Dendy Farrar
Dr. Craig White
LITR 5535
3 July 2002  

The Importance of Music during the Harlem Renaissance

I.  Introduction

I have always been fascinated by the music, art, and literature of the Harlem Renaissance.  This period in our nation’s history is so rich with culture and artistic expression.  When I sat down and brainstormed as to a suitable topic for my research journal I immediately knew that I wanted to research some aspect of the Harlem Renaissance.  I knew that I would enjoy learning more about this period in which I have always been so intrigued.  I decided to focus my research on the music of the Harlem Renaissance because it appeared to me that that aspect of the movement was not given enough study.  I decided to begin my research journey at the university library.  I found two very interesting books dealing strictly with the influence of music during the Harlem Renaissance.  I found these works to be very helpful and my exploration had thus begun!  Next, I surfed the web and found several related sites that would prove to be extremely beneficial in my quest for interesting research.  Next, I found some literary criticism that supported my research topic.  I began to see a common thread in all of these pieces of research – music was at the center of the cultural and historical movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.  I wanted to learn more about the actual music of the Harlem Renaissance, and more specifically its influences on people of the time.  The following is an overview of the information I gathered in my research from all of my sources.

II.  Overview

The Harlem Renaissance is undoubtedly one of the most interesting, exotic, and artistic periods in our nation’s history.  This period has been treated primarily as a literary movement with occasional asides to the music and artwork of the time.  Music, however, was much more important to the movement then has been implied.  In fact, the Harlem Renaissance was supported and accompanied by music.  Many artists in areas other than music looked to music for inspiration and guidance as to the kind of progress they should be making.  Music has been dubbed by some scholars as the “pathfinder of the Renaissance”.  However, with the focus mainly on literature, black music has been taken for granted and has not been seen as a central part of the Renaissance.  Music, however, influenced the cultural expressions of the Harlem Renaissance in innumerable ways. 

III.                  Book Reviews

New Negroes and Their Music – Jon Michael Spencer

Jon Michael Spencer’s book, New Negroes and Their Music is a reaction to literary scholars who saw the Harlem Renaissance a failure and who did not give the music of the period enough credit.  Instead, Spencer asserts that music had an integral effect on Renaissance philosophy and practice.  Spencer spends some time in his introductory chapters recounting the “Old Negro” verses the “New Negro” idea.  The “Old Negro” was the popular white view of African Americans as being criminal, immoral, and mentally inferior.  The “New Negro” was the Renaissance man or woman who sought to displace the old, stereotypical views of African Americans.  Many techniques and conventions were created during this time to help erase these negative views of the “Old Negro”.  A popular technique arose among artists of the Renaissance – treating blackness or darkness as good, and brightness or whiteness as bad.  This challenged all previous conventions and made for some groundbreaking music, literature, and artwork.  Just like Langston Hughes and Ann Spencer used these new conventions in their writing, so did musicians of the time. 

Spencer presents the common dilemma faced by Renaissance musicians -- to whom should they direct their music?  Should they direct their music to other African Americans because they are the only people who can truly understand their strife and struggle?  Should they direct their expression toward the white majority in an effort to diminish old stereotypes and preconceived notions concerning African Americans?  Renaissance musicians and composers were also grappling with the question of whether their music was “black” enough – did it present the emotion, struggle, and overall funkiness of the period?  Some Renaissance musicians began to feel bound and enslaved trying to compose or perform according to certain standards because it was a fitting thing for a Negro artist to do.  Some composers and musicians began to resent the increasing attention being given to Negro folk creations since it tended to result in a demand that other Negro composers and musicians adhere closely to the established outline for folk music.  This insistence on following the curve left many artists feeling unoriginal and unable to truly express their creativity and talent.  To further complicate the issue, Spencer asserts that artists of the time began to feel like they were being typecasted and, in many ways, held back from acclaim and success.  William Grant Still insisted that a deliberate effort was being made by certain powerful people to keep Negro artists from achieving too much glory.  Needless to say, Renaissance composers and musicians were being pulled in several different directions.  These artists wanted to express their very intimate, powerful thoughts and desires through their music, but they had to worry about how it would be received.  Still was very open about the Renaissance musician’s struggle to exist as an artist, Still said:

