Jazz

Beloved Trilogy #2

by Toni Morrison

In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This passionate, profound story of love and obsession brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of black urban life.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, African American, Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels

229 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1992

About the author

Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford) was an American author, editor, and professor who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality."

Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed African American characters; among the best known are her novels The Bluest Eye , Song of Solomon , and Beloved , which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. In 2001 she was named one of "The 30 Most Powerful Women in America" by Ladies' Home Journal.

Reviews

[Ahmad Sharabiani · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Book 155 from 1001 books) - Jazz, Toni Morrison

Jazz is a 1992 historical novel by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison.

The majority of the narrative takes place in Harlem during the 1920's; however, as the pasts of the various characters are explored, the narrative extends back to the mid-19th-century American South. The novel forms the second part of Morrison's Dantesque trilogy on African-American history, beginning with Beloved (1987) and ending with Paradise (1997).

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «جاز»؛ نویسنده: تونی موریسون؛ نشر (آفرینه) ادبیات آمریکا؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز پنجم ماه آگوست سال2002میلادی

عنوان: جاز؛ نویسنده: تونی موریسون؛ مترجم: سهیل سمی؛ تهران، آفرینه، سال1379؛ در240ص؛ شابک9646191444؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

رمانی با سبک «پسامدرن»، با زبانی «رمزی و سمبلیک»، ستایش از جامعه ی رنگین پوستان «آمریكایی»، در دهه های بیست و سی، از سده ی نوزدهم میلادی، روایتی از نسلی، که با پشت سر نهادن جنگ، و درگیر شدن با پیامدهایش، در جستجوی فضایی آرام، برای زیستن هستند؛ و در اندیشه ی دست‌یابی به آرمانشهری همچون «سیتی»، به سر می‌برند؛ «تونی موریسون» در این اثر، آرزوها، کشاکش‌ها، شب زنده‌ داری‌ها، و دغدغه‌ های این نسل را، با سخنانی کوتاه بنگاشته اند، و با ستودن آداب، رسوم، و آیین‌های رنگین پوستان، واژه های خویش را، برای خوانشگران آراسته اند؛ مترجم کتاب درباره این اثر میگویند: (زبان در رمان «جاز» همه چیز است؛ شخصیت‌های رمان «جاز»، با استفاده از همین زبان، پردازش شده‌، و درست عین کلمات، شخصیت‌های سمبلیک، و در عین حال معمولی را آفریده‌ اند؛ ...؛ رمان «جاز» با آفرینش صحنه‌ های مینیاتوری همین نسل، به سمت برشی از زندگی انسان در سده معاصر پیش می‌رود، و تلاش‌های او، برای رهاسازی خویش را، برملا می‌کند.)؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 19/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 23/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

[Candi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars

"I'm crazy about this City. Daylight slants like a razor cutting the buildings in half. In the top half I see looking faces and it's not easy to tell which are people, which the work of stonemasons. Below is a shadow where any blasé thing takes place: clarinets and lovemaking, fists and the voices of sorrowful women. A city like this one makes me dream tall and feel in on things."

Oh, how I adore the lyricism of Toni Morrison. I have had Jazz on my shelf for quite some time now, and following my admiration of The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Beloved, I couldn't wait to tear into this one. The title alone captured my imagination. Unfortunately, I was left feeling a bit confused and underwhelmed.

Set during the Jazz Age in New York City, this book had great potential. An intriguing plot description – man has an affair with a younger woman, man shoots and kills his lover (not a spoiler), man's wife attacks corpse of this young woman at her funeral! This is where the story begins and I was immediately hooked. However, just as I latched onto the narrative, it would shift. The voices changed frequently; time and setting changed often. It now became apparent that the title of the story had less to do with any musical plot than it did with the perhaps experimental style of writing. I am not an expert in jazz music, but I am definitely a fan. From Wikipedia, jazz is defined as "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role and contains a sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". I can imagine each voice in this story as a different instrument in a jazz ensemble. However, the shift from one voice or instrument to the next was too jolting, too disjointed. While this may work for me in music, I suppose I prefer a writing that flows more harmoniously and smoothly.

There were moments of brilliance shining through, as I have come to expect from this extremely gifted author. When characters were engaged in dialogue, I was immersed in the story. But the stream of consciousness feel to this book did not appeal to me overall. I have more Toni Morrison books sitting on my shelf, and I most certainly won't let my slight disappointment in this one keep me from those.

[Guille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dicen los donjuanes que la primera frase que se dice a una mujer es fundamental, que es capaz de marcar el éxito o el fracaso de la conquista. Pues bien, aunque no creo ser el primero con el que lo consigue, esta novela me ha enamorado con su primer párrafo:

“Sssst… yo conozco a esa mujer. Vivía rodeada de pájaros en la avenida Lenox. También conozco a su marido. Se encaprichó de una chiquilla de 18 años y le dio uno de esos arrebatos que te calan hasta lo más hondo y que a él le metió dentro tanta pena y tanta felicidad que mató a la muchacha de un tiro solo para que aquel sentimiento no acabara nunca. Cuando la mujer, que se llama Violet, fue al entierro para ver a la chica y acuchillarle la cara sin vida, la derribaron al suelo y la expulsaron de la iglesia. Entonces echó a correr, en medio de toda aquella nieve, y en cuanto estuvo de vuelta en su apartamento sacó a los pájaros de las jaulas y les abrió las ventanas para que emprendiesen el vuelo o para que se helaran, incluido el loro, que decía: “Te quiero”.”

(Leí por ahí que ese sssst que da inicio al texto es el ruido que hace la aguja en el disco antes del inicio de la música.)

