The Ralph Ellison Project — Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph Ellison: A Biography

Ralph Ellison is justly celebrated for his epochal novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and has become a classic of American literature. But Ellison’s strange inability to finish a second novel, despite his dogged efforts and soaring prestige, made him a supremely enigmatic figure. In Ralph Ellison: A Biography, Arnold Rampersad skillfully tells the story of a writer whose thunderous novel and astute, courageous essays on race, literature, and culture assure him of a permanent place in our literary heritage.

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The Ralph Ellison Project: Robert O’Meally, editor of Living With Music, discusses Invisible Man author Ralph Ellison

While Ralph Ellison will forever be best remembered as author of the classic American novel of identity, Invisible Man, he also contributed significant essays on jazz that stand as compelling testaments to his era. His work included an homage to Duke Ellington, stinging critiques of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, and recognition of the changing-of-the-guard taking place at Harlem’s Minton’s in the 1940’s. He wrote on musical topics from flamenco to Charlie Christian, and from Jimmy Rushing to Mahalia Jackson.

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The Ralph Ellison Project: interview with Lawrence Jackson, author of Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius

Author, intellectual and social critic, Ralph Ellison was a pivotal figure in American literature and history, and arguably the father of African-American modernism. Universally acclaimed for Invisible Man, a masterpiece of modern fiction, and more recently for the posthumously edited and published Juneteenth, Ellison was recognized with a succession of honors, including the 1953 National Book Award.

Lawrence Jackson’s Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius is the first thoroughly researched biography of Ellison.

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The Ralph Ellison Project: Horace Porter, author of Jazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America

The first book to reassess Ralph Ellison after his death and the posthumous publication of Juneteenth, his second novel, Jazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America explores Ellison’s writings and views on American culture through the lens of jazz music.

In Jazz Country, Porter addresses Ellison’s jazz background, including his essays and comments about jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker. Porter further examines the influences of Ellington and Armstrong as sources of the writer’s personal and artistic inspiration and highlights the significance of Ellison’s camaraderie with two African American friends and fellow jazz fans — the writer Albert Murray and the painter Romare Bearden.

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The Ralph Ellison Project: filmmaker Avon Kirkland discusses the author of Invisible Man

Filmmaker Avon Kirkland’s career as a chemist was cut short by his desire to create social change. The path he chose led to filmmaking, and along the way he has profiled great men, among them Booker T. Washington and Thurgood Marshall.

His latest film is on Ralph Ellison, the great American writer whose classic book of identity, Invisible Man, stands as a monument in literature. Ellison’s wide range of intellectual breadth and profundity surprised even Kirkland, and is documented in Ralph Ellison: An American Journey, the Sundance Film Festival nominated film that has found an audience via PBS.

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The Ralph Ellison Project: Stanley Crouch discusses Invisible Man author Ralph Ellison

Stanley Crouch is an essayist, poet, former musician, jazz critic and author of the novel Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome. He is outspoken, controversial, clever, and right more often than many seem willing to admit. He is also a very thoughtful admirer of Invisible Man author Ralph Ellison, whose work and friendship touched Crouch enough that, when asked if he considered Ellison a mentor, without hesitation answered “Yes!” Crouch takes part in a very lively conversation about Ellison and a variety of associated topics, including Charlie Parker, and music’s place in American ritual.

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The Ralph Ellison Project: Albert Murray, author of Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray

When Albert Murray arrived at Tuskeegee Institute in 1935, Ralph Ellison was an upperclassman who was, in Murray’s words, “dressed like a ‘Joe College’ right out of Esquire magazine.” According to Murray, Ellison “represented the type of aspirations that I had been expecting for myself.”

While their paths split geographically, the two kindled an emotional and intellectual friendship that gained momentum during the era of Ellison’s creative peak, when his timeless novel of identity Invisible Man was being written, distributed, reviewed, and rewards reaped upon. They honored successes, encouraged intellectual growth, and shared a deep love of music. They were best friends.

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The Ralph Ellison Project: Literary Executor John Callahan is interviewed about the author of Invisible Man

Being named literary executor of any writer’s estate would be quite an honor, let alone if the writer whose works you now caretake is Ralph Ellison, author of one of the 20th century’s greatest novels, Invisible Man. For long time Ellison friend John Callahan, “It was a challenge, and it was intimidating, exhilirating…”

Among the work left for Callahan was editing Ellison’s long awaited second novel, released as Juneteenth in 1999.

