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1943 Stormy Weather lobby card

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J.A. Rogers’ “Jazz at Home”: A Centennial Reflection on Jazz Representation Through the Lens of Stormy Weather and Everyday Life

By Jasmine M. Taylor

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…..The first time I was exposed to ballet and tap, I was no more than six years old with ivory tights, a charcoal leotard, and a sturdy pair of tap shoes. Though my dance career was grotesquely short lived—deciding to trade in recital costumes and blush canvas soles for the balance beam, and eventually a pair of cheer poms—the technical form I developed during my early childhood never entirely left. More than two decades following my days of pliés, I still find myself conjuring up improvised solos in my living room.

…..My feet were lively and my soul fluttered listening to the tap-click-click-tap of my patent leather tap shoes. My single-digit years were overwhelmed with primped curls, structured poses, and sequined ensembles. I was even younger when the chaotic elegance of jazz tickled my ears. Before Bluetooth pairings and Spotify playlists, there were cassettes, CDs, and the radio—The Smooth Jazz Station, specifically. My age at the time is neither here nor there, but the image of sitting in the backseat of my mother’s mid-sized sedan and smooth jazz spilling from the speakers is vivid—it’s almost as if it occurred recently.

…..In the affluent words of Joel Augustus (J.A.) Rogers, “jazz is a marvel of paradox.” To acknowledge the centennial year of this published literature, jazz, in the year of 2025, is still a concoction of enigmatic soul music as much as it was when the words of Rogers were printed in the March issue of The New Negro in 1925. This piece of scholarship— suitably titled “Jazz at Home”—highlights the artistic freedom of jazz and its progressive evolution. Rogers professes his words with eloquence and vigor, paying homage to a genre of syncopated rhythms that transforms your physical body and internal being in tandem. Jazz has become a nationwide—global if we’re honest—sensation and beloved by broad audiences near and far. In recent decades, jazz has become a fundamental core in American culture and modern Americanism; not solely because of its artistic craftsmanship, but because of the spirit that jazz music embodies.

…..Humans are, undoubtedly, expressive creatures. We cry in the midst of sorrow, we grin during joyous occasions, and we tap our feet to a good beat. Emotions and outward expression are embedded into our souls, and similar that which is the “joyous revolt” of jazz, which Rogers beautifully depicts in the second paragraph. Emphasizing that jazz transcends being a mere form of music, Rogers further defines jazz as the rebellion of the emotions.

…..“’And that is why it has been such a safety valve for modern machine-ridden and convention-bound society,’ said Rogers. ‘It is the revolt of the emotions against repression.’”

…..One century later, Rogers’ words still hold massive weight in truth and accuracy. Our reaction to jazz, as a people, involves a combination of emotional sensations with a touch of inquisitiveness. It’s full of hypnotic earworms that is infectious to the ear and most importantly, to the soul. It’s one of those genres that is not only intergenerational, but it has always existed, in some form, through the foundational music of cultures across the globe. From the traditional dances of different Indigenous cultures, I am taken on a voyage with Rogers, who shares a glimpse of common traditional dances—the Spanish fandango, the Irish jig, and the hula hula of the South Seas to name a few—as prime examples of jazz music, in basic form, existing in other elements of music styles. It’s hard not to smile at the in-your-face reminder that music is the one universal language that exceeds linguistic and cultural barriers.

…..While reading Rogers’ article, one thing is starkly clear: the jazz of today still has the same enticing affect, I would say, as the big bands of yesteryear. This evidence is stunningly displayed in the 1943 musical Stormy Weather, directed by Andrew L. Stone and produced by William LeBaron. Though I was introduced to this film years ago, the words of Rogers evoked a new sense of pride and awakened emotions that were dormant until I viewed the film through fresh eyes and a different lens. All one hour and 18 minutes embodies Rogers’ words to a T: “’it is hilarity expressing itself through pandemonium; musical fireworks.’”

…..The film, for its time, was inclusively unique during its cinematic debut both in casting and its progressive strategy to appeal to a Black American audience. Without accentuating the film’s (borderline debatable) representation of the broad yet complex relationship between Black Americans and the performing arts, the multifaceted performer Bill Williamson, portrayed by Bill Robinson, is loosely inspired by Robinson’s life experiences. Known for his innovative dance style, Robinson is intentionally name-dropped by Rogers in “Jazz at Home” as a key contributor to lifting jazz far beyond mere playing technique and performance, and to a level of artistry that is not only inimitable but cannot be replicated. The fictional character Bill Williamson appears in the opening scene tap dancing on an open porch with the neighborhood children. Through Williamson’s buoyancy and animated storytelling, we recount his days after World War I and follow his journey to entertainment success.