Y no solo sus primeras frases, tampoco su “conversación” posterior le fue muy a la zaga. Desde el primer momento noté que a la novela le debía de estar cayendo muy bien porque era digno de encomio el esfuerzo que realizaba para gustarme y mantenerme a su lado. Yo me dejaba querer intentando disimular lo encantado que estaba, no fuera a ser que bajara su solicitud hacia mi persona.

Paseamos mucho por esa ciudad suya, me presentó a negros y a negras de interesantes a muy interesantes, me contó muchas historias tristes, alguna alegre y también brutales, me dejó entrever otras vidas, como cuando al pasar cerca de una ventana abierta oíamos voces, risas, lamentos, súplicas (pégame pero no me dejes) y música, mucha música de esa que me contó que la volvía consciente de la vida que tenía más abajo de la cintura, así como del rojo de sus labios...y estas cosas que me decía a veces me hacían pensar si no sería solo sexo lo que buscaba en mí, pero hasta esto le perdonaba cuando me susurraba al oído que era ridículo, delicioso y terrible.

En definitiva, qué les voy a decir, como otras parejas, tuvimos historias de celos, historias de gritos y besos, de azúcar y sal... aunque no sé qué pensará ella, porque, la verdad, yo nunca fui un amante ideal.

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

got lost in all the lovely words, loved getting lost. minor note but major emotions. narrative glides down perfect prose pathways and through poetic passages to different destinations, into one mind and out of another, into many minds, past future past future, man. who knows where the next road goes, probably somewhere bad, tragedy and bloodshed and murder and all kinds of fucked up and twisted emotions, but it all reads so pretty. can I understand such things? I don't know but I can try. this is a history of sorts; it also feels like a beautiful bad dream, my favorite kind.

[Jennifer Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite a true 4 stars, but boy does Toni Morrison know how to end a story. (I felt this way about her novel, Love, too, which I read a couple years ago). She’ll reveal some detail that breaks open the heart of the story in a way that reaches across the divide of the specific people in time and place (here, a group of neighbors in 1926 Harlem) and into the well we share, the well that makes us human. Her endings also shed light on all that came before, causing me to reimagine the events and characters in her story with a fuller sense of truth. She’s like a goddess of the heart, which takes true intelligence, along with guts: the guts to be vulnerable, and then to explore so deeply, and with such honestly, that the simplicity of it is beauty itself. It is purity and clarity and love and strength all at the same time. It is pain and sorrow, and it is the acknowledgement of how far people can go —
in both the damage of and the propping up of another being — when they love. Love, in her world, can kill you, and oh how that resonates for me right now.

This is the story of a love triangle, and ultimately, a marriage. No one ever really knows what goes on between two people, and marriage is one of the most complex relationships we’ll ever know. This marriage is full of unique nuances, ones that expose another way to be. I felt like Morrison had me gawking and laughing at first from a distance, and then drew me closer and closer until I understood others, and then recognized us all.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard Toni Morrison read from this book in a bookstore in Brooklyn when it came out. It was a magical experience. However, this is not my absolute favorite Toni Morrison book - it is still a wonderful story full of music and life.

List of all of Toni's amazing work - come and vote for your favorite!

Fino's Toni Morrison Reviews:
The Bluest Eye
Sula
Song Of Solomon
Tar Baby
Beloved
Jazz
Paradise

[Jean-Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

[If you haven't watched the documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, do yourself a favor and find it somewhere.]

Hey Harlem. Gossip Girl here. And I have the biggest news ever. One of my many sources, Chloe31, sends us this: “Spotted at funeral, knife in hand: Violet Trace.” Was it only weeks ago our Dead Girl was warming Joe Trace’s bed? And suddenly, she’s dead. Don't believe me? See for yourselves. Lucky for us, Chloe31 sent proof. Thanks for the novel, Toni. Who am I? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. So until next time, you know you love me. Gossip Girl.

(Meatier than The Bluest Eye, but less labyrinthine than Paradise—it may be my favorite Toni Morrison yet. Prohibition, jazz, New York City, and scenes from a marriage. The author titled it Jazz, but it could just as easily have been called Love—a later Toni Morrison title. Great things are achieved with only a handful of characters, including the gossipy unidentified narrator. Have I mentioned that books set in New York City just do it for me? Despite my doubts, this one didn’t disappoint.)

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the funeral and cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, "I love you."

With this terrific first paragraph which encapsulates most of the story, Toni Morrison begins Jazz, her short novel which however, covers an extremely broad canvas. It is the story of Violet and Joe Trace and their waning marriage; it is the story of the puritanical Alice Manfred and her flighty niece Dorcas, who falls for Joe; it is the story of Golden Gray, the mulatto born of a black father and a white mother; it is the story of the Wild Woman, Joe Trace's mother, never seen yet always present in the woods... but above all, it is the story of Harlem in the 1920's and its sinful music: jazz.

Morrison uses a jagged storytelling style, with the narrative shifting in the verbal equivalent of jump cuts between people, places and events. Linearity is purposefully foregone, with the author wrong-footing the reader intentionally in many places. In the middle of the novel, when we are neck-deep in the story of Violet, Joe, Dorcas and Alice, the narrative suddenly jumps to the story of Golden Gray on the quest for his father; who initially has only the most tenuous of connections to the tale, overall. The author confuses us thoroughly before tying the two threads together.

Toni Morrison here, even while being the omnipresent narrator, confesses to being not in full charge of her characters: she says

I ought to get out of this place. Avoid the window; leave the hole I cut through the door to get in lives instead of having one of my own. It was loving the City that distracted me and gave me ideas. Made me think I could speak its loud voice and make that sound sound human. I missed the people altogether.