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A Black History Month Profile: An interview with Ralph Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad

Ralph Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad talks about the complex life of the author of Invisible Man, the celebrated work that focuses on racial and economic issues of mid-20th century America

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A Roundtable conversation — “Religion ‘around’ Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday and Ralph Ellison”

. .     . …..While Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday and Ralph Ellison are not known as being “religious” figures, they have, in a way, become “sacred” figures. Revered, iconic and inspirational, their essential work contributed mightily to the creative climate of twentieth-century America, and did so in the midst of complex and evolving religious … Continue reading “A Roundtable conversation — “Religion ‘around’ Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday and Ralph Ellison””

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Ralph Ellison’s record collection

In a wonderfully entertaining and informative 2004 New Yorker piece titled “Ralph Ellison’s Record Collection,” Richard Brody reminds us of the Invisible Man author’s passion for jazz music — what he referred to as “American music” — and of his somewhat controversial (for the time) opinion of the musicians coming up.  While often revering the music of Armstrong, Ellington, and Lester Young (and who can blame him?), of Charlie Parker’s music, he wrote “there is in it a great deal of loneliness, self-deprecation and self-pity,” and, in a letter to friend Albert Murray following a 1958 Newport Jazz Festival performance, described Miles Davis as “poor, evil, lost little Miles Davis.”  He famously characterized bebop as “a listener’s music” that “few people are capable of dancing to it” — although this critique was probably more of a lament of a lost culture. 

But the crux of the story is not Ellison’s opinion about music, rather the recordings he collected, reported by Brody as

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From the Interview Archive: a 2014 interview with Stanley Crouch, author of Kansas City Lightning: The Life and Times of Charlie Parker

In a 2014 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, the late jazz writer and cultural critic Stanley Crouch shares his thoughts on Charlie Parker, a great genius of modern music…

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On Nat Hentoff

I am saddened to read of the passing of journalist Nat Hentoff, who died yesterday at the age of 91. Hentoff’s work was published by the Village Voice for 50 years, and was also frequently found in the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, and Jazz Times. He was also editor of Downbeat during the mid-1950’s. There are many obituaries available to read about Nat and his career – including Robert McFaddin’s in today’s New York Times.

As I began publishing original content on Jerry Jazz Musician in 1999, I had the privilege of having my site embraced by the three most prominent jazz writers of the time, Gary Giddins, Stanley Crouch, and Nat Hentoff. All three of them got involved in Jerry Jazz Musician in their own way.

Giddins — who I was able to catch up with during a recent trip I took to New York — and I developed an interview series called

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Interview with Stanley Crouch, author of Kansas City Lightning: The Life and Times of Charlie Parker

Described by the New York Times as a “bebop Beowulf,” Stanley Crouch’s Kansas City Lightning: The Life and Times of Charlie Parker is a love song to the life and times of Bird, one of jazz music’s most critically important figures. Mr. Crouch, himself an essential participant in both contemporary criticism and in the delivery of live performance (through his work with Jazz at Lincoln Center), discusses his long-anticipated biography with Jerry Jazz Musician in a recently conducted interview.

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On the Influence of Albert Murray

One of my more interesting experiences as publisher of Jerry Jazz Musician was producing a series of interviews that focused on the work of the novelist Ralph Ellison. Invisible Man was a favorite novel of mine as a young man, but it wasn’t until I reread it in the 1990’s before I began to understand the enormity of its cultural significance. At that time, Ellison’s second (and unfinished) novel Juneteenth was being published, and a variety of books on Ellison were released at the same time – among them Living with Music, a collection of Ellison’s writings on jazz music edited by Columbia University scholar Robert O’Meally, and Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray.

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Historic Harlem Tour

Although it only encompasses about six square miles, the New York City neighborhood of Harlem has played a central role in the development of American culture. Originally rural farmland, then an affluent suburb, since 1911 Harlemhas been predominantly an African American community. Its residents havehad a disproportionately large impact on all aspects of American culture,leaving their mark on literature, art, comedy, dance, theater, music, sports, religion and politics.

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Hazel Rowley, author of Richard Wright: The Life and Times

The child of the fundamentalist South with an eighth-grade education, a self-taught intellectual in the working-class Communist Party of the 1930s, a black man married to a white woman, and an expatriate in France after World War II, Richard Wright was always an outsider. He went well beyond the limits of the times in which he lived, and sought to reconcile opposing cultures in his work.

“How the hell did you happen?” the Chicago sociologist Robert Park once asked Wright. In Richard Wright: His Life and Times, biographer Hazel Rowley shows how, chronicling with the dramatic drive of a novel Wright’s extraordinary journey from a sharecropper’s shack in Mississippi to international renown as a writer, fiercely independent thinker, and outspoken critic of racism.

