When music is a means of spiritual cleansing
Farida Shaikh examines the history wrapped in a story
Toni Morrison's 'musically titled book Jazz is lovely, lyrical, searching and touching,' her 'most experimental' sixth out of eight novels, about 'lived reality of the people', in the context of the 'musical movement' and forms the second part of Morrison's Dantesque trilogy on African American history, beginning with Beloved 1987and ending with Paradise 1999 The novel Jazz takes place in 1926, when the Harlem Renaissance originated in a neighbourhood of the same name. New York City, was at its peak, a special time of success and attention for African American artists in literature, drama, visual art, dance and music, especially jazz between 1920 and 1930. The movement initiated cultural and social changes in sociology, historiography, and philosophy. It encompassed urban centres throughout the United States; it claimed to offer a better life for southerners with new hopes of opportunities in the North. Black males regarded jazz as the essence of the age of the New Negro; for the black women it represented the disenchantment of urban life; it did not provide the promised opportunities, rather a source of the problem. "It wasn't the war that disgruntled the veterans; it wasn't the droves and droves of colored people flocking to paychecks and streets full of themselves. It was the music. The dirty get on down music…" That is Violet, an unlicensed beautician, with her view of jazz music. It challenged the southerner's religious faith, which meant it could only breed evil. Violet argues, "I messed up my life. Before I came North I made sense and so did the world. We didn't have nothing and we didn't miss it." Just like the music, the novel is improvisational and is also influenced by folklores, ghost stories and gospel music. Morrison's writing style is a 'unique mix of the musical, magical and historical.' Essayist Susan Lyndon observes that it 'carries you like a river, sweeping doubt and disbelief away, and it is only gradually that one realizes her deadly serious intent.' The various characters are "improvising" solo compositions that fit together to create a whole work. The tone of the novel also shifts with these compositions, from bluesy laments to upbeat, sensual ragtime. The novel also utilises the call and response style of jazz music, allowing the characters to explore the same events from different perspectives through a narrator whose voice is in the first person and not the third person. The novel also covers jazz music, its sense of spiritual cleansing, temporary suffering '...she found out that the man who killed her niece cried all day and for him and Violet that is as bad as jail'; and a path for emotional release, '…spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going.' It also includes 'giving voice to the voiceless.' The story line was inspired by an event that Morrison learned about in The Harlem Book of the Dead (1978), in which Camille Billops records the story behind James Van Der Zee's photograph of a young woman's corpse; she was shot yet refused to identify her assailant before she died. Dorcas, lying shot by Joe, refuses to allow those surrounding her to call for an ambulance until Joe has disappeared; by then, she is too near death to be revived. 'Violet went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face …' and becomes known as "Violent" Trace. The novel opens with African American vernacular speech and typical teeth sucking---'Sth '--- communication gestures. A narrator within the urban cultural context relates that the over-fifty-year-old Joe, in a morose and jealous state, had shot a seventeen-year-old girl, Dorcas, with whom he was having an affair; she had finally turned her attention to a younger man. The novel then focuses on Violet, an unlicensed beautician married to Joe, a door-to-door cosmetics salesman. During this healing process, Violet develops a relationship with Alice Manfred, Dorcas' aunt and guardian, a conservative Christian ashamed by her niece's behaviour. Felice is Dorcas' best friend who helps the Traces to understand each other. In1992, Jazz achieved bestseller status along with Morrison's nonfiction critical work Playing in the Dark. While most critics responded favourably to the novel, others complained of its structure and narrative technique, and many were simply puzzled and less appreciative. She grew up Chloe Anthony Wafford in Lorain Ohio. At the University her name Anthony became Toni and the name Morrison was added in 1964. About her own life, she has been comfortable with one third, proud of another one third, and would like to redo the remaining one third. In 1970 with the publication of The Bluest Eyes she achieved fame with the misname Toni Morrison; she wanted her name to be Chloe Wofford. The work inspired African American women to tell their own stories. She started household cleaning work at 13; her observations found reflection in The Bluest Eyes. She worked as editor at Random House for 18 years. Her mission was to get 'African American voices into American Literature.' The idea of race is central to Morrison's work. Beloved is about an escaped slave, Sethe, who kills her own daughter rather than see her in slavery. She wants to do away with words like 'the slave woman' and 'slave child.' Other works that cover slavery, a state of powerlessness are Song of Solomon and Jazz. Paradise is Morrison's groundbreaking work on sexual violence. She wanted to write on the totality of black women's' sexual experience, thereby destroying the myths and stereotypes on the subject. Ideally Paradise is about a place where 'race exists but doesn't matter.' Like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Morrison has the ability to reduce horror---------'battle of cruelties of race with her wit.' Even after writing three novels Morrison chose not to call herself a writer ---'what you write to pay income tax' --- and made a distinction between work, writing, and the person who does the work, like mother, or editor. In the act of writing Morrison is 'most alive… coherent…stable and vulnerable.' In 1993, Toni Morrison, sixty three, won the Nobel Prize for Literature. A feel of 'a sense of triumph' pervaded her being. Her sense of excitement was contained by the 'we 'female writers,' black writers,' and of securing Faulkner's idea to take black people seriously. The opening verse of Jazz says it all. I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter
And the designation of the division. Toni Morrison's works are required reading in English literature, at graduate and post graduate level in Dhaka University.
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