The World of Jazz

Paper Summary:

The following paper examines how jazz has influences far beyond the world of music. It discusses the way in which jazz had an indirect influence on American writers, especially black writers, but also writers of all ethnicities and races . References are made to Ellison's, 'The Invisible Man,' 'Huggins,' 'Voices from the Harlem Renaissance,''The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes' and Toni Morrison's 'Jazz' among others.

From the Paper:

"In order to understand the ways in which the world of "black" music influenced writers both black and otherwise, we must have some sense of the astonishing degree of both productivity and creativity that defined the Harlem Renaissance. It was a moment in American history when the growth in the size and literacy of the urban black populace stimulated cultural and intellectual activity. Newspapers and magazines published by blacks appeared in all substantial black communities. The composers Scott Joplin, W. C. Handy, and J. Rosamond Johnson, brother of the writer James Weldon Johnson, and the poet-novelist Paul Laurence Dunbar were among the black artists who achieved prominence at the turn of the century. Numerous other musicians and writers labored more to meld Western musical styles with a variety of rhythmic and melodic forms rooted in Africa and in slavery to create African-American jazz."

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