I thought I knew them and wasn't worried that they didn't really know about me. Now it's clear why they contradicted me at every turn: they knew me all along. Out of the corners of their eyes they watched me. And when I was feeling most invisible, being tight-lipped, silent and unobservable, they were whispering about me to each other. They knew how little I could be counted on; how poorly, how shabbily my know-it-all self covered helplessness. That when I invented stories about them - and doing it seemed to me so fine - I was completely in their hands, managed without mercy...

The story here is writing itself, using the hapless author as a medium. To understand how its possible, one has to understand the City, and its unique music which made even unwilling people dance to its jagged and kaleidoscopic melody.

Jazz music evolved out of the inherent need for the black people to express themselves, even when their arms, legs and even spirit were chained. Arising out of Africa's primitive music traditions, jazz was a fusion of Africa with Europe. It is non-linear and jagged; a pot-pourri of various notes and beats. Nobody would call it classical; there were many who thought it sinful; but you can't deny one thing - it makes you dance.

Come dance, with Toni Morrison. The night is still young.

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I’m crazy about this City. Daylight slants like a razor cutting the buildings in half. In the top half I see looking faces and it’s not easy to tell which are people, which the work of stonemasons. Below is shadow were any blasé thing takes place: clarinets and lovemaking, fists and the voices of sorrowful women. A city like this one makes me dream tall and feel in on things. Hep. It’s the bright steel rocking above the shade below that does it.”- Toni Morrison, Jazz

Wynston Marsalis said, “Jazz is a conversation, but a nuanced, swift, and complicated one”, and over time I’ve come to learn and understand this too. What’s even more interesting to me is how the improvisation in jazz can be applied to life.

The story starts with Violet, a woman in her 50s, mutilating the corpse of teenager Dorcas, the former lover (and murder victim) of her husband, Joe Trace. From this passionate scene at Dorcas’ funeral, we get a very emotional story which seems to be an improv, with the story lines reacting both with the city’s surroundings but also with history and personal stories.

To me, the city backdrop and how Morrison works that into her story, is the best part of the book, in particular when the city is contrasted with the rural areas the main characters grew up in. The city carries with it its own energy and I felt it held a lot of hope and promise for people who had survived slavery and life in the countryside. Moving to the city and encountering a whole new lifestyle was a huge turning point in these people’s lives, and I like how Morrison shows that a change in scene can change everything, similar to her approach in Tar Baby; love is different in the city and in the countryside:

“Little of that makes for love, but it does pump desire. The woman who churned a man’s blood as she leaned all alone on a fence by a country road might not expect even to catch his eye in the City. But if she is clipping quickly down the big-city street in heels, swinging her purse, or sitting on a stoop with a cool beer in her hand, dangling her shoe from the toes of her foot, the man, reacting to her posture, to soft skin on stone, the weight of the building stressing the delicate, dangling shoe, is captured. And he’d think it was the woman he wanted, and not some combination of curved stone, and a swinging, high-heeled shoe moving in and out of sunlight. He would know right away the deception, the trick of shapes and light and movement, but it wouldn’t matter at all because the deception was part of it too.”

The first time I read this I was quite frustrated by the character of Joe Trace; male violence is always difficult to read about, and it’s even more difficult when you know the perpetrator doesn’t get the necessary punishment. Yet, and I’ve seen again and again with Morrison (and this is one of the things I admire about her the most), she is able to relay the facts in a non-judgemental way, and somehow she allows us to feel some sort of compassion.

Apart from Dorcas, the murdered teenager, the character who I felt for most in this story is Violet. This is a lady who was clearly depressed and searching for something in life. At the age of 56 she said ,”I want some fat in this life.” This is a lady who experienced childhood tragedy, worked hard, was misunderstood, betrayed by her husband, and became the subject of gossip by her neighbours:

“This notion of rest, it’s attractive to her, but I don’t think she would like it. They are all like that, these women. Waiting for the ease, the space that need not be filled with anything other than the drift of their own thoughts. But they wouldn’t like it. They are busy thinking of ways to be busier because such a space of nothing pressing to do would knock them down. No fields of cowslips will rush into that opening, nor mornings free of flies and heat when the light is shy. No. Not at all. They fill their minds and hands with soap and repair and dicey confrontations because what is waiting for them, in a suddenly idle moment, is the seep of rage. Molten. Thick and slow-moving. Mindful and particular about what in its path it chooses to bury.”

Jazz is an emotional and a very beautiful read. Toni Morrison’s writing style is.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread

4.5, upped a half-star from my original rating: My stars always reflect my reading experience. If I read this a third time (and I may, one day), I think I’ll be a better reader of it and I could achieve those full 5 stars.

While the subject matter of Jazz is not as difficult as that of Beloved—though make no mistake, the darkness is here, underneath, to the side, or overcome (to a certain extent)—and its tone is lighter—the characters, freed from slavery, leaving sharecropping, run out of town with the burning and lynching of others, have more agency than before (any agency is more than none) now that they are in the City—in many ways this work is structurally more challenging than Beloved, with its multiple narrators: an “I” that might be the City, sometimes, or might be the author herself, most times; characters who take their turn telling their stories, expressed in quotations, as if they are talking to someone, but to whom might remain mysterious. A case for the first-person narrator being the writer herself becomes more evident in a beautiful section (my favorite) that describes the narrator’s evolving feelings toward a character named Golden I have been careless and stupid and it infuriates me to discover (again) how unreliable I am and with a lovely passage near the end that states her expectations for Joe and Violet have been thwarted.

Recurring images of birds (parrots and redwings); wells of water that kill and nourish; caves that hide and nurture as a parent is searched for (reminding me of Song of Solomon) make for a rich reading experience. After the first chapter, the beginning of each subsequent chapter riffs on a word/idea/feeling/scene of the paragraph that came right before it, but from the viewpoint of a different character or narrator. I’m sure the riffing has been noted before and described as lyrical, as fitting for the new music of the time and place. But I want to go back to the aforementioned agency due to the time and place.

