Blues Songs Throughout The Play example essay topic

The Influence of "Black" Music on Literature One of the best methods for examining the characteristics of a culture is to study the art it produces. Over the years, "black" music has served as a cultural guideline to the ever-changing American popular culture. From yesterday's blues to today's hip-hop, "black" music has evolved many times over helping create the culture we know today. No better way to witness this evolution than to experience the music of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

Fusing influences like the blues and avant-garde jazz, they offer an accurate glimpse into the past and future. The Dirty Dozen's performance is an appropriate example of the influential connection the elements of "black" music share with other artistic genres, especially literature. The Dirty Dozen's music possesses an intoxicating effect that absolutely absorbs the listener. One of the major characteristics of "black" music is this capability of drawing the listener in. It can best be explained by the idea of "soul."Soul" is a feeling of genuineness, a sensation that goes straight to the heart.

In his book, The Reluctant Art, Benny Green depicts Billie Holiday as "one of the most remarkable natural musicians jazz has seen" (936). She possessed an innate ability to mesmerize her audiences, almost from the first word. In one of her strongest songs, "Strange Fruit", Holiday sings of a lynched man. The emotion in her voice captivates the listener, forcing him to focus on the harrowing images she describes.

The song is a powerful protest to the pain and suffering African Americans were forced endure. Blues songs often chronicle the same feelings of adversity. The blues originated from work songs slaves sang in the fields. These songs offered them a means of emotional release. The Dirty Dozen played a few blues songs during their performance.

Serving as the group's only vocalist, the tuba player filled the theatre with his deep, bass voice, even without any help from a microphone. The man reminded me a lot of Troy in August Wilson's Fences. Troy is conveyed as a large man with a big voice. He is constantly singing blues songs throughout the play. To him, these songs are a means of remembering the past. In the preface to Three Plays, Wilson describes the blues "as a cultural response of a non literate people whose history and culture was rooted in the oral tradition" (565).

Of course, the slaves were denied the right of an education so the blues was all the history they owned. Wilson found inspiration in these historic songs, one of the main reasons he began to write. Growing up an African American in "separate but equal" America, the blues offered something Wilson could relate to and be proud of. The music of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey was the "beginning of my consciousness that I was a representative of a culture", Wilson states on page 564.

He believed that like the blues men, he, too, could write stories that stressed the cultural flashpoints that pertained to African American life in America. Wilson's plays deal with issues common to any individual; however, he presents the story from an African American's perspective. In this way he challenged the conventions of modern literature. The writers of the Black Renaissance period also challenged the conventions of modern literature.

They choose to avoid standard grammatical rules as an expression of literary freedom. They believed these rules put restrictions on what they believed was boundless art. Etheridge Knight was one of the for bearers of this newfound freedom. In "Idea of Ancestry" he describes the weight of his drug addiction on his relationship with his family. He wants so much to "kick it with the kinfolks", but simply cannot refuse the cravings of his addiction (27).

Knight uses abbreviations and slashes to separate the frantic ramblings of his "junked up" persona. This technique informs the reader of the tenacious cravings of his addiction. The world of jazz can be directly linked to this idea of resisting conventional rules. The early practitioners of avant-garde pushed the boundaries of modern jazz. Around the early 1960's jazz pioneers like John Coltrane and Miles Davis started incorporating long, free form jams into their sets.

Pre-avant-garde jazz is known for its improvisation, but only an individual soloist was given the freedom to improvise. However, in avant-garde possibilities were endless: no chord progressions, no time signatures, only space. Each musician was given the freedom to follow his or her own heart. Many critics believed this style was complete rubbish; however, avant-garde proved to be the evolution of jazz and became a highly influential art form.

Some of the Dirty Dozen's strongest jams were of this form. Rules and restrictions are only a means of categorizing a work. The nature of art is about challenging what came before it, and as a result creating something new. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band was a genuinely eye opening experience for me. I never would have believed instrumental music could be so emotionally engulfing. I felt the same feelings I did when I first heard Bessie Smith's "Strange Fruit".

Researching for this paper made me realize the true reciprocating influence that art possesses. "Each art evolves from another", quotes O'Meally in his Preface to The Jazz Cadence of American Culture. This idea is what art is all about. However, there is a bit of irony in the observations of this paper.

It is hard to believe the degree of influence "black" art has played in the formation of modern American culture when you consider the oppression African Americans were forced to endure throughout their history. It goes to show the genuine strength and will of a people to not only survive but also flourish.