to use jazz so copiously in his poetry.
extended metaphor of the
call for
Du
Bois, but
it
Hughes's
also explains
Hughes develops
In the essay,
the
mountain, which he defines as the "urge within the race toward
whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and
to
be as
little
Negro and
that "stand[s] in the
racial
mountain has
as
much American
way of any
its
true
Negro
as possible," and he maintains that
art in
it
is this
mountain
America** (1311). According to Hughes, the
most prominent hold on the middle and upper classes of African
Americans. For these groups, he says, "white comes to be unconsciously a symbol of all
virtues," so
it
becomes
"difficult
interpreting the beauty of his
Hughes, good
art
[.
own
.
.]
for an artist born in such a
people.
cannot be propaganda, as
He
it
is
is
for
Du
Bois, and thus, by
In creating his aesthetic ideologies in opposition to
own
identity as an
African-American
to interest
himself
in
never taught to see that beauty" (1311). For
cannot represent the upper classes and the intelligentsia, as
forge his
home
artist.
it
its
very nature,
it
does for Locke.
Locke and Du Bois, Hughes sought
Both Locke and
Du
Bois were great
to
23
literary patriarchs for
recall,
"My
Hughes and were
influential parts
memories of written words
earliest
Bible" (qtd. in Rampersad, Vol.
19).
I
I
felt
visit
myself to be?"
I
say?
(qtd. in
were those of W.
.]
.
When Hughes,
Du
of his youth, had the opportunity to meet
wondering, "What would
[.
Rampersad Vol.
I
I
beginning
Hughes was
Bois,
What should
of his childhood. As Hughes would
How
do?
We
53).
to
Du
Bois and the
flower in the literary success
He
"terrified" (53).
could
act
I
know
also
E. B.
— not
that
to
recalls
appear as
dumb
when Locke "asked
Hughes, the young poet declined fearfully because he did not think he was prepared
such distinguished company" (Miller 29).
Still,
Hughes went on
later
to create
an
as
to
for
ideology in
artistic
which he separated himself completely from Locke and Du Bois.
Seeing no hope of overcoming the racial mountain amongst the middle and upper classes,
Hughes
turns to "the
low-down
common
who "do
Artist" 1312).
not particularly
Hughes
writes:
people are not afraid of spirituals, as for a long time their more
intellectual brethren were,
and jazz
colorful, distinctive material for
individuality in the face of
common
element"
anybody else" ("Negro
care whether they are like white folks or
These
common
folks, the so-called
is
any
their child.
artist
They
because they
furnish a wealth of
still
hold their
own
American standardizations. And perhaps these
people will give to the world
its
truly great
Negro
artist,
the one
who
is
not afraid to be himself. (1312)
Thus, Hughes sees
and
in that
hope
in the
lower class the hope of those
lies the future
Like the writings of Locke and
too. charges the
of black
Du
now
Bois, Hughes's essay
in the
are not
ashamed of their blackness,
and the advancement of the African- American
younger generation of black
But Hughes also includes himself
create
art
who
artists
becomes
a call to action in
with the task of advancing his
movement he
initiates:
"We
race.
which
he,
artistic vision.
younger Negro
artists
who
intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. [....]
We
24
build our temples for tomorrow, strong as
Artist" as an explanation of
Hughes's reasoning behind
Jazz became for Hughes the means of fulfilling his
Hughes
Artist,"
calls jazz
tom-tom beating
world
.
.
."
in the
(1314). Considering
such as Locke and
open the door
Star,
Du
the
Bois.
Rampersad, Vol
II
it
how Hughes viewed jazz,
own
own
much wider
I
art.
artistic vision.
it is
America; the eternal
life in
no wonder
"The Negro
In
in a white-
that
it
was often condemned by black
art
Hughes saw writing
needs.
why we can view "The
tom-tom of revolt against weariness
for greater acceptance of jazz.
people seem to think
"The Negro
—
Although such folk
"Jazz gives poetry a
his
"one of the inherent expressions of Negro
Negro soul
pivotal role in his poetry.
stand on top of the mountain,
His use of "we" underscores the reasons
free within ourselves" (1314).
Negro
we know how, and we
takes on such a
intellectuals,
the lower class's music into poetry as a
As Hughes himself said
in
an article
in the
way
to
Toronto
following and poetry brings jazz that greater respectability
don't think jazz needs
it,
but most people
seem
to" (qtd. in
280). This statement also aligns perfectly with Hughes's proclamation in
Artist": "Let the blare
of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith
singing Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near-intellectual until they listen and
perhaps understand" (1314). Thus,
if
Hughes would be able
intellectual" (a thinly veiled reference to
would be through
In
his
own jazz
Du
art as
in art
stories
from The Ways of White Folks,
of the colored near-intellectual" as he vies for the
through a fictionalized portrayal of the divergent views of high
they were debated in the Harlem Renaissance (1314).
"The Blues I'm Playing"
is
it
poetry (1314).
to penetrate the closed ears
acceptance of folk idioms
convince "the colored near-
Bois) of the value of jazz, he believed
"The Blues I'm Playing," one of Hughes's short
Hughes "attempts
and low
Locke and
to
Many
critics
argue that
Hughes's critique of the artist-patron relationship. Indeed, the story
portrays the artist-patron relationship in a
manner
so reminiscent of his
own
relationship with
25
Charlotte
was
Osgood Mason
originally published in 1934
Mason
year relationship with
The Ways of White Folks
that the similarities are hardly coincidental.
- a mere three years following
the final termination of his four-
Seemingly, the separation from
in 1931.
Mason
the distance necessary to write critically about the exploitative nature of
while
still
allowing him to hide himself (and Mason) behind his
their relationship only in fictitious terms.
as Hughes's
commentary on
even allowing him
could
in
to
3
would
I
own
advance his
proximate) and places her
manner
interpretation also accounts for the
ideology that
is
the antithesis of Mason's
explain, while usually concluding that
Du
In
The Big Sea,
Ellsworth's,
we
- Mason wanted Hughes
folklore,
to
draw
which Hughes
me
to
and so
in his
Oceola
represents the
move
that
many
critics
and Mason's relationship,
artistic
have attempted
merely an act of distancing on Hughes's
I
1
12)
-
in
to
part.
like Oceola's
and Mrs.
to
essence drawing her closer to white standards of
his inspiration
from Africa rather than from African-
resisted:
be primitive and
But. unfortunately.
Even
who
"The
ended because of divergent aesthetic views, but unlike Mrs. Ellsworth, who wants
She wanted
3
Mrs. Ellsworth,
he
Bois (Hughes, "Negro Artist" 1314). This
artistic
learn that Hughes's
"sublimate" Oceola (Hughes, "Blues"
American
will argue that in
which Hughes gives Mrs. Ellsworth an
in
- an
it is
I
fiction than
aesthetic ideals within the character of
in contradistinction to
"colored near-intellectual[s]" like Locke and
dynamic of
Harlem Renaissance,
more unabashedly through
essays such as "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain."
(his literary
as a patron,
also propose that the story can be interpreted
aesthetic vision
own
Mason
recreating the
the artistic debates taking place during the
Blues I'm Playing," Hughes embodies his
art
art,
afforded Hughes
I
know and
feel the intuitions
of the primitive.
did not feel the rhythms of the primitive surging through me,
could not live and write as though
I
did.