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Interview with Glenn Mott, editor of Victory is Assured: The Uncollected Writings of Stanley Crouch

Mr. Mott discusses this posthumous anthology of extraordinary, thought-provoking  uncollected essays by Stanley Crouch.

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Interview with Winston James, author of Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik

A discussion about the revolutionary, non-conformist poet Claude McKay’s complex early life that culminated in a pioneering role in American letters

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On a challenging summer in Portland, the passing of Stanley Crouch, and upcoming opportunities for writers

I have to admit, Portland has kicked my ass this summer.

Two fires continue to rage here.  I’m sure you’ve heard about this city’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have also sparked pesky vandalism by dozens of mostly White activists.  While their activities seem banal enough – a dumpster fire here, a picnic table on fire there – this behavior shamefully threatens to commandeer BLM’s objectives and gives life to a cynical and evergreen pre-election message stoking White suburban fear.  The vandalism tests the patience of even the most tolerant and hopeful of local citizens.

Now mix in the fires of climate change – hot, powerful winds fanning flames on a drought-laden state – and the result is living in, for now, the epicenter of the world’s worst air quality.

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Reminiscing in Tempo: “Life during the time of isolation and social distancing”

Prominent artists and educators reflect on the pandemic and how they are spending their time during isolation and social distancing

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Billie Holiday and the influence of Baltimore’s House of the Good Shepherd on her singing

In a brilliant August 20, 2019 essay posted on the NPR website titled “Billie Full of Grace,” Professor Fessenden, author of Religion Around Billie Holiday,writes about the effect the convent reformatory Billie Holiday attended as a young woman – Baltimore’s House of the Good Shepherd – had on her life, and on her singing.

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Interview with Mary Schmidt Campbell, author of An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden

Mary Schmidt Campbell, author of .An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden,discusses the remarkable life of this important American artist in a Jerry Jazz Musician interview.

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Graham Lock and David Murray, editors of Thriving on a Riff: Jazz & Blues Influences in African American Literature and Film

The widespread presence of jazz and blues in African American visual art has long been overlooked. The Hearing Eye makes the case for recognizing the music’s importance, both as formal template and as explicit subject matter. Moving on from the use of iconic musical figures and motifs in Harlem Renaissance art, this groundbreaking collection explores the more allusive — and elusive — references to jazz and blues in a wide range of mostly contemporary visual artists.

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“The Life of Jackie McLean” a poem by Michael Harper

The Life of Jackie Mclean
by Michael Harper

A critic ‘trying to pass’ writes me about crossover played some
couldn’t make it got his Ph. D
(he’s onto new changes an advance man now active in grants
from corporations)

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Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome: A roundtable discussion with Stanley Crouch, Gerald Early and Kitty Margolis

Although it has had its share of detractors, critical acclaim for Stanley Crouch’s first novel, Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome, is quite impressive — particularly among scholars and fellow writers. For example, Susan di Sesa, former Executive Editor of The Modern Library called it “one of the most profound novels in the English language,” while Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Alan McPherson wrote, “In attempting to employ ‘riffs’ to explore the emotional and psychological dimensions of his characters, Stanley Crouch has evolved a new narrative technique.”

Crouch — known primarily as an outspoken New York cultural critic — clearly understands that a serious writer’s role is to provoke his audience with potentially new avenues of thought

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Loren Schoenberg, author of The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Jazz

Loren Schoenberg is a noted conductor, saxophonist and author who has appeared internationally and won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Album Notes. He has recorded several albums with his own big band, and also with Benny Goodman, Benny Carter and Bobby Short. He is on the faculties of the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Band Director’s Academy, and is program director of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Jazz Colony and is Executive Director of The Jazz Museum In Harlem.

He is the author of The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Jazz, a book Wynton Marsalis describes as a “thorough guide to the music from a few basic perspectives: what it is and how it’s made, its history, the people who made and continue to make it, some suggestions on how to approach it — and a whole pile of ideas.”

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Interview with Douglas Henry Daniels, author of Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester “Pres” Young

ester Young was jazz music’s first hipster. He performed onstage in sunglasses and coined and popularized the enigmatic slang “that’s cool” and “you dig?” He was a snazzy dresser who always wore a suit and his trademark porkpie hat. He influenced everyone from B. B. King to Stan Getz to Allen Ginsberg. When he died, he was the subject of musical tributes by Charles Mingus (“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”) and Wayne Shorter (“Lester Left Town”), and incidents from his life were featured in the movie ‘Round Midnight.