To an extent, the Negro has always been influenced by the set standard of what the white man expects him to do.  This, in music, has not been easy to evade.  At the outset, it was expected that the Negro artist be a clown, and that he thus help to relieve the boredom of his audiences.  Then the Fisk Jubilee Singers made it known that Spirituals were a dignified addition to the concert stage.  Henceforward, all colored singers were supposed to sing Spirituals as a matter of course; all colored composers worthy of the name were supposed to transcribe and arrange them.  Again, it took intelligent pioneering to get out of that rut – to show that we do admire and love our own Spirituals, yet that we are capable of interpreting other music more than “acceptably” and that our composers can create music in the abstract for the world to enjoy (95).

Harlem Renaissance musicians and composers were left with numerous questions:  Would their music fit into the Negro art mold and be appreciated by other Renaissance artists?  Would white America merely see the work as representative of Negro art and nothing else?  Would Renaissance artists feel that the work possessed that mood and spirit characteristic of the movement?

Jon Michael Spencer presents his readers and critics with the information necessary to realize that the Harlem Renaissance was an incredible success that contained groundbreaking music that exposed the struggle and essence of the African American.  Spencer opposes vehemently that the Renaissance was a failure as some critics have asserted.  Instead, Spencer presents the Negro Renaissance in terms of its immense breadth of time, measure, and success, and he presents the Renaissance musician as an artist serious about his craft.  Music of the time should not be regarded as being at the periphery of the movement, but at the epicenter.  Black music enjoyed a prophetic and practical role in the Renaissance as catalyst, contributor, and beneficiary.

Black Orpheus:  Music in African American Fiction from the Harlem Renaissance to Toni Morrison -- Saadi Simawe

            Saadi Simawe’s book Black Orpheus:  Music in African American Fiction from the Harlem Renaissance to Toni Morrison presents the role of music specifically in literature.  Not only does this work encompass the influence of African American music during the Harlem Renaissance, but it spans to the influence of black music presently.  As explained by Simawe, the term “Black Orpheus” was first coined by Jean-Paul Sarte.  The term regards the self-realization that is found in music and poetry.  Music is seen as a medium for writers to pour out the full rage of their soul.  Music becomes therapeutic and essential to survival.  Black music enables ecstasy, and a resistance to the political and psychological conditions of oppression. 

            Prominent African American writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou state that their work is predominately informed by African American music.  Music and sound are at the center of these writers’ creativity and voice.  The presence of music in African American fiction defines major themes and gives insight into the characters.  For instance, in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, music is used as a sort of liberation.  Angelou recounts how at her eighth-grade graduation her and her friends were belittled by the white guest speaker.  After the speaker finishes, the class valedictorian begins his speech by singing the Negro national anthem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”  This, the song of the caged bird, lifts her up and restores pride in her and her classmates.  This song portrays the African American as a beautiful, triumphant being full of life and possibility.  Thus, African American music, through its expression of suffering, enables transcendence of and liberation from that suffering.  Black music is produced both because of and in spite of suffering.  This is why the idea of flight is so common in African American music and literature – the suffering, wounded African American is able to be redeemed and transcend his current boundaries.  In essence, he is able to “fly away” or be “lifted up” from his oppression.  Angelou most certainly draws upon the common flight metaphor in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  The very idea of the bird, which is capable of flight but is caged and oppressed, suggests the notion of transcendence or flying away from its torment. 

The influence of jazz music is prevalent in Toni Morrison’s works as well.  In her first novel, The Bluest Eye, the deep despair felt by the working-class African American character Cholly who rapes his own daughter is illustrated by Morrison’s expert use of musical imagery.  Morrison writes:

                        The pieces of Cholly’s life could become coherent only in the head of a

                        Musician.  Only those who talk through the gold of curved metal, or in the

touch of black and white rectangles and taut skins and strings echoing

from wooden corridors, could give true form to his life … Only a musician would sense, know without knowing that he knew, that Cholly was free.  Dangerously free (153).