I
was only an American Negro
autobiography, The Big Sea, where Hughes discusses his relationship with Charlotte Osgood Mason,
he never actually refers to her by name, always protecting her anonymity.
26
—who
had loved the surface of Africa and the rhythms of Africa
Africa.
me
to be. (Big
Mason's ideology actually aligns more closely with
appropriated the
artistic
that
- Anne
art
primitive by "cop[ying]"
Negro
is
art in
herself an artist
her
own
who
artistic creations
"a boy as black as
all
own
(Hughes, "Slave"
in her
home
more
between the character, Anne, and
the
If
For
to
be sold. She
is
Negroes they'd ever known put
his patron.
Hughes chose
Mason, makes
it
seem
all
Mrs. Ellsworth and Oceola personify the divergent voices of the
Harlem Renaissance debates, while also speaking
to the
problematic nature of the artist-patron
relationship, the reversal of the patron figure's aesthetic ideology can be
light
19).
significant that he reverses the ideological standpoint in the case of Mrs. Ellsworth in
"The Blues I'm Playing."
new
artistic ideals
with the sole intention
together" and, therefore, has a connection to the primitive (20). Thus, the fact that
to create a direct parallel
in
Unlike Mason, however,
of making him the object of her painting of a slave on the block, waiting
is
was
feeds her obsession with the
example, she hires a black boy named Luther to be a servant
fascinated with Luther because he
I
of Anne Carraway
focus of the artists she supported - imposing her
of primitivism upon their
the
was not
Sea 325)
"Slave on the Block," another story from The Ways of White Folks.
who
I
was Chicago and Kansas City and Broadway and Harlem. And
I
not what she wanted
Interestingly, Mrs.
— but
-
as allowing
Hughes
to conflate
"The Blues I'm Playing," Hughes
flaw in Locke's and
Hughes
Du
is
able to
in
an entirely
two types of social commentary within one
draw
attention to
what he believes
is
story.
In
the inherent
Bois's aesthetic ideals: the notion that art can resolve the race problem.
creates the analogy
between Mrs. Ellsworth and the "colored near-intellectuals"
and Oceola and himself through his carefully chosen
characters.
viewed
artistic
preferences of the two fictional
Predictably, Mrs. Ellsworth's artistic tastes lean toward the classical end of the
continuum, and she abhors Oceola's equally predictable love of jazz and the blues, viewing her
27
way of sublimating
patronage of Oceola as a
Oceola
herself.
As Hughes
puts
Mrs. Ellsworth
it:
[.
.
.]
still
And
wondered,
for
she
Oceola
Saturday night
[.
.
.]
believed in
felt
nature,
the dignity of art.
have a studio
to
of the old school, portraits that really and
art
poems about
truly looked like people,
syncopation.
Oceola's primitive tastes in music and, ultimately,
and dancing
full
to the
music
that
Was
in
it
had soul
in
it,
not
keeping with genius, she
of white and colored people every
most tomtom-like music she had ever
heard coming out of a grand piano? ("Blues" 110-111)
One can
manner
truly see the
Renaissance as
it
in
which
this
passage mirrors the debates of the Harlem
contemplates the role of the African- American
appropriate for the emerging young artisan
black race. Certainly
in
so
many
intelligent
we
hear the voice of
Bois,
to align one's self with the
points got quite out of vital touch with one another"
that really
Du
is
and representative elements of the two race
and thus, Oceola's "tomtom-like music" would counter
mention of "portraits
is
shoulders the responsibility of representing the
"in keeping with genius" (1 10)
Lockean vision of reuniting "the more
at
and what type of art
Mrs. Ellsworth's views of "the dignity of art," one can hear echoes of
Locke and Du Bois (110). To be
groups [who] have
who
artist
and truly looked
who
like
that vision ("Blues" 111).
("New"
And
988),
in the
people [and] poems about nature" (110),
holds as supreme "the work of propagating and encouraging
Beauty" ("Truth" 307).
In fact, contrary to the
representation of the type of
Lockean and Du Boisian
"low-down
folks"
visions,
whom Hughes
Oceola
validates in
the Racial Mountain." Early in the story, Mrs. Ellsworth interviews
whether she wants
to act as her patron,
is
herself a
literal
"The Negro
Oceola
to
Artist
and
determine
and Hughes recounts for us snippets of that conversation,
which gives us a clear picture of Oceola's family background and upbringing. Hughes
writes:
28
Born
in
Mobile
in 1903.
[.
.]
.
Papa had a band
Her mother used
deacons bought a piano
.
Used
.].
You could
lodge turn-outs, picnics, dances, barbecues.
the world in Mobile.
[.
after the big revival, her
get the best roast pig in
organ
to play the
to play for all the
mama
in
when
church, and
played
that, too.
the
Oceola
played by ear for a long while until her mother taught her notes. ("Blues" 104)
We
later
read that "she and her
mama
and step-papa
down
settled
Houston. Sometimes her
in
parents had jobs and sometimes they didn't. Often they were hungry
passages,
we
f.
.
.]"
(104).
From
see that Oceola's mother and step-father are, indeed, from the "so-called
element" ("Negro Artist" 1312), as Hughes
calls the
lower
class.
They
these
common
are certainly "not afraid
of the spirituals" - a quality Hughes venerates in the "low-down folks" - in light of the fact that
her mother plays the organ in church and
we
later learn that
Oceola "played
embodied
choir" ("Negro Artist" 1312; "Blues" 105). Further, jazz, as
literally the child
of "the so-called
statement that "jazz
is
their child" as
While Hughes embodies
pointed jabs
at
- the
common
artistic
philosophies of Locke and
decision to
become Oceola's patron because
quite
Du
we
see a clear critique
of- even
Bois through the character of Mrs.
examples of this type of critique appears through Mrs. Ellsworth's
by Ormond Hunter, the music
more
is
element" - an unmistakable echo of Hughes's
his artistic ideal within Oceola,
One of the
therefore supposedly
Oceola,
church
he discusses the "low-down folks" ("Negro Artist" 1312).
Ellsworth.
first
in
for a
critic"
the
"Negro
girl
had been highly recommended
(Hughes, "Blues" 100).
valid, opinion
In fact,
to her
Mr. Hunter's white, and
of Oceola even means that "there had been no doubt"
about the decision of patronage on the part of Mrs. Ellsworth (100). Her unquestioning reliance
upon
the white artistic perspective parallels the
way
in
which Hughes
critiques
many of his
contemporaries for their longings to be white - a word that "comes to be unconsciously a symbol
of all virtues" ("Negro Artist" 131
1 )
— and
to
uphold white aesthetics
in their art.
29
Through
this section
Du
inherent flaw in the
that, artistically,
longs to create
Boisian logic of "Criteria of Negro Art.
employs
art that is
propaganda so as
these
Du
Through Mrs. Ellsworth's unfaltering
draws attention
to
Du
paradoxically, he
critics, yet
of his race
In other words,
Bois's
say, continuing to
that
Du
who
108).
attempt to portray minority
portrayals of black
life that
are
Bois
to
white
Mr. Hunter solely because he
faith in
homage
to the racial
still
is
white,
mountain.
Du
Boisian circular
life,
such as
Van Vechten and "Thomas Burke on
Ironically, both
life.