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Tony Award winning playwright Warren Leight

The Tony Award winning play Side Man dramatizes the emotional elements of a dying jazz culture and its effects on an American family whose very soul depended on it. Playwright Warren Leight’s fascinating dark comedy chronicles three decades of living through the lives of jazz sidemen, and is filled with humor, honor, passion and pain.

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Site Archive

In This Issue

painting of Clifford Brown by Paul Lovering
A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Spring/Summer, 2024 Edition...In this, the 17th major collection of jazz poetry published on Jerry Jazz Musician, 50 poets from all over the world again demonstrate the ongoing influence the music and its associated culture has on their creative lives.

(featuring the art of Paul Lovering)

Feature

photo of Rudy Van Gelder via Blue Note Records
“Rudy Van Gelder: Jazz Music’s Recording Angel” – an essay by Joel Lewis...For over 60 years, the legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder devoted himself to the language of sound. And although he recorded everything from glee clubs to classical music, he was best known for recording jazz – specifically the musicians associated with Blue Note and Prestige records. Joel Lewis writes about his impact on the sound of jazz, and what has become of his Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey studio.

Interview

Interview with James Kaplan, author of 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool...The esteemed writer tells a vibrant story about the jazz world before, during, and after the 1959 recording of Kind of Blue, and how the album’s three genius musicians came together, played together, and grew together (and often apart) throughout the experience.

Publisher’s Notes

photo by Rhonda Dorsett
On turning 70, and contemplating the future of Jerry Jazz Musician...

The Sunday Poem

painting by Jennylynd James
”He Jazzed His Way," by Susie Gharib

Click here to read previous editions of The Sunday Poem

Essay

“Gone Guy: Jazz’s Unsung Dodo Marmarosa,” by Michael Zimecki...The writer remembers the late jazz musician Michael “Dodo” Marmarosa, awarded Esquire Magazine’s New Star Award in 1947, and who critics predicted would dominate the jazz scene for the next 30 years.

Short Fiction

Impulse! Records and ABC/Dunhill Records. Photographer uncredited/via Wikimedia Commons
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #66 — “Not From Around Here” by Jeff Dingler...The author’s award-winning story is about a Jewish kid coming of age in Alabama and discovering his identity through music, in particular the interstellar sound of Sun Ra..

Click here to read more short fiction published on Jerry Jazz Musician

Playlist

“‘Different’ Trios” – a playlist by Bob Hecht...A 27-song playlist that focuses on non-traditional trio recordings, featuring trios led by the likes of Carla Bley, Ron Miles, Dave Holland and Jimmy Giuffre...

Feature

Excerpts from David Rife’s Jazz Fiction: Take Two – Vol. 5: “Scott Joplin: King of Ragtime”...A substantial number of novels and stories with jazz music as a component of the story have been published over the years, and the scholar David J. Rife has written short essay/reviews of them. In this sixth edition of excerpts from his book, Rife writes about jazz novels and short stories that feature a theme of “mystery.”

Interview

Interview with Larry Tye, author of The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America...The author talks about his book, an intensely researched, spirited, and beautifully told story – and an important reminder that Armstrong, Ellington, and Basie all defied and overcame racial boundaries “by opening America’s eyes and souls to the magnificence of their music.”

Poetry

John Coltrane, by Martel Chapman
Four poets, four poems…on John Coltrane

Feature

What we discover about Kamala Harris from an armful of record albums...Like her or not, readers of this site will enjoy learning that Vice President Kamala Harris is a fan of jazz music. Witness this recent clip (via Youtube) of her emerging from a record shop…

Short Fiction

Munich University of Music and Theater/© Raimond Spekking/via Wikimedia Commons
“The Pianist (Part One)” – a short story by J. C. Michaels...The story – finalist in the recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – describes the first lesson at a music conservatory of a freshman piano-performance major who is more accustomed to improvising than reading music. It is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress.

Poetry

“Revival” © Kent Ambler.
If You Want to Go to Heaven, Follow a Songbird – Mary K O’Melveny’s album of poetry and music...While consuming Mary K O’Melveny’s remarkable work in this digital album of poetry, readings and music, readers will discover that she is moved by the mastery of legendary musicians, the wings of a monarch butterfly, the climate and political crisis, the mysteries of space exploration, and by the freedom of jazz music that can lead to what she calls “the magic of the unknown.” (with art by Kent Ambler)

Book Excerpt

A book excerpt from Designed for Success: Better Living and Self-Improvement with Midcentury Instructional Records, by Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder...In this excerpt, the authors write extensively about music instruction and appreciation records dealing with the subject of jazz.

