scholarly journals Sonny in the Dark: Jazzing the Blues Spirit and the Gospel Truth in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 164-178
Author(s):  
Steven C. Tracy
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Music ◽  
Artistic Expression ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
American Life ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Musical Genres ◽  
Holistic Vision

The webs of musical connection are essential to the harmony and cohesion of James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.” As a result, we must explore the spectrum of musical references Baldwin makes to unveil their delicate conjunctions. It is vital to probe the traditions of African-American music—Spirituals, Blues, Jazz, and Pop—to get a more comprehensive sense of how Baldwin makes use of music from the sacred and secular continuum in the African-American community. Looking more closely at the variety of African-American musical genres to which Baldwin refers in the story, we can discern even more the nuances of unity that Baldwin creates in his story through musical allusions, and shed greater light on Baldwin’s exploration of the complexities of African-American life and music, all of which have as their core elements of human isolation, loneliness, and despair ameliorated by artistic expression, hope, and the search for familial ties. Through musical intertextuality, Baldwin demonstrates not only how closely related seemingly disparate (in the Western tradition) musical genres are, but also shows that the elements of the community that these genres flow from and represent are much more in synchronization than they sometimes seem or are allowed to be. To realize kinship across familial (Creole), socio-economic (the brother), and most importantly for this paper appreciation and meanings of musical genres advances to Sonny the communal cup of trembling that is both a mode and an instance of envisioning and treating music in its unifying terms, seeing how they coalesce through a holistic vision.

Soundscapes of Liberation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celeste Day Moore
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Music ◽  
French Empire ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
Musical Genres ◽  
Radio Programs ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Personal Success

In Soundscapes of Liberation, Celeste Day Moore traces the popularization of African American music in postwar France, where it signaled new forms of power and protest. Moore surveys a wide range of musical genres, soundscapes, and media: the US military's wartime records and radio programs; the French record industry's catalogs of blues, jazz, and R&B recordings; the translations of jazz memoirs; a provincial choir specializing in spirituals; and US State Department-produced radio programs that broadcast jazz and gospel across the French empire. In each of these contexts, individual intermediaries such as educators, producers, writers, and radio deejays imbued African American music with new meaning, value, and political power. Their work resonated among diverse Francophone audiences and transformed the lives and labor of many African American musicians, who found financial and personal success as well as discrimination in France. By showing how the popularity of African American music was intertwined with contemporary structures of racism and imperialism, Moore demonstrates this music's centrality to postwar France and the convergence of decolonization, the expanding globalized economy, the Cold War, and worldwide liberation movements.

7. Hybrid sounds

2020 ◽  
pp. 100-113
Author(s):  
Charles Reagan Wilson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American South ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
American Music ◽  
Southern Culture ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Southern Music ◽  
The American South ◽  
Minstrel Shows ◽  
Musical Genres

‘Hybrid sounds’ highlights southern music. The first association of music with the American South came from the presence of African American slaves. The pre-Civil War blackface minstrel shows displayed southern connections in its imagery of the plantation. After emancipation, African Americans gained employment in such groups as the Georgia Minstrels, as they moved to New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis, where they adopted the trumpet, the piano, and other instruments that soon became familiar in the music of black southerners. Sacred music, blues music, jazz, and folk music were all important musical genres which shaped Southern culture and the importance of the commercialization of African American music played a role.

scholarly journals Stanley Péan et l’interculturalité en diaspora

Il Tolomeo ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiana Fianco
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
American Music ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
African American Music ◽  
Intercultural Exchange ◽  
Young Writer

In spite of being viewed as a young writer until the ’90s, Stanley Péan is now known as one of the most distinctive and established voices in the Haitian-Canadian literary scene. The pivotal moment in his career happened in 1996, when Zombi Blues was published. This novel displays a cultural space in which Haitian traditions and Canadian modernity converge and allow intercultural exchange to take place. Drawing from this perspective, the following article aims to analyse how Péan creates a fictional universe through the blending of cultural elements. Using the collection of myths and beliefs that permeate the Haitian and African cultural panorama as a reference point, we will investigate the ways in which Péan adapted and transposed these traditions to the Haitian diasporic context. Particular attention will be given to the use of jazz and African American music, as well as to the reinterpretation of mythological creatures such as the zombie and the marasa twins. Hence, the article tries to show how Péan’s cultural crossroad contributes to the foundation of a new literary interpretation of Haitianity.

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