When Joe tells his story, he enumerates how he “changed into new seven times,” starting from the time he named himself. Violet feels split in two, thinks of how that Violet did the things she can’t comprehend the other Violet doing. Near the end she reveals how she became the “me” she is now. There’s still hatred, violence, racism, and discrimination in the present; but it’s their broken pasts that can now be faced and assimilated, even if it’s 'just' because a loving partner is potentially there for the choosing, and for joy, in the now.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Scandalous Trio

Jazz music is rarely the immediate subject matter of this exceptional novel. However, jazz influences much of the novel's structure and atmosphere. The narrator describes a party in terms of “Red dresses. Yellow shoes. And, of course, race music to urge them on.”

The three main protagonists – Dorcas (an 18 year old girl), Joe (a handsome 50 year old cosmetics salesman) and Violet (Joe's pretty 50 year old wife) – form an ensemble, a trio, “a scandalising threesome", if not exactly a menage a trois.

The three characters are introduced, and the essence of the novel's plot is set out, in the first paragraph. In each of the following chapters, Toni Morrison delves into some of the past of each character as well as their shared past. It's as if each chapter is a solo that enables the character (or the narrator on their behalf) to improvise and elaborate on the main riff of the novel.

Crazy About This City of Jazz

Jazz became a slang term for sexual intercourse soon after its creation as a musical form. It's possible that this is the main connotation of the word used in the title. The novel seems to be primarily interested in sex, lust, desire, touch, seduction, passion, romance, loneliness, longing, craving and love.

The novel is set in Harlem in 1926. Earlier, in 1906, Joe and Violet (the descendents of black slaves) left rural Vesper County, Virginia, and moved to New York, attracted by the music and romance of the city, and the potential for better-paid jobs:

“Like a million more [running from want and violence] they could hardly wait to get there and love it back...

"There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves...

"I'm crazy about this City...

"[It was] a City seeping music that begged and challenged each and every day. ‘Come,’ it said. ‘Come and do wrong.’...

"It was the music. The dirty, get-on-down music the women sang and the men played and both danced to, close and shameless or apart and wild...

"Where you can find danger or be it; where you can fight till you drop and smile at the knife when it misses and when it doesn't.”

Private Cracks

The narrator says Violet has “private cracks". She suffers from a fragmented self:

“I call them cracks because that is what they were. Not openings or breaks, but dark fissures in the globe light of the day...

"Sometimes when Violet isn't paying attention she stumbles into these cracks, like the time when, instead of putting her left heel forward, she stepped back and folded her legs in order to sit in the street.”

Joe and Violet disagree over whether to have children, and presumably are now beyond the age when it is possible or convenient. Violet stares at children in the street, and goes to bed cuddling a toy doll each night, although she and Joe aren’t obviously estranged. (“He's what I got. He's what I got.”) Violet explains her plight in simple terms:

“I messed up my own life. Before I came north I made sense and so did the world. We didn't have nothing but we didn't miss it...What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?”

To Freeze or Fly

Which brings us back to the first paragraph on the first page:

“Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deep down, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, ‘I love you.’"

This language is typical of the novel. It's casual, almost conversational, yet somehow dense with information and detail. At the same time, it's both imaginative and lyrical.

Reckless, Reciprocal Love

At the end of the novel, the narrator reveals her (?) own views on the quest for love:

“I have...longed to be able to say...'that I have loved only you, surrendered my whole self reckless to you and nobody else. That I want you to love me back and show it to me. That I love the way you hold me, how close you let me be to you...’”

This focus on reciprocity seems to be a natural extension of the question of identity or the self of not just black Americans, but all people of whatever race or background, which might account for the success of Toni Morrison's novel with white readers.

Paradoxically, this realisation occurs at the level of the narrator (an omniscient narrator who refers to herself as a “know-it-all self”) and the reader. It doesn't seem to emerge from the relationship between any two of the three protagonists. Indeed, it contrasts with their relationships. Perhaps, literature, art and music are the substitute for love, where it can't be found between two people. In the case of jazz, “the body is the vehicle, not the point.” It helps us to “reach...for something beyond, way beyond and way, way down underneath tissue.”


SOUNDTRACK:
["A Thorn Here, A Spike There"]

Terence Blanchard & Branford Marsalis Quartet - "Mo' Better Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1VRE...

Gordon Webster & Friends - "Mo' Better Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcb_U...

Bill Lee - "She's Gotta Have It"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rilrw...

Cynda Williams - "Harlem Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1g6O...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enG9J...

Charlie Parker - "Almost Like Being In Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jonWT...

Miles Davis - "Time After Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpZHj...

Keith Jarrett Trio - "Never Let Me Go"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhmmA...

Gordon Webster & Friends - "I Like Pie"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L4nC...

Gordon Webster & Friends - "I Like Pie"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCCgI...

Prince & The New Power Generation - "Diamonds And Pearls"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwUKR...

Czech National Symphony Orchestra - "Mo'Better Blues"

https://youtu.be/kxOk2l6DHV4

[Roman Clodia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was the music. The dirty, get-on-down music the women sang and the men played and both danced to, close and shameless or apart and wild.

Another dazzling novel from Morrison which follows Beloved in her trilogy but which can equally be read as a standalone as the connections are thematic rather than through characters.

The 'now' is the mid-1920s and the place is Harlem, NY - but while chronologically this takes place during the Harlem Renaissance, the book studiously avoids glamour and artistry and instead sets itself amidst ordinary people: a hairdresser, a door to door salesman, their local community, and the clubs and speakeasies where the jazz of the title floats out and over the landscape of the text.

Once again, this speaks to intergenerational traumas centred on the legacies of chattel slavery, of broken families, of orphaned children in search of some rootedness and home, with light touches of the horrors of lynching, race riots, and the pervasive racism that, for example, allowed Black men to serve in WW1 but not to be honoured or respected.