Interview

The Marvelettes/via Wikimedia Commons
Interview with Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz, authors of But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?: An Oral History of the 60’s Girl Groups...Little is known of the lives and challenges many of the young Black women who made up the Girl Groups of the ‘60’s faced while performing during an era rife with racism, sexism, and music industry corruption. The authors discuss their book’s mission to provide the artists an opportunity to voice their experiences so crucial to the evolution of popular music.

Short Fiction

photo via FreeRangeStock
“Hip Replacements” – a short story by William Torphy...The story – a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction contest – is a humorous take on a septuagenarian attempt to resurrect a revival band.

Art

photo of Leroy Jenkins by Giovanni Piesco
The Photographs of Giovanni Piesco: Leroy Jenkins...photos of the eminent free jazz violinist, taken at Amsterdam's Bimhuis on January 4, 1999.

Short Fiction

Shisma, CC BY 4.0  via Wikimedia Commons
“Nostalgia” – a short story by John-Paul Cote...Harlan has an addiction. A most illegal addiction. It drives him from morning until night. He dreams of it. How can he escape it before it brings him into the arms of the law? Down a dark alley he will find out just how far he is willing to go.

Essay

“Like a Girl Saying Yes: The Sound of Bix” – an essay by Malcolm McCollum...The first time Benny Goodman heard Bix Beiderbecke play cornet, he wondered, “My God, what planet, what galaxy, did this guy come from?” What was it about this musician that captivated and astonished so many for so long – and still does?

Trading Fours with Douglas Cole

Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 21: “The Blue Truth”...In this edition, the poet riffs on Oliver Nelson’s classic 1961 album The Blues and the Abstract Truth as if a conversation between conductor and players were caught on tape along with the inner monologue of some mystery player/speaker of the poem.

In Memoriam

Hans Bernhard (Schnobby), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
“Remembering Joe Pass: Versatile Jazz Guitar Virtuoso” – by Kenneth Parsons...On the 30th anniversary of the guitarist Joe Pass’ death, Kenneth Parsons reminds readers of his brilliant career

Book Excerpt

Book excerpt from Jazz with a Beat: Small Group Swing 1940 – 1960, by Tad Richards

Click here to read more book excerpts published on Jerry Jazz Musician

Jazz History Quiz #176

photo of Lester Young by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
While legendary as a saxophonist, his first instrument was a violin and his second the piano — which he played well enough to work as an accompanist to silent movies. Ultimately it was Lester Young’s father who taught him the saxophone well enough that he switched instruments for good. (It was during this time that he also saved Lester from drowning in a river). Who is he?

Community

photo via Picryl.com
“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share news about their recently authored books and/or recordings. This edition includes information about books published within the last six months or so (March – September, 2024)

Contributing Writers

Click the image to view the writers, poets and artists whose work has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician, and find links to their work

Coming Soon

An interview with Larry Tye, author of The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America; an interview with Jonathon Grasse, author of Jazz Revolutionary: The Life & Music of Eric Dolphy; A new collection of jazz poetry; a collection of jazz haiku; a new Jazz History Quiz; short fiction; poetry; photography; interviews; playlists; and lots more in the works...

Interview Archive

Ella Fitzgerald/IISG, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Click to view the complete 25-year archive of Jerry Jazz Musician interviews, including those recently published with Judith Tick on Ella Fitzgerald (pictured),; Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz on the Girl Groups of the 60's; Tad Richards on Small Group Swing; Stephanie Stein Crease on Chick Webb; Brent Hayes Edwards on Henry Threadgill; Richard Koloda on Albert Ayler; Glenn Mott on Stanley Crouch; Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom on Eubie Blake; Richard Brent Turner on jazz and Islam; Alyn Shipton on the art of jazz; Shawn Levy on the original queens of standup comedy; Travis Atria on the expatriate trumpeter Arthur Briggs; Kitt Shapiro on her life with her mother, Eartha Kitt; Will Friedwald on Nat King Cole; Wayne Enstice on the drummer Dottie Dodgion; the drummer Joe La Barbera on Bill Evans; Philip Clark on Dave Brubeck; Nicholas Buccola on James Baldwin and William F. Buckley; Ricky Riccardi on Louis Armstrong; Dan Morgenstern and Christian Sands on Erroll Garner; Maria Golia on Ornette Coleman.