Du
Bois was
reasoning through the sources Mrs. Ellsworth consults to educate herself on Negro
Limehouse" ("Blues" 106,
eyes of
in the
succumb
Furthering his critique, Hughes sheds more light on this type of
"a book called 'Nigger Heaven'" by Carl
Bois claims
Bois was not concerned with white standards, he
Hughes would
held back by the racial mountain, as
in essence,
Du
In his speech,
two elements of Du Bois's speech, one sees
also not be concerned with assimilated propaganda.
Hughes,
'
to better the perception
circular reasoning, for, logically, if
standards.
1
blacks should not care for the opinions of white
When one juxtaposes
whites.
would
of "The Blues I'm Playing," Hughes exposes and comments upon an
of these works are written by white authors
Hughes makes
the point that as
mere propaganda, he makes
it
Du
Bois advocates for
impossible for whites to have an
accurate perception of African- American existence, impossible for blacks ever to be accepted for
who
they truly are: ultimately,
gains from her
own
it is
a false portrayal that
is
no different from those Mrs. Ellsworth
white-authored sources of propaganda. Hughes, however, like Oceola,
believes in the promise of realistic portrayals of African- Americans
afraid to be
himself ("Negro
ones [black
artists]
it,"
have
Artist" 1312).
tried to
rather than "writ[ing] to
As he
- of the
artist
"who
is
not
says in The Big Sea, "[M]ost of the good
be honest, write honestly, and express their world as they saw
amuse and
entertain white people,
over-color[ing] their material, and [leaving] out a great
many
and
in so
doing distorting] and
things they thought
would offend
30
their
American brothers of a
would
Thus,
complexion" (227). As
rather the African- American not be accepted at
it
is
all
far as
Hughes
is
concerned, he
than to be accepted on false terms.
these "good" artists who, for Hughes, hold the key to the hope of blacks one day being
accepted for
who
they truly are (227).
Throughout the short
stars
lighter
story,
Hughes continually
links Mrs. Ellsworth's ideas of art to the
and a movement upward - no doubt a metaphor for high
[.
.
.]
She [Mrs. Ellsworth] wished she could
away from
So
art.
all that,
Oceola up bodily and take her
for art's sake.
in the spring,
Mrs. Ellsworth organized weekends
mountains where she had a
high places
lift
At one point. Hughes writes:
at the stars,
little
and
in the up-state
lodge and where Oceola could look from the
her soul with the vastness of the eternal, and
fill
began
forget about jazz. Mrs. Ellsworth really
to hate jazz
—
especially on a grand
piano. ("Blues" 111)
As we
"lift
see Mrs. Ellsworth try to overpower Oceola's artistic autonomy,
Oceola up bodily" -
low-down
art,
to force her into
upward movement
which Mrs. Ellsworth believes
is
we
that allows her to transcend the
below Oceola
(111).
Oceola's
described by Hughes as being grounded and a part of the earth, and this
to
it
become
transcendent.
up, or filled
it
full
He
writes: "In her playing of
of classical runs, or fancy
throb like tom-toms, the trebles cry like
that they
Negro
falsities.
little flutes,
how Oceola
gets the sense that
Hughes
is
folk music.
In the blues she
is
make Oceola
punning on the word
however,
is
what allows her music
Oceola never doctored
made
the bass notes
so focused on putative standards of art
will be perceived (by whites)
looking to the stars in the hopes that she will
is
art,
so deep in the earth and so high in the sky
understood everything" (113). Mrs. Ellsworth
- with a concern for
see that she wishes to
a
-
that Mrs. Ellsworth
more sublimated
"star," related to
artist.
is
always
One even
Mrs. Ellsworth's desires to
31
make Oceola
a musical "star" and, thereby, a permanent testament to her patronage. But in the
midst of Mrs. Ellsworth's flights of fancy, she
dissever
tries to
art's
connection to
general aesthetic sense and for Oceola. But being grounded, Oceola does not
life,
make
both
in a
this mistake:
"Oceola's background was too well-grounded in Mobile, and Billy Kersands' Minstrels, and the
Sanctified churches where religion
was
a joy, to stare mystically over the top of a grand piano
white folks and imagine that Beethoven had nothing to do with
like
life,
or that Schubert's love
songs were only sublimations" (114). Ultimately. Oceola realizes that even the classical music
Mrs. Ellsworth forces upon her
is
grounded
in reality
and has a connection
- an
to life
understanding Mrs. Ellsworth never achieves.
In other
grounded. In
comes from
works
as well
Hughes advances
the soil,
where
all
music has
talks about the strength
I
its
Hughes
the
carries this
have quoted as the epigram
of black music coming from
all,
how
Oceola's
at the
short story
Hughes writes about
the bass notes throb like
art is
draws
to a close
in the earth"
a part of the earth, and perhaps
refuses to
succumb
O, if I could holler
sang the blues,
being
says, "Jazz
we
see that
rooted power" (209). Although
Folks,
it is
important to recognize
also throughout
and Oceola claims her autonomy once
the music that overtakes Mrs. Ellsworth's voice: "Oceola
tomtoms deep
moment when Oceola
plays the blues
Ways of White
"its
to this thesis,
theme throughout not only "The Blues I'm Playing," but
body of his works. As the
and for
art
beginning" (168). In the excerpt from Hughes's
both of these works were published after The
that
of Oceola's low-down
Famous Negro Music Makers, he quotes Serge Koussevitzky, who
autobiography. The Big Sea, which
Hughes
his sense
it
("Blues" 123). Again,
we
are
made
reminded of
takes on an even greater importance here -
to the
white normative standards.
As Oceola
32
Like a mountain jack,
I'd
go up on de mountain
sang the blues.
And call my baby
-
back. (123)
Mrs. Ellsworth "rise[sj from her chair" and says, "And
(123).
As Mrs. Ellsworth
"rises,"
we
see yet another
I
(.
.
.]
would stand looking
at the stars"
upward movement through which she
attempts to distance herself from Oceola's grounded jazz and blues. Further, as Stephen Tracy
points out, Mrs. Ellsworth's final response "violates the true
words
[sic] lyric
but in form." for her line "doesn't rhyme, as do the lines of the song
clearly de-contextualized, underscoring
how
|.
.
.].
not only in
spirit,
Ellsworth's line
is
foreign the tradition and the spirit are to
Ellsworth" ("Blues" 18). Clearly, Hughes, through his knowledge of the blues,
is
able to use a
deviance from the musical form to show the inherent disconnection between Mrs. Ellsworth's
and Oceola's views of art. But what's more, Mrs. Ellsworth's
to "Criteria
final line
Du
echoes
Bois's closing
of Negro Art":
I
had a classmate once who did three beautiful things and
a story of a folk
who found
fire
and then went wandering
seeking again the stars they had once
known and
lost:
raised a mighty cry: "It
is
the stars,
it
is
One of them was
in the
gloom of night
suddenly out of blackness
they looked up and there loomed the heavens; and what
They
died.
was
it
the ancient stars,
that they said?
it
is
the
young and
everlasting stars!" (784)
The
fact that
Hughes closes
his story
by aligning Mrs. Ellsworth's voice yet again with
that
of the
"colored near-intellectuals" speaks to the degree to which Hughes truly wanted the short story to
comment upon
out,
the debates of the
"Mrs. Ellsworth has the
last
Harlem Renaissance ("Negro
word
in
Artist" 1314).