The group that is detailed in this passage is one of a traditional jazz quartet complete with brass, piano, drums, and bass.  Morrison is very obviously drawing upon her knowledge of the musical tradition.  Black music was the best metaphor for Morrison to use to achieve her desired characterization of Cholly.  Morrison openly comments on her use of black music and her desire to write in an unorthodox manner.  She realizes that drawing upon black music has been done before, but not in the way that she does it.  Her style is unique and not easily duplicated.  Morrison sees black music as the central mode feeding into African American literary expression. 

            Simawe’s work provides examples of black music occurring in specific African American works from various authors.  This work is unique because it deals with the use of black music specifically in literature.  Such novelists and poets as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker are presented, to name a few.  It is apparent that the influence of black music is present in the majority of African American works.  If the music is not specifically occurring in the work, it is nearly always at least influenced or inspired by black music.  Ezra Pound has asserted that it is the duty of the poet to learn music, and the duty of the musician to study poetry – this seems to be the prevailing attitude in Simawe’s work.  Music and literature are so closely related that a division between them is unnecessary and harmful to the arts. 

IV.               Web Reviews

Rhapsodies in Black:  Art of the Harlem Renaissance

http://www.iniva.org/harlem/home.html

This website, entitled Rhapsodies in Black:  Art of the Harlem Renaissance, is an introduction to an exhibition of the same name at the Hayward Gallery in London.  The site provides background information concerning the movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, details the concept of the “New Negro,” as well as addressing specific forms of African American music.  The Harlem Renaissance was a time when African Americans were seen as fully liberated and free to express themselves in a variety of manners.  For the first time all things black were seen as positive and African Americans showed an unrelenting pride in their race and culture.  Harlem was not considered to be just a physical place, it was also a “mental place” – a metaphor for freedom and equality for the African American.  Harlem, physically or metaphorically, was a place where African Americans could feel free to express themselves without fear, discomfort, or shame.

The “New Negro” is one who does not base his or her existence on the patterns of the past, but instead creates his or her own path.  This is referred to as the “new spirit” or “new psychology” of the “New Negro.”   The Harlem Renaissance is, essentially, the expression of the “New Negro.”  The New Negro movement took its inspiration from European countries.  Dovorak recognized and accredited the slave spirituals as the first American contribution to world culture and urged classical composers to draw upon them in their musical creations.  Thus, the earliest forms of African American music were highly influential for not only later African American music, but for music worldwide.  The influence and effects of the Renaissance music are significant and an intense study on the topic is worthwhile. 

A Great Day in Harlem

http://www.harlem.org/#

            This website, entitled A Great Day in Harlem provides a detailed explanation of the music of the Harlem Renaissance including biographies on specific musicians, and the original picture of the 57 jazz musicians that appeared in a jazz issue of Esquire magazine.  Slave spirituals inspired Blues music, which in turn inspired jazz.  Blues music was considered the first truly American developed form of music and the forefather of jazz.  What the Blues were lacking in spontaneity, jazz more than made up for.  At its outset, jazz music was dance music performed by big bands.  Slowly; however, the dance rhythms faded into the background and musicians began to improvise.  Soon several different areas of jazz  emerged:  be-bop, big band, swing, new orleans, traditional/classic, post-pop, cool jazz, dixieland, and hardbop. 

As the genre evolved, the music split into a number of different styles, from the speedy, hard-hitting rhythms of be-bop and the laid-back, mellow harmonies of cool jazz to the jittery, atonal forays of free jazz and the earthy grooves of soul jazz.

The common denominator for all of these types of jazz was the blues.  Out of the blues emerged jazz in its many different forms and because of the blues and their interplay, jazz lived on. 

