Reflection Of Jazz In The Poetry Of Langston Hughes

Jazz initially began in the south among African American. It wasn’t till the 1920s when it began to become famous. Many of the whites at that time referred to the music as “nigger music”. Jazz was part of the black culture. During the migration era when the blacks began to move up north, jazz was mixed with the white culture. It was in that time when

Hughes was a great writer with much diversity in his types of writings. His poetry was a way for us to see a picture of urban life during the Harlem Renaissance, the habits, attitudes, and feelings of his oppressed people. These poems did more than reveal the pain of poverty, it also illustrated racial pride and dignity. “His main concern was the uplift of his people, whose strengths, resiliency, courage, and humor he wanted to record as part of the general American experience” (Wikipedia, Langston Hughes). Hughes was not ashamed of his heritage and his main theme, “black is beautiful,” was expressed and shared to the world through his poetry. During the literary movement, music was central to the cultural movement of the Harlem Renaissance, which was a main feature of Hughes’s poetry. He had an important technical influence by his emphasis on folk, jazz, and blues rhythms as the basis of his poetry of racial pride. Hughes used this unique style of writing because it was important to him to have the readers feel and experience what they were reading, “to recognize the covert rhetoric in lyric means to appreciate the overlap between emotive and discursive poetry. Rooted in song, the lyric reestablishes the ritual of human communion” (Miller 52).

A huddle of horns And a tinkle of glass A note Handed down from Marcus to Malcolm To a brother Too bad and too cool to give his name. Sometimes despair Makes the stoops shudder Sometimes there are endless depths of pain Singing a capella on street corners

The Harlem Renaissance celebrated their culture and was flourishing in African American art, literature and music. Like Langston Hughes who wrote his first award winning poetry, “The Weary Blues (1926); which caught a lot of support. Later his poem turned into jazz music, which brought him instant success, and his jazz and blues fits in variety of changing mood. He was a talented youngster who knew how to write poetry and create music that captures the attentions of the people who loves music.

During the 1920s, New orleans was in the spotlight. This wonderful place wasn’t famous for its crazy food and funny broadcast however, but for its amazing music. Louisiana had delivered soul through their musical talents and showed something new. Infact the people would gather around bars and clubs just to hear it. Jazz music originated in New Orleans around the beginning of the 20th century and subsequently developed through various styles and exciting tempos. The life of Jazz during this period was a spectacular moment in history, due to the culture it brought, the impact of Louis Armstrong, and the excitement it gave to Louisiana.

     Jazz music is a blending of both black and white tradition and heritages. New Orleans was the center of many different ethnicities, such as French, Spanish, American, and African

Developed in the early 19th and 20th centuries, Jazz is a genre of music that originated in New Orleans among the African American culture. The 1920’s became known as the as the Jazz age, making jazz acknowledged as a form of musical expression. New Orleans played a great role in the evolution of jazz music in the 20th century. At this time, the people of New Orleans hailed from many different cultures. As new settlers arrived in New Orleans, musical traditions from all over the world began to unite. African American musicians merged European musical tradition with such music as blues, ragtime, and marching band to create a new style of music—jazz. (Haber, 2016).

As black artists merged the rhythms and feelings of West African music with the emotions of blues and ideas of ragtime and new type of music began to emerge from the South. With an eclectic mix of races, class and urban and rural environments, New Orleans came to be the center of early jazz development. The eventual explosion of jazz in the 1920s was foreshadowed by the quick rise to popularity jazz experienced in the city. Jazz music provided black artists with a possibility of relatively steady employment and eventually facilitated the dispersion of black culture throughout America. As jazz rose to popularity there was certainly a great deal of resistance on both musical and racial levels. Fearing perversions of moral and musical ideals, many whites resisted jazz initially. Once jazz experienced an increase in popularity revisionist histories appeared, removing black contribution or playing up white roles in the development of jazz. Segregation still appeared frequently as black bands could not get jobs playing to white

     Jazz music is often associated with long, lazy melodies and ornate rhythmical patterns. The Blues, a type of jazz, also follows this similar style. Langston Hughes' poem, "The Weary Blues," is no exception. The sound qualities that make up Hughes' work are intricate, yet quite apparent. Hughes' use of consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and rhyme in "The Weary Blues" gives the poem a deep feeling of sorrow while, at the same time, allows the reader to feel as if he or she is actually listening to the blues sung by the poem's character.

“Jazz is the first true art form to come from the soil of America”, Winton Marsalis made this claim in the film Jazz by Ken Burns. Jazz would be born here in America after the fall of slavery. The interactions between previously enslaved peoples and the rest of society gave the breeding ground for a mixture of cultures and music styles. The city which was most clearly known for the mixing of cultures after the Civil war was New Orleans. In New Orleans the primary cultures and ethnicities seen included: Caucasians, Africans, Caribbean people, and Creoles, i.e. multiracial Africans. Within the mixing of cultures came the mixing of music styles as well. Two of the styles of music which added to the development and birth of jazz were the blues and ragtime. I argue that Jazz as a genre was a coalition between two popular forms of music, blues and ragtime. These two genres created jazz together through their origins, musical characteristics, and large number of performers.

Jazz is an improvisational art of music that all began in New Orleans, it stemmed from a mixture of blues and African American minstrels and folk songs which is considered as “Rag Time”; this style was born in the 1890’s. Also, we find that the abolition of slavery plays a big part in what jazz is today, slaves used to sing the blues as an uplifting tune to get them through the hot hard working days in the fields. Blues musicians wanted to deepen their dynamics so they started playing it with horns included, giving it an uplifting tone. Most Creole artist mixed classical music and blues.

Credited as being the most recognizable figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes played a vital role in the Modernist literary movement and the movement to revitalize African American culture in the early 20th century. Hughes’s poems reflect his personal struggle and the collective struggle of African Americans during this cultural revival.

“Jazz music is America 's past and its potential, summed up and sanctified and accessible to anybody who learns to listen to, feel, and understand it. The music can connect us to our earlier selves and to our better selves-to-come. It can remind us of where we fit on the timeline of human achievement, an ultimate value of art.” -Wynton Marsalis. Jazz was born in the United States, to be precise it was born in New Orleans. Jazz has a big part in the world’s history and is a part of their culture now. In order to fully understand jazz one must look into the history of jazz, important people in the jazz world, how Disney played a part of jazz, why jazz was such a big deal, the future of jazz, and how it still makes an impacted on a lot of people today. Jazz music created a new way for the African American to express themselves in a time where they were treated as unequal.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement and the enlightenment of black minds as a whole. This movement sparked the minds of many leaders such as Marcus Garvey, W.E.B Dubois, and Langston Hughes, these men would also come to be known as the earliest Civil Rights activists. While Garvey and Dubois expressed their views in speeches and rallies Hughes had a different approach and chose to articulate his thoughts and views through literature more specifically poetry. Through his poetry, Hughes became a world renown poet for such works as “Let America Be America Again”, “Harlem” and “I Too” taken from his first book “The Weary Blues.” These poems while written and inspired by the everyday struggles of being an African-American were arguably targeted at white Americans. Hughes wrote a majority of his work during the Harlem Renaissance and as a result focused on “injustice” and “change” in the hopes that society would recognize their mistake and reconcile, but in order for this to happen he would have to target the right audience.

Jazz is a style of music that originated in blues. At the beginning of the 20th century, African America, who were slaves in that time singing chant in the farm to pick cotton for encouraging themselves working harder. New Orleans is the place, which jazz was born that many famous singers are also born in New Orleans such as Louis Armstrong. As we know that common instruments used in jazz music are trumpet, piano and saxophone.