As Tracy
points
Hughes's story," but she does not ultimately get the
33
final
say ("Blues" 18). Having reclaimed her voice,
we know
that
Oceola
will
escape the
binding grasp of Mrs. Ellsworth, instead going forth to proclaim the truth of her
vision.
As Hughes
.
.]
And
If
you wanted
as for the cultured
to play the
Negroes who were always saying
separates herself from Mrs. Ellsworth, and
is
true to life
is
also true to art
we imagine
art
would break down
Gceo^" ("Blues"
that
it
is
1
13).
low-down
her
that she will carry with her.
but to think of Hughes, separating himself from people like
"art
Du
art that
own
would
say about his poetry collection. Fine Clothes to the Jew,
later
personally desired
to
it
be
[.
.
.
even]
cabaret-ism, and utterly uncouth.
pasture with food to suit
Seeking
to
all
idea of art
if the
[....]
1
poems which
it
cannot help
when he
seeks to
centered on folk idioms and
"My
second book
is
what
to
be keeping a
literary
grazing
breeds of cattle" ("To the Editor" 73).
in his poetry,
however. Instead, Hughes realized
that
that jazz
was representative of the
legacy of black Americans, of the beginning of their journey from Africa to their
Harlem Renaissance.
that
"That Sad. Happy Music Called Jazz," one of the
Hughes wrote
asserting that "[j]azz
Hughes then begins
In
is
for
The Chicago Defender, Hughes defines
such happy music because
to chronicle the birth
it
I
contains are low-down, jazzy,
have never pretended
from a very rich African- American musical tradition
on black music
that
change the staunch convictions of black intellectuals was not Hughes's only
motivation for using jazz
in the
-
- without caring what white audiences thought (113). As Hughes
fulfilled his
vision
color, art
Locke and Du Bois who believed
Boisian circular reasoning by creating
artistic
art in
Oceola
And we
could save the race" (113). Like Oceola, Hughes also declares "Bunk!"
break the cycle of
word
piano or paint pictures or write books, go ahead!
could save the race and prevent lynchings! 'Bunk!' said
anyone who
artistic-
writes earlier in the story, "Oceola hated most artists, too. and the
French or English.
f.
own
was born out of such
stemmed
historical
modern place
many
articles
this tradition,
great sadness" (216).
of this jazzy child of the low-down folks, describing
34
the precursors to jazz that
were apparent
where slaves were bought and
Hughes
calls
if
only temporarily (216).
Orleans became the
first
this portrayal
He
in the
in
Congo Square -
objectified before white
world
1
"
where "many
asserts that "the
sad-happy rhythms destined
to set the
a place
men, but what
[slaves] forgot their
rhythms of Congo Square
in
New
tempos of American jazz" (216).
of Congo Square. Hughes explains the inherent duality and oxymoronic
nature of jazz, describing the
manner
communal traumas of captivity
Hughes goes on
slavery (216).
music slaves played
dehumanized and
"one of the saddest happy places
bondage," even
Through
sold,
in the
in
which, despite
"all its gaeity,"
it
also
remembers
the
Middle Passage, and the dismal existence of
in Africa, the
to explain that the
music of New Orleans led
to "the field hollers
of the plantations, the work songs of the Southern roads and the Mississippi levees, the religious
spirituals
and jubilees"
Hughes then
to jazz (216).
its
until years later,
writes: "It
unique quality, that roots
its
we
finally arrived at the blues, the
is this
combination of sadness and laughter that gives jazz
deep syncopations
in the
human
soul, that
keeps
being a frivolous or meaningless music or merely entertainment, no matter
for fun" (217).
Through Hughes's statement, we
his artistic vision.
is
Ultimately, as
immediate precursor
from ever
how much
it
is
played
get at the very essence of his devotion to jazz in
Hughes shows, jazz, by
never the politicized portrayal of solely the
it
elite
its
very nature,
is
never propaganda;
or the intellectual. Instead,
it
is
it
always the
pure representation of the black aesthetic, of the black legacy, necessarily rooted in the low-
down
folks.
When Hughes draws upon jazz,
careful nuance.
Unlike Locke and
Du
Bois
he invokes
this legacy
who promote
and
literature as
its
binary nature with
propaganda, advocating
only for the singular voice of the assimilated African- American success story, Hughes's agenda
is
multi-voiced, both happy and sad, for he, as a poet, recognizes what any musician would: the
value of multiple voices, of both melody and harmony.
35
//.
Montage of a Dream Deferred:
A Poetical and Musical Analysis
1
Harlem Renaissance. Many
lughes's jazz-centered artistic vision outlived the
even claim
that
Hughes's 1951 book-length poem, Montage of a
Dream
critics
Deferred, represents the
epitome of his jazz poetry. But the collection also emphasizes the importance of multiple voices,
for the collection, in a truly
should be read as
1940s
life in
in
Modernist way, features different perspectives and speakers
dialogue with one another and
Harlem. John Lowney explains
who
collectively portray the full picture of
Harlem "was of course no
that *'[b]y the 1940s,'''
longer the center of refuge and hope associated with the
New Negro
Renaissance. Although
a major destination for poor migrant blacks during the Great Depression,
better
known
nationally as an explosive site of urban racial conflict
that to portray this conflict fully, he
the poetic voice that
would appeal
who
Harlem had become
1
'
still
(362).
Yet Hughes realized
could not rely upon one poetic voice solely - especially not
to whites.
Instead, as
as a sounding board for the articulation of people
who
Ya Salaam
points out,
are usually voiceless"
Montage "serves
- African
Americans who are overlooked by the white majority, the lower-class blacks who are overlooked
by members of their
section of postwar
own
race.
Harlem
life
Through these multiple voices, Hughes
-
a technique that accounts for the
is
able to provide a cross-
montage of the
collection's
title.
Montage's multi-voiced structure
reflects
respond to each other, so too are jazz musicians
band members, collectively creating the
its
jazzy structure, for just as the speakers
in constant
entire experience
musical conversation with fellow
of a jam session.
In fact,
Hughes even
prefaced the collection with the following headnote:
In terms of current
Afro-American popular music and the sources from which
it
has progressed -jazz, ragtime, swing, blues, boogie-woogie, and be-bop - this
36
poem on contemporary Harlem,
like
be-bop,
is
marked by conflicting changes,
sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms, and passages
sometimes
in the
manner of the jam
punctuated by the
community
riffs,
to
commentary those jazz forms
poetic
jam
63).
view Montage's dialogic structure
signify.
employ
in
terms of the jam
in the collection
and the types of
While the collection draws heavily on bebop, the
session also contains other elements of jazz, such as the older boogie-woogie (Jemie
Thus, Hughes
collection.
music of a
(Montage 387)
session; he also prepares us for the types of jazz he will
social
sometimes the popular song,
runs, breaks, and distortions [sic] of the
in transition.
Hughes himself not only prepares us
session,
is
able to
draw upon
the importance of the black musical tradition within the
But most importantly, the collection deals with the impact of the deferred African-
American dream - an idea
that
is
reflected in the poem's musical structure.
The centerpiece of Montage
is
the
poem "Dream Boogie":
Good morning, daddy!
i
Aint you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
Listen closely:
5
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a
You think
a happy beat?
It's
Listen to
Ain't
it
closely:
10
you heard
something underneath
like a
WTiat did I say?
Sure,
I'm happy!