There's a sensuous, hard-hitting story with a violent love triangle that gives the book its structure but what really stands out is Morrison's lyricism and the way her prose duplicates the syncopated rhythms of the music that threads through this tale, with motifs presented and re-occuring and improvisations moving across time as individual voices emerge to tell their story before harmonising back into the main melody.

Polyphonic, beautifully sculptured: this continues the story of African-Americans that began so devastatingly in Beloved.

[Proustitute (on hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Maybe she thought she could solve the mystery of love that way. Good luck and let me know."

[brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

jazz. the 3rd morrison in my plan to knock ‘em all out over the next month or so…significantly weaker than the other two i’ve read, but still... it’s almost a shame that morrison writes about such incendiary and zeitgeisty stuff as you pull back much of the (mostly) nonsensical cultural criticism that surrounds her, her work, and her readers and she’s just a first class storyteller. just a great, great writer. amongst all the tragedy and despair, there’s a joyfulness in the work that goes largely unspoken as people try and work out all the ‘important’ stuff.


i usually don’t go for the poetic passages... but check this one from Jazz:


It's nice when grown people whisper to each other under the covers. Their ecstasy is more leaf-sigh than bray and the body is the vehicle, not the point. They reach, grown people, for something beyond, way beyond and way, way down underneath tissue. They are remembering while they whisper the carnival dolls they won and the Baltimore boats they never sailed on. …Breathing and murmuring under covers both of them have washed and hung out on the line, in a bed they chose together and kept together nevermind one leg was propped on a 1916 dictionary, and the mattress, curved like a preacher's palm asking for witnesses in His name's sake, enclosed them each and every night and muffled their whispering, old-time love. They are under the covers because they don't have to look at themselves anymore.


In re-reading the above, two other passages come to mind. the first from martin amis and the second from the greatest poet of the last century (that's right!), philip larkin. If you’re interested...


Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing. It’s nothing. Just sad dreams. Or something like that… Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear scans and your sob probes, and you would mark them. Women – and they can be wives, lovers, gaunt muses, fat nurses, obsessions, devourers, exes, nemeses – will wake and turn to these men and ask, with female need-to-know, “What is it?” And the men say, “Nothing. No it isn’t anything really. Just sad dreams."


first paragraph from the information.

and:

What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there's really been no change,
And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange:
Why aren't they screaming?

first stanza of the old fools

[Zanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The music happens in the background… while the folks are front and centre, every blemish inside and out on view, though modestly shaded and wrapped in gentlest understanding. Part of that understanding is history, not excavated, but unfurled or traced carefully with one finger, because it is still alive and hurting. Kinship structures the story, which curls around time, helical, branching... it is a sinewy vine, hacked at in places yet blossoming out, covering itself with fresh, lush, resurgent life. A leaf is an organ. One leaf's flourishing nourishes the whole. But fallen sisters and brothers are mourned…

Where did this violence come from? Joe and Violet kill and mutilate a teenage girl… and then Morrison makes us love them. Audre Lorde said "When people share a common oppression, certain kinds of skills and joint defenses are developed. And if you survive you survive because those skills and defenses have worked. When you come into conflict over other existing differences, there is a vulnerability to each other which is desperate and very deep"*. The violence of racism is digested into intraracial violence. The blood-fed and tormented vine - no wonder - bears bitter fruit.

*Interview with Adrienne Rich, in Sister Outsider

One thing that struck me was the contrast between Acton and Joe. The cruel, self-centred young man fits the patriarchal expectations of Dorcas, raised by an Aunt who restricted her to protect against what she saw as a sinful youth culture. Joe, seen through his wife's eyes, is different, special, richly worthy of love, and his own telling inspires deep sympathy and liking. But it's Joe, not Acton, who destroys Dorcas, literally killing her, because it is easy, much too easy, to deal death, much too hard to reject what white supremacist capitalist patriachy teaches: that black women are expendable, that men are entitled to unconditional female loyalty.

Missing mothers and a missing motherland for black people in America are imperfectly substituted by fellow orphan migrants to Harlem, where some kind of safety in numbers and mutual support are found. Trauma remains unarticulated, too painful for conversation, instead flowing into, being answered by the music, which flowers irrepressibly, dark blooms dripping scent and nectar, mild aphrodisiac intoxicants.

Our narrator lives in Harlem too passing on the tales she knows, but sometimes she lets their owners tell them first or again. This is how it felt to me and then this is how I see it. The gatherer, the teller, bears an authority that comes with responsibility; she does it justice by reminding her hearers that there is no single story, only herstories and histories variously nourished and starved and intertwined.

[¸¸.•*¨*•♫ Mrs. Buttercup •*¨*•♫♪ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toni Morrison has been one of my favourite authors since I read one of her books (Beloved) for the first time. I simply cannot find any flaw in any of her books, her writing style is so rich and the understanding and portrayal of human nature she depicts in her books is beyond simple fiction. The stories of the characters of this book, described in a borderline stream of consciousness writing style; the way she sublimes the lowest, most violent and disturbing aspects of humanity in a way that is so unapologetic it is almost poetic; the way she creates the realest, most incredible human beings whose lives are so heartbreaking they must be true, makes her one of the most difficult authors to read and to stop reading. Amazing.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

I just have to admit that I am not really a Toni Morrison fan. I have read a couple of her books and like this one, they just did not make a lot of sense to me. It is not the eclectic conversations in her books, I just feel that her story lines are scattered and I have a terrible time following her. If I think I am following her thoughts, I eventually end up at a dead stop, wondering where things are going or what I just read and the purpose of it.