…..I distinctly remember how I felt observing acclaimed acts such as Fats Waller, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, and the Nicholas Brothers on my screen. After digesting the words of Rogers, the artistic expressiveness is not only striking in motion, but it tells a deeper story of radicalism and visual and aural storytelling through creative forms such as jazz, overlapping genres like blues and swing, ragtime (the ancestor of jazz music), and dance. The gift of having “educated feet,” a clever term a tap dancer uses to describe a performance by Bill Robinson’s character, is sprinkled throughout each scene from Robinson’s tap solo on the boat deck to the stunt-filled performance of Fayard and Harold Nicholas — professionally known as the Nicholas Brothers.

…..The film’s finale, boasting the glamour and craze of big bands and dance troupes, is the perfect atmosphere for a charismatic Calloway to direct one of his famous jazz and swing-infused compositions “Jumpin’ Jive.” It is during this scene that I am introduced to one of the greatest dance sequences of all time that still leaves me astonished. Graceful athleticism and creative genius of the Nicholas Brothers is on full display from the onset of their improvised sequence. The  tap-click-click-tap  of their shoes smoothly skate around the linen covered tabletops as guests gawk in wonder. The duo’s iconic number — unrehearsed and filmed in one take — is brilliantly flashy in the best way possible and concludes with a groundbreaking staircase scene, displaying the duo leaping over the other (descending to the next stair) into a split. As many times as I’ve marveled at this scene from the loveseat in my living room, I still cannot find the proper words to describe it, but perhaps Fred Astaire said it best. Highlighted by Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Astaire — a renowned multi-hyphenate in his own right — called the infamous scene of the Nicholas Brothers, “the greatest musical number he had ever seen.”

…..Music, specifically jazz, is the human soul in sonic form. It’s uncontrived and contradictory. It’s primitive and at times, far too abstract. It is emotional, it is spontaneous, and at its best, it demands authentic sincerity — everything that, I believe, the human soul needs to truly thrive in its intended purpose. While it’s fairly easy to grasp this concept through a surface level viewing of Stormy Weather,  Rogers’ “Jazz at Home” deepens my level of understanding and comprehension of the distinct correlation between jazz, unconventionality, and creative resilience.

…..“’Jazz comes from the soil,’ said Serge Koussevitzky, the ninth conductor of the Boston Symphony, ‘where all music has its beginning.’”

…..I’ve concluded that Rogers was, in many ways, remarkably ahead of his time. My personal claim of Rogers’ forward thinking surrounding the progressiveness of jazz music and its staying power is further supported in the final paragraph of his editorial.

…..“’Those who laugh and dance and sing are better off even in their vices than those who do not. . .At all events, jazz is rejuvenation, a recharging of the batteries of civilization with primitive new vigor. It has come to stay, and they are wise, who instead of protesting against it, try to lift and divert it into nobler channels.’”

…..At its root, jazz is a genre originally birthed from my ancestors, and my limbs flowing to its call always felt second nature. Moreover, jazz is joyful rebellion and blissful paradox. Let the music from your horns be brash. May your educated feet swing boldly and freely to each eccentric rhythm. The alluring depiction of jazz in Stormy Weather will inspire, but the words of Rogers will foster the gumption to do it. The spirit of jazz, at its core, is the essence of democracy. It is rejuvenating freedom. It is humanity. It is home.

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Jasmine M. Taylor is a prose writer and playwright from Kansas City, Missouri. Earning her journalism degree in 2017, she puts her formal education to use through research endeavors. Her flash fiction story “Mind of the Healed” was published on the Johnnie Mae King blog in 2023 and her essay “A Revelation Birthed from African American Culture” was published in The Taborian in 2024. Taylor recently participated in the Kansas City Public Theatre’s Playwright’s Roundtable for their 2024-2025 season.

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Watch the Nicholas Brothers dance sequence excerpted from the 1943 musical  Stormy Weather 

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Click here to read a 2019 Jerry Jazz Musician interview with  Jeffrey Stewart, author of The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, for which Stewart received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Click here to read a 2011  Jerry Jazz Musician interview with Alyn Shipton, author of Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway

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“Saharan Blues on the Seine,” Aishatu Ado’s winning story in the 68th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest

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