15
37
Take
it
away
Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!
20
Y-e-a-h!
"Dream Boogie," prepares
critics point out,
it
the reader for the remainder of the poetry collection because, as
poses a question, both rhetorically and musically, upon which the poems
throughout the collection will be based: "Ain't you heard
dream deferred?"
many
This motif
(lines 2-4).
will return in various
is
improvised forms and
the musical
to
/
The boogie-woogie rumble
theme
to
which the poems
/
Of a
which the imaginary musicians
will return in both their thematic
material and diction in various syntactical forms.
As
the poem's
woogie, which
is
title
implies,
"Dream Boogie," draws
primarily upon the form of boogie-
"a jazz piano idiom featuring a recurring ostinato of rolling eighth-notes in the
bass under improvised figures in the treble" (Borshuk 74). During an ostinato, a pianist would
roll
eighth notes between alternating fingers in the
woogie
is
one of the
earliest
the blues) and bebop.
hand. In terms of
left
its
forms of jazz - a link between ragtime (which
Unlike boogie-woogie, bebop
is
a
structure, boogie-
is
closely related to
more Modernist form of jazz,
characterized by dissonant chord structures and the singing of bebop syllables, sometimes
referred to as "scatting jazz."
Daddle-de-do!
De-dopT
Hughes
in
/
Be-bopT
Hughes uses bebop
in the
"What? So Soon!"
poem
(lines 10-11).
establishes the characteristic
through four are
"Children's
five, three, seven,
syllables such as
Rhymes"
Within the
(lines
first
"Oop-pop-a-da!
five, respectively.
Skee!
25-27) and "De-daddle-dy! /
stanza of
"Dream Boogie."
rhythm of boogie-woogie. The syllable counts
and
/
for lines
However, since boogie-woogie
one
is
written in measures that adhere to a 4/4 time signature, the varying syllable count forces the lines
of poetry to be read
in
syncopated rhythm so as to
fill
the entire four beats of the musical
38
measure
that
each
line
of poetry more or
less represents.
Adopting Tracy's method of analyzing
the beats per measure and hypothetical chord structure of 'The
approximate rhythmic dictation of "Dream Boogie":
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yjop:
Although Hughes never studied music formally, being a jazz connoisseur allowed him
give his jazz
poems an
inherent jazzy rhythm and lyrical quality that even
not have explained musically.
In a recording
to
Hughes himself could
of Hughes reading "Dream Boogie," he does not
adhere to a musical meter or to musical rhythms as a jazz musician would (Hughes. "Dream").
Nevertheless, his
poem
actually has the potential to do both,
which
my
rhythmic dictation
demonstrates, because Hughes internalized the qualities of jazz. For example,
stanza of the
4
I
am
into
poem
equals four 4/4 measures of music, showing that
grateful to Drs. Lisa Oberlander,
rhythmic dictation.
Ronald Sherrod, and Carmen Skaggs
we
see that each
"Dream Boogie" can be
for helping
me
put
read
"Dream Boogie"
39
with a
By
strict
musical meter. The
poem
also relies
upon the boogie-woogie rhythm throughout.
translating Hughes's poetic jazz into musical jazz,
methodology
to see just
how
expertly
Hughes did
we
can, in a sense, decipher his
the opposite, translated the musical jazz he
heard into poetic jazz on the page.
While the majority of the stressed syllables
in
"Dream Boogie"
fall
on the strongest beats
within the measures, beats one and three, the unstressed syllables are not given equal rhythmic
value as the stressed syllables. In terms of poetics, stressed and unstressed syllables receive a
different accented emphasis, but not different length values.
rhythm
into the
poem, Hughes
is
Yet by building the boogie-woogie
able to stray from this poetic convention to capture the
rhythmic qualities that are characteristic of boogie-woogie. Throughout the rhythmic dictation,
we
see the most basic boogie-woogie rhythm recurring - a passage of repeated dotted-eighth
sixteenths, as in line three.
a line of the
poem
Not coincidentally, Hughes establishes
that refers to
boogie-woogie
explicitly.
We
this
boogie-woogie rhythm
in
can then see Hughes return to the
dotted-eighth sixteenth rhythm throughout the poem, such as in line eight, ten, and twelve, for
example. For a
would
pianist, the
boogie-woogie rhythm would serve as the left-hand ostinato, which
act as the chordal foundation for improvisations
poem's rhythm established, Hughes
is
variations that follow" (Borshuk 79).
In the first stanza,
also aids in poetically creating the musical
Hughes
words "daddy." "heard," "rumble," and "deferred"
the
same rhyme scheme
appearing
in lines five
the
in the first stanza.
the
initially
Then with
For example, the indented and italicized lines eight, nine,
The rhyme scheme of "Dream Boogie"
of boogie-woogie.
the right hand.
able to "'improvise' on that rhythm" with the "disruptive
and fourteen stray from the rhythm as established
qualities
made by
with the
ABC
establishes an
(lines 1-4).
ABCB
rhyme scheme with
The second stanza
relies
upon
portion assigned in lines one through three also
through seven. However, by ending the seventh line with a dash, Hughes
40
extends the boogie-woogie rhythm established
rest in the
it
poem's rhythmic dictation), paving the way
indented
in the
in the first
lines, eight
stanza (musically reflected by the half
for the
and nine. Musically speaking,
change
in
rhyme scheme,
we
as
see
and nine serve as a jazz
lines eight
break, "a very brief syncopated interlude, usually of two to four bars, between musical phrases—
comes between
often improvised in unwritten jazz" (Hughes, First 49). Just as a jazz break
Due
musical phrases, Hughes places his poetic jazz break between stanzas.
rhyme scheme of stanza two becomes
ABCDB,
but the poetic improvisation can only be
recognized because the rhyme scheme established
The
and
its
form
in the
second stanza. With the
established in lines ten through twelve, the
keep the
ABCB
in the first
stanza has been altered.
from the rhyme scheme established
third stanza strays slightly both
altered
to the jazz,break. the
ABC
is
rhyme scheme. However, Hughes employs
fourteen, but this time never returns to the anticipated
B
rhyme scheme
portion of the
word "deferred"
stanza
in the first
expected to end line thirteen to
yet another jazz break in line
portion of the
rhyme scheme. Musically
speaking, Hughes has posed a musical question that he leaves unresolved, and rather than
returning to the boogie-woogie rhythms already established,
Hughes
equivalent of a musical improvisation in stanza four and ends the
As
the
poems
is
with bebop syllables.
Hughes showing
aggressively modernist in a
to
"Dream
the consequences of
be deferred. As John
Lowney
an inherent connection between "bebop's dissonance and Harlem's
growing frustation" (370). Lowney paraphrases Eric
its
in
- of the African- American dream continuing
explains of Montage, there
only was
poem
progress, the tension that builds from the unanswered question of
Boogie" only builds, and bebop plays a very pivotal role
social injustice
turns to the poetic
way
that earlier
'relationship to earlier styles
Lott.
who
explains that "bebop was
[.
.