I gave this book a 3 star rating not because I liked the book, but because she was such an honored and well liked author who has won numerous awards for her writing. Just because I do not care for her writing does not mean that she was not accomplished. Sadly, I just do not connect with her.

[Dedra · Rating 5 out of 5]

One thing, one note, I will always carry with me when I stop being so fearful and actually put words on a page: There is story enough in writing about the way people feel, not just what they do. Toni examines and reexamines her characters' motives and moods in a way that feels so true to life. We don't always understand why we do what we do, but looking back on our lives and the lives of the people we have loved may provide some explanation. I want to sit in the words Toni writes and absorb them and hold on to them for the rest of my life.

[Joseph Sciuto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible! Lyrical and sublime! Ms. Morrison portrays the post slavery period in America (just after the Civil War) and into the 20th century as well as any writer I have read who has had the courage to deal with this period, a dark period in American history where people of color might have been free, but not really. Her characters are unforgettable and so real and her writing transcends the time and place of her writing and its brilliance is everlasting. AMAZING!!

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 4 out of 5]

toni morrison kitaplarında şimdiye dek “sevilen” kadar sevmeye yaklaştığım olmamıştı. ama “caz” beni dötümden bıçakladı 🔪 (haha bu ifadeyi çok kullanasım vardı)
yani 18’inde bir genç kızı öldüren erkek katille de empati yaptırma bize be toni morrison! kendimi kötü hissediyorum joe’yu sevdikçe.
romanın ders niteliğinde bir açılışı var. anlatıcı herkesi her şeyi biliyor ama tanrı anlatıcı değil, kim olduğunu bilmiyoruz. hatta gelecekte olacak bazı şeyleri de söylüyor. sonra müthiş bir son bölümle anlatıcı yazar oluyor ve kendini kaptırıp geleceğe yönelik şeyler söylediğini ama joe’yla violet’in geldikleri duruma şaşakaldığını belirtiyor.
joe 50’lerinde bir adam. violet 50’lerinde bir kadın. ikisi de genç yaşta köle gibi (kölelik kalksa da) çiftliklerde çalışırken tanışıp evleniyor. 30’larında şehre, harlem’e geliyorlar. şehre bayılıyorlar ki romanda bu çok sosyolojik bir durum. köyleri evler yakılmış binlerce öksüz yetim siyah şehre göç edip orada bir yaşam kuruyor.
romanda şehir diye anılan harlem de caz müziği ve blues da ana karakter sayılır. nefis betimlemelerle roman müzikten sokağa sokaktan ağaca ağaçtan dansa savruluyor.
bu evli çiftin tüm dengesi joe’nun 18’indeki beyaz dorcas’a aşık olmasıyla bozuluyor. aşkından! dorcas’ı öldüren joe’dan sonra violet de hıncından cenazede kızın cesedini bıçaklıyor. bunları nefis ilk paragrafta öğreniyoruz zaten. yani şiddet dolu bir hikayeyle başlıyoruz.
ama nasıl bir aşk anlatımına dönüşüyor sonra. violet’in joe’ya nasıl bağlandığını geçmişiyle birlikte düşününce… bir de joe’nun dorcas’a duyduğunu ve adamın dinmeyen ağlamasını okudukça iki aşkı da anlamaktan helak oluyoruz. ki yaptıklarını bile anlıyoruz öyle fena.
anlatıcı çok dengesiz. bu üçlünün geçmişine bugününe geleceğine savrulup dururken bir anda golden gray’in hikayesine geçiyor. o yüzden romanı kısa sürede okumakta fayda var. takip etmek zorlaşabiliyor.
ama her şeyin arkasında siyahların çektiği, onlara yapılanlar, hukuksuz adaletsiz işçilikler, borçlanmalar, ölümler ve yangınlar var.
bugünde ise yani romanın geçtiği 1926 yılında bitmiş bir savaş, gelişen bir şehir, beyzbol bile oynayabilen siyahlar, buna sevinen bir halk, içki yasağı, püritenler ve ahlaksızca halkın kasıklarını kavuran caz müziği var. ve elbette morrison’ın illa bir şekilde var etmenin yolunu bulduğu kızkardeşlik de.
çok sevdim. nihal yeğinobalı, morrison’ın ritimli dilini bence ustalıkla yakalamış.

[Ems Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of all time!

I was lucky enough to study this book during 6th form college with a good teacher. Instead of butchering its beauty she illuminated it; leading us through the more complex prose (their beauty all more appreciated due to a deeper level of understanding) and highlighting some of the more obscure elements that might have gone unnoticed (or perhaps not understood).

At 16, though not niave, I was perhaps unaware of the many elements and angles of understanding related to racism, especially in America (which seemed a world far removed). But there is much more to Morrison's Jazz than American prose. Unlike so many others, that parade the usual melting pot, American Dream, Racism themes, Morrison examines human relationships in a real and down to earth way.

Having finished the book I walked around in a daze for a couple of days reconsidering almost everything I had previously thought (that is no overstatement). Though some obvious questions are raised (especially the lives of african-Americans), I did not meditate on racism or poverty, but rather relationships and the ties between human beings.

I'm not sure if it was because of the time of my life that i read it, or whatever, but to me Jazz spoke volumes.

This book really is amazing.

[Read By RodKelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this more the first time I read it. Though the actual writing is pretty faultless, as is often the case with any of
Mother Toni’s novels, for me there is an issue of too much style, too much substance. I almost wish the novel was double its size; the themes would then have more room to develop and connect, which they rather tenuously do in the novel as written. I do love the very free-form, improvisatory style, the total lack of traditional narrative sequence, but the dramatic engine of Jazz relies almost exclusively on symbolism and metaphor, much of which is unclear due to its obfuscatory lyricism. That said...Toni is a genius and the Queen of my literary life, now and forever.