There is no music like jazz music.  It has its own very unique and raw style.  Jazz music for African Americans of this time provided an excuse to get up and celebrate their culture.  Sometimes it was a way for African Americans to release all inhibitions and behave primitively while getting in touch with their cultural roots.  African Americans could celebrate and feel proud of their heritage, something they may have been frightened to do before.  Of course, African Americans were not the only listeners of jazz music.  Many whites would travel from Manhattan to the slums of Harlem to witness this cultural phenomenon.  For the white audience members this raw, primitive, funky music was a way for them to “take a walk on the wild side” or “slum” by doing something different and unique.  To many white audience members, listening to jazz music was a sort of experiment or diversion instead of an outpouring of raw emotion to which they could relate.

V.                 Paper Review

“Minority References to Flight” – Jamie Grayson

http://www.uhcl.edu/itc/course/LITR/5731/rp1jg.htm

Jamie Grayson completed a research paper regarding references to flight in African American literature for her “Seminar in American Minority Literature” course at the University of Houston Clear Lake.  I found this research to be very attuned with my topic.  While Grayson concentrated only on the element of flight in literature, this element is an important component in African American music as well.  Grayson mentions the fascination many people have with flight and flying – transcending this world and belonging to another world, much farther away.  For the slaves, this meant an escape from oppression and hardship, not simply just a nice day trip as would be for most of us.  For the African Americans of the Harlem Renaissance, the concept of flying too meant an escape from oppression, more specifically inequality.  Grayson provides many specific examples of the flight metaphor in several distinct works by African American writers.  These examples allow the reader to see the intense struggle with which these African Americans are faced.  Through literature, music, and art these physically and/or emotionally enslaved African Americans can experience an emotional release of emotions in hopes of a physical and/or spiritual release. 

VI.               Conclusion

The period of American history known as the Harlem Renaissance has captivated and fascinated people for innumerable reasons.  The music, literature, and artwork that come out of this time is so rich with expression and emotion.  The arts of this time collectively belong to a very distinct, exotic, and unique movement.  The music of the Renaissance could be seen as an outpouring of emotion and struggle which can only be explained by the oppressed and suffering.  For the struggling, this outpouring served as therapy and was essential to their survival.  Many notable writers have expressed explicitly that they use music to inspire them to write – music is very much a part of the creative process.  Many writers, such as Maya Angelou in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, use specific songs in their writing to define major themes and to provide characterization.  The presence and importance of music during the Renaissance is obvious – it provides insight into the pain and suffering experienced by African Americans and provides the listening public with a rich cultural expression unlike any other. 

I have found the research journal to be a very interesting assignment.  I have never completed research in journal form before, but found it to be an excellent starting off point for a full-fledged research paper.  I plan on continuing my research in the near future – this journal has only sparked my interest in this rich topic.  I have never taken the time to study the music of the Renaissance – usually my studies center around the literature and that is as far as I get.  However, after delving into the music aspect of the time I am intrigued and cannot wait to learn more.  I find it interesting that even though the musicians and composers of the Renaissance were trying to escape oppression by creating their own outlet, they were made to feel that their work must adhere to a certain set of standards imposed by other Renaissance artists.  These musicians and composers were still somewhat inhibited and enchained by those who were more powerful.  But, nonetheless, by listening to the music no one could be the wiser.  The music is so beautiful, powerful, and unique.

This research journal has left me feeling, pun intended, very Romantic.  I only wish I had been alive during this time to witness this cultural movement that influenced America in innumerable ways.  I feel nostalgic for a time I can never witness first-hand – I can only rely on the articles and books presented in this journal for my information.  If only I could have experienced the Renaissance and its simpler, more primitive music. 

Works Cited

Black Orpheus:  Music in African American Fiction from the Harlem Renaissance to Toni Morrison.  Ed.  Saadi A. Simawe.  New York:  Garland Publishing, 2000.

Grayson, Jamie.  Minority References to Flight.  27 Jun. 2002

<http://www.uhcl.edu/itc/course/LITR/5731/rp1jg.htm>

A Great Day in Harlem.  25 Jun. 2002 <http://www.harlem.org/#>

Rhapsodies in Black:  Art of the Harlem Renaissance.  27 Jun. 2002

<http://www.iniva.org/harlem/home.html>

Spencer, Jon Michael.  New Negroes and Their Music.  Knoxville:  Tennessee UP, 1997.