.]
forms of African American music had not been. Not
one of calculated
hostility,' its social
position apart
from both the black and middle class and any white mainstream consensus 'gave aesthetic
self-
41
assertion political force and value'" (365).
when he
underlying message of bebop
this
wrote:
That
where Bop comes from
is
why Be-bop
is
and do not understand
it.
crazy crazy. They do not
WILD CRAZY
(qtd. in
we can
see
how
—
Lowney
why
folks
They think
know
it
beat right out of
is
who
it's
also
And
ain't
not to be
suffered
nonsense
—
itself
articulating unspeakable
play Bop,
They think
like you.
it's
just
MAD crazy, SAD crazy, FRANTIC
some bloody black head!
is
a
means of remaining
becomes one of the voices
communal traumas.
That's what
Bop
is.
true to his artistic vision
in the dialogic structure
that the
bebop
of Montage,
Indeed, whenever bebop syllables appear in the
However,
it
soon
syllables take the place of ideas that cannot be fully expressed
words, just as jazz musicians can portray inexpressible emotional burdens through
music. Consider "Children's Rhymes,"' for example,
reality
dug unless you have
much cannot
collection, at first glance, they are seemingly unrelated to the text at hand.
in standard
is
mountain.
bebop
becomes apparent
seen. That
368).
Hughes's use of bebop
to challenge the racial
Further,
them dark days we have
out of
-
so mad, wild, frantic, crazy.
seen dark days, too. That's
Thus,
Hughes echoed
of being black
in
which disillusioning statements about the
1940s America - "I know I can't / be President" (lines 8-9) and
knows everybody / ain't free"
(lines 15-16)
and
What 's written down
for white folks
ain't for us a-tall:
"Liberty
in
And Justice—
Huh— For All.
"
(lines
20-24)
"We
- are followed by a string of bebop syllables:
Oop-pop-a-da!
Skee! Daddle-de-do!
Be -bop!
Salt'
peanuts!
De-dop!
In "Children's
(lines 25-29).
Rhymes." Hughes seems
to exhaust the extent to
irony that lies beneath the African-American experience.
Even
which he could portray the dark
the very idea that the
focus on children's rhymes and the time of childhood as an idyllic experience, as the
suggests,
is
it
will
title
undercut by the fact that African-American children are reminded from an early age
of the limitations
poem,
poem
seems
that are
that
imposed upon them by the color of their
skin.
Indeed, by the end of the
Hughes has few coping mechanisms other than those of the jazz musician,
so
he turns to bebop syllables, seemingly as meaningless as "peanuts" (line 28), but actually a
portrayal of the
"MAD crazy, SAD crazy, FRANTIC WILD CRAZY"
freedom because of melanin (Hughes
In a
manner
qtd. in
Lowney
similar to his repeated use of
that
would deny any
child
368).
bebop
syllables,
Hughes
calls
elements of boogie-woogie established in "Dream Boogie" - including, as
"the boogie-woogie rhythm" - in five other boogie-woogie
upon the
Lowney
points out.
poems before Montage ends
(371
).
At times, the diction of Hughes's boogie-woogie poems blatantly describes the characteristics of
boogie-woogie music. For example,
Down
in the
bass
That steady beat
in the first
stanza of "Easy Boogie,"
Hughes
writes:
43
Walking walking walking
Like marching
I
feet, (lines 1-4)
lughes employs yet again the boogie-woogie rhythm of dotted-eighth sixteenths in the third
Note how "Walking walking walking" of
of
line 3 in
all
"Dream Boogie," which
line 3
has the same rhythm as "boogie-woogie rumble"
also uses the dotted-eighth sixteenth note rhythm.
Further,
four of the lines quoted above describe an ostinato, the left-hand bass part that a jaz^ pianist
would employ
in a
boogie-woogie piece (Hughes. First
"Riffs, smears, breaks" (line 9).
Not only does
27).
Later in the poem, Hughes writes,
the line serve as a poetic
- indented further than the other stanzas, as the jazz breaks were in
but
line.
it
also literally states the musical qualities that a jazz break
At other times, Hughes returns
explicit, instead, relying
woogie poem(s),
riff (81
In this
).
a technique
posed
to the
"Boogie:
1
Meta Du Ewa Jones
to the next
/
1
you hear what
said?" as a
1
daddy of "Dream Boogie."
a.m.," however,
know
Hughes
this
is
in
1-2).
call
that are not so
of a musical
and response from
"Easy Boogie." Hughes
"Hey,
writes,
the rhetorical question
time referring to the mother instead (lines 10-11). In
in
upon the
textual melodic structure established
"Dream Boogie" by
By
the time
we
saying:
have
lines 2-4).
now
"heard
/
"Good evening,
reach "Boogie:
"Dream Boogie" has changed,
certain that African- Americans
dream deferred" ("Dream Boogie"
In
manner of riffing upon
directly calls
you've heard" (lines
of the musical question presented
a.m."
ways
in
classifies as "the poetic equivalent
(Borshuk 86)
by the rhetorical questioning of the daddy
daddy!
would have.
way, the boogie-woogie poems serve as an intertextual
Mama / Do
as well -
upon poetic improvisation by using diction from the preceding boogie-
one boogie-woogie poem
Lawdy,
"Dream Boogie"
elements of boogie-woogie
to the
example of a jazz break
[t]he
1
a.m.," the perception
for the speaker of "Boogie:
boogie-woogie rumble
With the appearance of Montage's
woogie poem, "Dream Boogie: Variation," African- Americans
realize they are a
final
/
[o]f a
boogie-
"few minutes
1
44
late
/
[f|or the
Freedom
appearance of what
is
Train"' (lines 11-12).
this point,
poem
arguably the most well-known
montage and the musical jam
the course of the poetic
In
By
I
lughes has prepared readers for the
in
Montage, "Harlem," which
session.
"Harlem." Hughes poses his famous rhetorical question: "What happens
deferred?" (line
But because the poem
1 ).
Montage, most readers do not realize
question posed in
"Dream Boogie."
Does
more questions:
sun?
like a
meat?
and sugar over
syrupy sweet?
Maybe
it
just sags
heavy
Or does
it
load.
explode? (lines 2-11)
the raisin, the meat, and the syrupy sweet
is
as a result of the original rhetorical
Ultimately, the question only begets
stink like rotten
it
crust
like a
heavy load
comes
original context within
its
then run?
Does
Of course,
that this question
dream
fester like a sore
And
Or
often canonized without
to a
dry up
it
like a raisin in the
Or
is
alters
all
provide an image of decay, and the
described as nothing less than burdensome. In each of these images, the African-
American must succumb
silently to the effects
the veneration of passivity in
of his dream being deferred, hearkening back to
poems from The New Negro. Yet Hughes
African Americans have tried to repress has manifested
itself,
predicts that what
instead, in tension that can
no
45
longer be sublimated - an idea that
is
reflected in the poem's repeated use of questions.
1
lughes
introduces one tension-building inquiry after another, while never answering any of them.
tension reaches
explode?"' (line
its
1
1
climax
).
in the
The poem's
African-American dream, one
the return of the repressed
psyche
last
final question,
community
like
asks,
"O does
it
query presents an entirely different effect of the deferred
that brings with
that
when Hughes
it
all
the devastating impacts of Freud's theories of
what has been shoved from the collective African- American
an act of self-preservation will invariably manifest
in
impudent
-
poem's
The
itself in
some
other form.
In a
1940s Harlem, "marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and
interjections,'*
Hughes
predicts that the effects of prolonged repression could be
devastating (Montage 387).
Musically speaking, through improvisation that has taken place throughout the jam
session, the original musical question has
the deferral of the African-American
point out that by the time
rhetorical question, the
In a
musical sense,
we
in
"Dream
Boogie'" ends Montage.
poem: "Good morning, daddy!
opening
history.