[Ava Cairns · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOAH.
I just finished this book, and I want to start from "Sth" all over again.
This is the second book I've read by Toni Morrison, (the first was Song of Solomon), and I hope that I can read every book she has published in my lifetime.
This one took me a while to finish, and that's because I had to be paying close attention. The narrators change, and I admit that I needed to google who the last narrator was lol.
While I at times I had to work hard to grasp the narration, I am so glad this book was written in this manner. To know that people, and life, are complex is to know that there will always be multiple perceptions.
Violet. Violet--Violent---Violet. My absolute favorite character. And that's saying a lot because in the end, after Joe interacted with Felice, I came to really love Joe.
But Violet. I will never forget her. She reminds me a tad bit of Pilate from Song of Solomon.
I think it's because she carries the same message---that craziness is subjective. And, Violet knows, that she is more than the stereotypes that are casted upon her.
She doesn't care what people think of her. And she's honest to the core.
I'll be rereading this, but hopefully in a couple of years, because I need to take time to process the first read.

[Serafina Consolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toni Morrison si lamentava che da bambina era l’unica della sua famiglia a non saper suonare a orecchio, ma poi basta prendere in mano un suo libro per capire che il senso del ritmo lei ce l’aveva con le parole.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Jazz’ by Toni Morrison is a historical novel written in a modern/postmodern style, with some stream-of-consciousness. Modernism/postmodernism strangely meshes with bebop jazz elements! I am aware early jazz should be put on the player while reading this book because the book is set in 1926. But the syncopated style of modern/postmodern writing seems more akin to bebop (mid-1940’s) to me. Or maybe it’s because I like bebop jazz best.

Until now, I never connected music composition with writing composition before, but I think Morrison tried to make some kind of intellectual connection by her title of this novel! Bebop shares a lot with modernism/postmodernism. Wow. I’m having a headslap moment.


Bebop, from Wikipedia:

Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States, which features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales and occasional references to the melody.

Bebop musicians explored advanced harmonies, complex syncopation, altered chords, extended chords, chord substitutions, asymmetrical phrasing, and intricate melodies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop


The book’s basic plot is simple. Joe Trace is a working man living in New York City, Harlem specifically (I think). He is in his fifties. His wife of many years is Violet (nicknamed Violence, which I think is unfair). She is also fifty years old. They met while working on farms in the South where both were born. They get married. Their marriage incurs strains and bad patches.

The promises of more freedom for Black people in northern America in the post-World War I era led them to optimistically move to the North for work in the hope of economic prosperity as well as physical safety. In comparison to the opportunities available in the South for Black people, they do achieve a measure of better bodily comforts in northern urban life and gain some prosperity. The couple build a life together, agreeing not to have children. This is the melody?

Joe meets a young seventeen-year-old girl, Dorcus. Surprising himself, he begins an affair with her. He is her first lover. For awhile, it goes well. However, Joe is obsessed with her, head over heels. He gives her gifts, even rents a room in order to spend time alone with her. Frankly, this could be Act II of an operatic libretto.

Eventually, Violet hears about the relationship. It wrecks her. She becomes a bit mental, and everyone notices. Her behavior is strange. She blames Dorcus.

Meanwhile, Dorcus meets a man, Acton, young and charismatic. She loses her head over him, gives him gifts and money that Joe gave her. He is perhaps prettier than she is, and she wants to hang on to him. She is aware many other girls are trying to be his girlfriend. But for the moment, he seems content to allow her, permit her, to hang out with him. But he treats her like dirt. She doesn’t care.

Dorcus tells Joe she is ending their relationship. He cannot accept this. He kills her - not a spoiler, gentle reader, as this is discussed in the first chapter. More like an Act III of an opera libretto or Carmen, to me - but rearranged per postmodern literary demands?

What the book is all about, Big Picture, is the relationship of Joe and Violet. Morrison weaves in their pasts based on real-life Black history, in alternate points of view and in alternate sections, alongside the present 1926 drama - verse, bridge, verse? Bystanders and friends also speak to what they observe and think about the Traces - harmonies? There is a contrapuntal, or antiphonal, section about a man who has a White mother and a Black father - Golden Gray - postbellum era. His connection to the Traces is at first mystifying. As it is, it seems more of a historical footnote.

What the book is really really about though, is an author writing a book which is a virtuoso - polyphonic? - performance. It is lyrical - very lyrical, in beautiful, maybe overdone in stratospherically soaring, language. It is a post-modern novel aiming for the first rank of literary writing - a book only a high-end literary writer could produce whatever a reader’s opinion of whether Morrison succeeds or not - or a Miles Davis Bebop jazz band of a quality performance. Choose your analogy…but in any case, bravissimo!

I am a complete amateur about the music elements, gentle reader, as I only had a 101 course and I can’t sing to save my life. I made a dismal effort at learning to play a guitar and an accordion a very very long time ago. I tremendously enjoyed a history of music CD offering by an organization whose name I can’t remember now, alas. So. Those of you who are genuine musicians, please feel free to comment and amend my poor attempts. I am also an amateur reviewer as well, so whatever.

This is a YouTube link to Bebop jazz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XEBk...

This is a link to music on Youtube written by one of my favorite counterpoint/polyphony composers, Giovanni Palestrina:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxJFM...

[LW · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The plot as a melody of the piece " Toni Morrison .

In Jazz è proprio così: la trama del romanzo è come una melodia ed è già tutta nelle prime righe ,per intero , all'inizio. Dopodiché non ci sono costruzioni complicate, o colpi di scena , è là, la trama-melodia , e nei capitoli successivi la storia è raccontata da diversi punti di vista ,da varie voci , si arricchisce di nuovi toni, di nuove sfumature sonore ed emotive, di echi differenti, come i fraseggi dei musicisti che si rincorrono in una jam session ...

