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

by Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, John F. Callahan (Editor)

This absorbing collection of letters spans a decade in the lifelong friendship of two remarkable writers who engaged the subjects of literature, race, and identity with deep clarity and passion.

The correspondence begins in 1950 when Ellison is living in New York City, hard at work on his enduring masterpiece, Invisible Man, and Murray is a professor at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Mirroring a jam session in which two jazz musicians "trade twelves"—each improvising twelve bars of music around the same musical idea-their lively dialog centers upon their respective writing, the jazz they both love so well, on travel, family, the work literary contemporaries (including Richard Wright, James Baldwin, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway) and the challenge of racial inclusiveness that they wish to pose to America through their craft. Infused with warmth, humor, and great erudition, Trading Twelves offers a glimpse into literary history in the making—and into a powerful and enduring friendship.

Genres: Nonfiction, African American, Literature, American, Jazz, Music

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Ralph Ellison was a scholar and writer. He was born Ralph Waldo Ellison in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison was best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). For The New York Times , the best of these essays in addition to the novel put him "among the gods of America's literary Parnassus." A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left after his death.

Ellison died of Pancreatic Cancer on April 16, 1994. He was eighty-one years old.

Reviews

[Laila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the friendship between these two! Letter writing is such a lost art form and Ellison and Murray were clearly masters at it. Also quite fascinating to read their commentary on race in America, seems not much has changed in the 50+ years since these letters were written. I thought their disdain for jazz greats was amusing and I've got a reading list going based on their recommendations to each other. Some of their conversations were beyond me but this is so worth the read.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part, this is just two young writers trading book recommendations and Ellison is clearly the bigger reader, though with severe lapses of taste. Most often he praises Malraux (!), Hemingway, Bellow and Faulkner, but calls Yourcenar's great Hadrian just a "scholarly synthesis." From what I gather, Ellison's problem is usually sex: besides Yourcenar, Proust and Joyce are non-entities, Gide is seen as pretentious, and he campaigned to have Lolita not be nominated for the National Book Award. The most he writes on Hemingway is about that writer's famous dialogue on President Lincoln being "a faggot" (Ellison's word) for General Grant.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe these letters were originally intended for publication, so there is an element of self-conscious grandstanding in many of them. Still fun, though, to see their semi-casual back-and-forth about current writers and musicians. What shocked me is the complete disdain they have for the younger voices in jazz like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. Neither of them has anything good to say about these two, while they completely revere Duke Ellington. Two telling excerpts:

"I cannot understand for the life of me what these guys are finding so revolutionary in Gil Evans-Miles Davis' Miles Ahead and Porgy & Bess. It's nice and pleasant but other than that all I hear is a bunch of studio musicians playing decadent exercises in orchestration based on Ellington's old pastel period. It is incredible to me that anybody seriously interested in jazz would rave about Miles Ahead and pan or pass up Such Sweet Thunder."
Albert Murray to Ralph Ellison, March 22, 1959


"Old Duke is having a good year. The Jazz Party record has some very fine spots. The Anatomy of Murder record from the film soundtrack stands up even better as an LP than it does in the picture & a collection of cocktail lounge pieces, At the Bal Masque, come off very pleasantly indeed." ..."Old Duke is still reaching back, man; and he hits, the continuity is always there, the newness, individuality, and the relevance."
Albert Murray to Ralph Ellison, August 17, 1959

I was thrilled to see their comments on a couple Duke Ellington recordings I hadn't heard of before, At the Bal Masque and Duke's Mixture, which Ellison commented on in an earlier letter. And I loved the comment on the Anatomy of a Murder soundtrack--totally agree with Murray's judgement on that one. Now I really have to go and read the new Library of America collection of Albert Murray's writings.

[Paul Jellinek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two great American writers share their love for great writing, their love for jazz (especially Duke Ellington), their thoughts on race, and a whole lot more in this wonderfully casual, heartfelt set of exchanges from the 1950's and early 1960's. I just wish they'd kept it up another couple of decades, but by that time they had moved close enough to one another that they didn't need to write any more. Bummer.

[Rita]

2000
"The correspondence begins in 1950 when Ellison is living in New York City, hard at work on his enduring masterpiece, Invisible Man, and Murray is a professor at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. "

Seems like I read some of these letters online, while looking up more about Albert Murray after so much enjoying several of his books.
I just now read that Ellison had attended Tuskegee, so probably they got acquainted there, as young men.

[andré crombie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Been rereading Moby Dick again and appreciating for the first time what a truly good time Melville was having when he wrote it. Some of it is quite funny and all of it is pervaded by the spirit of play, like real jazz sounds when a master is manipulating it. The thing’s full of riffs, man; no wonder the book wasn’t understood in its own time, not enough moses were able to read it!”

[Izetta Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was cool to read these letters between friends - to see them share their ideas as artists and their love of music. A book that I would mostly suggest for fans of Ellison and Murray who've followed their respective careers and work.

[Eric Byrd]

Jesus, that cover!

http://www.designworklife.com/2012/11...