Many
critics
rather than resolving the tension created by the initial
same question posed
repetition of the collection's
as have the questions regarding
dream throughout black American
Montage ends,
in "Island," the collection's final
circle.
become more complex,
lines (lines 11-12).
/
Ain't
Ultimately,
Hughes
you heard 9 " -
writes
a verbatim
Hughes has brought us
full
could say that by the time the jam session ends, the musicians
have not resolved the dissonance of suspended jazz chords - an atonal technique
common
in
Modernist forms of jazz, such as bebop. Similarly, the black community has found no resolution
to the original question
While
all
Hughes poses regarding
of the poems
in
the deferral of the African-American dream.
Montage do not have an obvious musical undertone, each poem
plays an integral part in completing both the artistic montage and the musical
collection.
jam
session of the
Contributing to the recurring motif of the deferred African- American dream,
many of
46
the
poems
dream on
portray African-Americans facing the deferral of their
Perhaps the strongest example of this
famous poem. "Theme
the
is
first-person speaker, often thought of as
Hughes himself,
is
a personal level
for English B," in
which the
a black student in the class of a white
English professor. The student speaks of the deferred African- American dream in terms of the
racial discrimination
So
he faces. Hughes writes:
will
my
page be colored
Being me,
it
But
be
it
a part
You
will
that
I
write?
will not be white.
of you,
instructor.
white-
are
yet a part of
me. as
1
am
a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you
Nor do
we
But
As
1
I
I
want
be a part of me.
are, that's true!
learn
from you,
guess you learn from
and somewhat more
me
— and white
free, (lines
27-40)
of the speaker and the professor both being a part of each other,
transcendental oversoul and are reminded of the
poems, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and
lies just
to
often want to be a part of you.
although you're older
In the idea
don't
beneath the surface of the words
poems, and
it
seems
as
though Hughes
in
"I,
think of the
Whitmanesque speaker of Hughes's
Too.'"
"Theme
may even
we
Yet there
is
for English
a
earlier
more subversive message
B" than
that
existed in his earlier
be mocking his earlier idealistic Whitmanesque
47
portrayals of African- American reality,
which he has since replaced with
a
more
cynical, less
assimilated outlook.
In fact, the
poem can
also be read as a critique of the
says, in the case of both the speaker
American melting
and the professor, "neither group relishes the
"experiences interpenetrate, are defined one by the other'" (75). Yet as
though
pot.
Lowney
As Jemie
idea" that their
points out, even
their experiences overlap,
the "writer" of this
worldview of his
"theme" cannot
instructor'"
and
fully identify
ironically, "the formal discourse
composition distances him from Harlem as well
establishes a
"common ground" between
"Bessie, bop, or Bach,"
its
Lowney goes on
ironic to ignore" (377).
is
contesting the ideologies of Locke
.
.].
Du
student and instructor in the music of
Hughes shows
of
'I
guess' and
to resonate
how
the
'somewhat more
free' is
too
the flaws of an assimilationist philosophy,
whose approval of conflating Anglo forms with African-
Boisian propaganda
is
amongst other voices
in
pot.
Further.
not an answer to the race problem.
allows the voice of this student, a realistic portrayal of the
academe,
this
While the poem
American poetic content aligns with the problematic idea of the melting
proves, yet again, that
of
hardly based on social equality. (377)
to say, "the accentuation
Ultimately,
[.
subtle conclusion underscores
interdependency of 'we two'
Indeed, as
himself with the intellectual
life
of a black student
in
Hughes
Instead, he
white
Montage, portraying the African-American
existence without propaganda.
Through these personal
racial injustice into tangible
ways. Musically speaking,
portrayals,
Hughes
is
able to transform the abstract concept of
mistreatment that affects African-Americans
all
in
very
real,
personal
of these portrayals complete the jam session by serving as textual
improvisation upon the main musical theme, as presented in
"Dream Boogie" -
the deferred
48
African-American dream. Just as the
unrelated pictures, and the
is
jam
artistic
session
montage
is
incomplete without
all
the seemingly
incomplete without each of the musical movements, so
is
Hughes's poetic Montage incomplete without both abstract and personal portrayals of the
deferred African- American dream. Similarly, the merging of the personal and the abstract
contribute to Hughes's sense of vocal multiplicity.
Hughes's involvement
vision; that
is,
in poetry-to-jazz
readings also reflects his multi-voiced
he valued jazz's musical voice as
much
as he valued
its
artistic
poetic voice. Poetry-to-
jazz readings allowed him to bring the two voices together - putting them in dialogue with one
another - as he read his poetry to the accompaniment of jazz musicians. But his readings also
elucidate
how Hughes viewed
compilation entitled
the relationship
between jazz as music and jazz as poetry.
"Dream Montage,"* Hughes
Morning,"* "Harlem,"*
"Same
in Blues,"
Leonard Feather and Charles Mingus.
s
reads four of Montage's final poems, 'Good
and "Comment on Curb,"'
between
his
to the
accompaniment of
Analyzing the correlations between the poems, Hughes's
reading, and the musicians' performance helps to shed light on the
the relationship
In a
spoken-word poetry and musical
way
in
which Hughes viewed
jazz.
"Dream Montage"" begins with Hughes reading "Good
Morning."" The percussion enters,
followed by the double bass, which plays the bass line that serves as the foundation for the main
musical theme. Nine seconds into the piece, the main musical theme, comprised of smooth,
swung jazz, begins when Hughes
says the
importance of the poems' racial message
unaltered until
wide-eyed
away from
5
/
Hughes changes
word
"colored,"* musically underscoring the
(line 4).
his verbal
The main theme continues and
rhythm when he reads the indented
is
lines,
nearly
"wondering
dreaming'* (lines 18-20). At this point, the musical accompaniment gradually
the
See Appendix
main theme throughout
I
for the complete text of the
the remainder of the
poems.
poem and completely
/
moves
stops by the
49
time Hughes says "gate," musically underscoring the meaning of "bars
/
at
each gate" (lines
24-25).
As Hughes begins
his reading
of "Harlem," the musical accompaniment has completely
abandoned the main musical theme, posing
question,
"What happens
dream deferred?"
to a
rhetorical question with additional ones, so
they just presented.
The musicians
nature of the questions
Hughes
sun?," the pianist releases the
2-3).
damper
augments the rhythm
As Hughes
says.
"And
riff
/
like a
Hughes builds upon
Just as
that
and vary the musical structure
"Does
it
in
accordance with the
dry up
/
like a raisin in the
pedal, altering the smooth, resonant nature of the music
of the piano part since the poem's
first
slightly before returning to the original
rhetorical question; the
music
at
hand
(lines
then run?." the piano player slightly varies the melodic line with an
After posing the question, "Does
(line 5).
meat?." the lower brass improvises a glissando, which
of the smell of "rotten meat" (line
-
1 ).
Hughes's rhetorical
do the musicians build upon the musical question
improvised run that moves toward the treble
like rotten
(line
poses. After the question,
that has characterized the majority
pianist then
a musical question to imitate
6).
When Hughes
is
it
stink
a synesthetic representation
asks the question. "Or crust and sugar over
syrupy sweet?," the woodwind plays an improvised segment over the other musical
instrumentation (lines 7-8).
the musical
Moving toward
the lines,
accompaniment builds tension through
"Maybe
it
just sags
/
like a
heavy load,"
the use of dissonant chord structures,
first
with the piano and then with the other instruments as well (lines 9-10). The tension intensifies
until the
music
calls for
some type of release. Rather than resolving
the musical tension by
returning to the tonic chord, the musicians end the reading of '"Harlem" with an explosion of
brass, improvisation
coincides with
by the percussionist, and dissonant tone clusters on the piano,
Hughes
asking,
"Or does
it
explode 9 " (line 11)
In this
all
of which
way. the musical
50
accompaniment predicts the impeding explosion
deterred African-American dream
Moving
into the
theme established
in
in
"Good Morning."
come about
if
the tension of the
unresolved.
is left
poem, "Same
that will
Blues," the musical accompaniment returns to the main
In the indented, italicized riffs that refer to "Harlem,"' the
musical structure again parallels Hughes's poetic language.
When
the idea of "traveling"
is
mentioned, the saxophone improvises a melodic structure that travels away from the established
melody
is
(line 6).
states,
("Same
in
Hughes
says,
"my
/amount of impotence
"[#] certain
Hughes
After
"There
's
in
liable /to be confusion /in
to the
main theme
is
through," and presents the idea that there
a dream deferred'' the music stops
Blues" lines 18-21, 26-28). At
and does not return
lovin' days
a dream deferred,"
this point, the
until
music
itself
Hughes moves toward
briefly.
that the
It is
not until
music resumes
seems, in a way, confused
the final
poem, "Comment on
Curb." The track ends with a suspended jazz chord and Hughes's repetition of the word
"Harlem" - elongated with each
repetition to serve as rhythmic augmentation
and also to
emphasize the increasingly problematic nature of the deferred African- American dream
("Comment"
in
line 7).
Just as
Hughes's poetic jam session
an unresolved manner, so too do the musicians
in
in
Montage of a Dream Deferred ends
Hughes's poetry-to-jazz reading leave the
suspended jazz chords unresolved, uniting the poetry on the page with the spoken word
in
both
thematic intent and jazzy qualities. With questions begetting more questions, tension begetting
more
tension.
problem happens
Hughes reminds us
that
to a
that although art
even beneath happy jazz there
can be transcendent,
is still
a sad voice in
it
cannot solve the race
Harlem asking, "What
dream deferred?," another voice responding. "Ain't you heard?"
51
Epilogue
Unlike Locke and
and the
intellectual,
class blacks
who
Du
Bois
who spoke
Hughes embraced vocal
shared a
common
multiplicity.
characteristic: they
commonality did not keep Hughes from realizing
Hughes
to write in multiple voices
could write
ain't
in dialect
been no crystal
their
His
artistic vision
were not afraid
to
focused on lower-
be themselves. But
this
complexity - a complexity that required
even when he portrayed a single group of people. Hughes
when he captured
stair"
only portraying the assimilated
in a singular voice,
("Mother"
the voice of the
mother who
me
her son, "Life for
Yet he could also use standard English when he
line 2).
represented the voice of the poor and struggling college student in
"Theme
of course, he could portray the plight of the lower class through their
What Hughes accomplished through
tells
own
and
for English B,"
folk idioms.
his multi-voiced artistic vision
is
exactly what Zadie
Smith, the award-winning Jamaican-English novelist and modern-day public intellectual, had in
mind when she wrote "Speaking
meant
to
in
Tongues,"
be unchanging and similar" (par.
4).
in
which she contests the idea
Instead, she says, "In our artists
many-colored voice, the multiple sensibility" and the
26, 29).
Her essay
is,
in essence,
that "[v]oices are
ability to
we
"speak simultaneous truths"
succumb
to the
"concept of a unified black voice" (24). This concept, she explains, "has filtered
community
original intention of
(par.
an analysis of Barack Qbama's success with the American
people, which she attributes to his vocal multiplicity, his refusal to
the black
look for the
at all levels, settling itself in that
which was unification"
(24).
down
impossible injunction 'keep
So. too, do
we
see that
erroneous
it
[.
real,'
.
.]
into
the
when Locke and Du
Bois called for a "unified black voice," they also longed tor "unification," not only amongst
blacks, but between blacks and whites as well (24). But echoing
what Hughes said nearly a
century earlier. Smith goes on to point out that "unifying] the concept of Blackness
strengthen
it"
only "confined and restricted
it" (24).
In the case
of Locke and
Du
in
order to
Bois, they
52
way
""confined and restricted" black art in a
that actually reiterated
white standards and gave
whites a fabricated view of the black experience, which could only lead to fleeting and false
unification, if
it
led to
it
at all (24).
Yet Hughes recognized and sought
1
associated with a "unified black voice"
the
low-down
folks through their
their happiness
and
own
their sadness (24).
when he
to
avoid the risks
centered his artistic vision on jazz, portraying
multi-voiced musical creation, telling the story of both
The lower
classes
may
not have spoken with voices that
whites admired, but for Hughes, "speak[ing| simultaneous truths" was more important than
gaining false unification; his unassimilated, complex truths provided the only hope of blacks
being accepted for themselves - maybe not in his lifetime, out perhaps
then,
Hughes would continue
to believe in "the blare
we know how, and we
ourselves" ("Negro Artist" 1314).
Until
of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing
voice of Bessie Smith singing Blues," and he would continue
tomorrow, strong as
in the future (29).
to say.
"We
build our temples for
stand on top of the mountain, free within
53
Appendix
I
"Dream Montage"
"Good Morning"
Good morning, daddy!
was born here, he said,
watched Harlem grow
I
until
colored folks spread
from
river to river
across the middle of Manhattan
out of Penn Station
dark tenth of a nation.
planes from Puerto Rico,
and holds of boats, chico,
up from Cuba Haiti Jamaica,
in buses marked New York
from Georgia Florida Louisiana Arkansas
to Harlem Brooklyn the Bronx
Harlem
dusky sash across Manhattan
I've seen them come dark
wondering
but most of
all to
wide-eyed
dreaming
out of Penn Station
but the trains are
The gates
are
late.
open
Yet there're bars
at
each gate.
"Harlem"
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the
Or
sun?
fester like a sore
And
then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar overlike a
syrupy sweet?
Maybe
like a
it
just sags
heavy load.
Or does
it
explode?
54
"Same
I
Blues"
in
said to
my
Baby, take
baby.
it
slow.
she said,
I
can't,
I
got to go!
I
can't!
There 's a certain
amount of traveling
in a dream deferred.
to Leonard
want a diamond ring.
Leonard said to Lulu,
Lulu said
I
You
won't get a dadblame thing!
A
certain
amount of nothing
in a dream deferred.
Daddy, daddy, daddy.
I want is you.
All
You can have me. baby
but
my
lovin'
A
days
is
through.
certain
amount of impotence
in a dream deferred.
Three parties
On my
party line
But that third party.
Lord,
ain't
mine!
There's liable
to
he confusion
in
a dream deferred.
From river to river.
Uptown and down,
There's liable to be confusion
when
a
dream
gets kicked around.
55
"Comment on Curb"
You
talk like
they don't kiek
dreams around
downtown.
/
expect they
do-
But I'm talking about
Harlem
Harlem,
Harlem,
Harlem.
to
you!
56
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