Sst, la conosco quella donna.Viveva con un nugolo di uccelli in Lenox Avenue.Conosco anche il marito. Ha perso la testa per una diciottenne: uno di quegli amori tutti di pancia,da far spavento, che lo ha reso triste e felice al punto da spararle perché quell'emozione durasse in eterno. Quando la donna ,Violet, andò al funerale per vedere la ragazza e sfregiarle il volto esanime, venne spinta a terra e cacciata dalla chiesa.Lei allora si mise a correre, in mezzo a tutta quella neve, e quando arrivò a casa, aprì le gabbie ,spalancò le finestre e lasciò gli uccelli liberi di morire di freddo o di volare via, compreso il pappagallo che diceva "ti amo".
Nella neve spazzata dal vento non restarono impronte,sicché per un po' nessuno seppe dove abitava esattamente,in Lenox Avenue.
Ma ,come me, sapevano chi era, chi doveva essere, perché sapevano che il marito, Joe Trace, era quello che aveva sparato alla ragazza

Un romanzo con una musicalità impressionante,
per il ritmo della scrittura, per il jazz di Harlem
che non è solo ovunque, agli angoli delle strade, nelle case, nei locali, ma è l'energia,la passione, la sensualità ,l'imprevedibilità che percorre la storia
e perché i personaggi (da Violet/Violent, a Joe, a Dorcas ,fino ai secondari) sono soprattutto voci ,più che corpi, con timbri ben riconoscibili .

4 stelle!

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“… it did not make her feel generous, this juke joint barrel hooch, tonk house music. It made her hold her hand in the pocket of her apron to keep from smashing it through the glass pane to snatch the world in her fist and squeeze the life out of it for doing what it did and did and did to her and everybody else she knew or knew about.”

I wasn’t able to do this, but I think Jazz would be best read in one sitting. It doesn’t read like a novel. It’s not so much a story as it is a song--an evocation.

Jazz is part two in Morrison’s trilogy that is comparable to Dante’s Divine Comedy; the Purgatory to Beloved’s Hell. Like Dante, Morrison observes suffering caused by the seven deadly sins, and she does this through a narrator. I had read that the City was the narrator, but that explanation didn’t work for me. To me, the narrator is Morrison’s muse, perhaps representing the spirit of a people.

So this was like music, but I also thought of it like a painting. At the center is an act of violence. A young girl is murdered by her lover, a much older man, and the man’s wife attempts to disfigure the girl at her funeral. Branching out from this center, like the background figures in a painting, we see the trajectory of these characters that brought them to this point.

The history, though just lightly touched on, was fascinating, especially the personal look at The Great Migration through the ancestors of each character. I learned about the Silent Parade of 1917, where 10,000 African Americans marched along Fifth Avenue in New York in a peaceful protest of anti-Black violence, from lynchings in the south, to the East St. Louis Riots earlier that year where somewhere between 39 and 150 Black people were murdered by white mobs.

So many intriguing themes were explored, but a favorite was the search for a missing parent. Through different characters and unique situations that lead to the absence, Morrison shows the common need we have to know our parents and explores why that need is so basic and primal in us. I understood this better than I ever have after reading this story.

I don’t recommend this as a first Morrison. It’s a beautiful novel, but it’s very unusually crafted, just proving her genius in my opinion, but may not be for everyone. Still, like with all of her work, I walk away enriched and with much food for thought.

My favorite take-away was the idea of wildness. Part of the appeal of jazz music is the freedom--the feeling that control is loosened a little and something great and true is let fly. Morrison seems to be exploring all sides of this freedom as she takes her characters through the purgatory of this novel. It’s rich and deep and a book I’m glad I own so I can re-visit it again and again.

“I started out believing that life was made just so the world would have some way to think about itself, but that it had gone awry with humans because flesh, pinioned by misery, hangs on to it with pleasure. Hangs on to wells and a boy’s golden hair; would just as soon inhale sweet fire caused by a burning girl as hold a maybe-yes maybe-no hand. I don’t believe that anymore. Something is missing there. Something rogue. Something else you have to figure in before you can figure it out.”

[Jonas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book by Toni Morrison so far as I work my way through all of her published works. The author narrates the Audible version. What a gift to hear her bring her characters to life. Jazz is the story of Joe and Violet. Like most of Morrison’s work, we get the back story of the main characters as she brings to life the hardships and forced migrations of many blacks during the early 20th century. I greatly appreciated these back stories, especially the longing to find one’s identity by finding/connecting with parents that were never known.

It is a simple, yet complex story that starts with a violent and sad end to an affair gone wrong. We get inside the heads and hearts of Joe and Violet, and young Dorcas. There is great insight into the thoughts and motivations of people involved in an affair and its eventual end. There are many tender moments, such as when Joe and Violet meet, but I was especially moved by the ending when we get the perspective of one of Dorcas’s friends. Her presence and actions help Joe and Violet begin to heal leaving the reader with a sense of hope and hardships overcome.

[Comfortably · Rating 4 out of 5]

Χάρλεμ. 1920. Ο Τζο και η Βάιολετ, μεσόκοποι, μεροκαματιάρηδες, αποκαμωμένοι από το όνειρο της καλής ζωής που κυνήγησαν πριν χρόνια όταν μετανάστευσαν στη Νέα Υόρκη, το όνειρο που δεν εκπληρώθηκε ποτέ. Ο Τζο γνωρίζει τη Δορκάς, ένα κορίτσι πολύ νεότερό του, την ερωτεύεται και το χαμένο όνειρο ξαναπαίρνει ζωή. Όταν η νεαρή κοπέλα προσπαθεί να απομακρυνθεί ο Τζο τη δολοφονεί. Αυτό είναι και το βασικό θέμα του βιβλίου, που αποκαλύπτεται στον αναγνώστη από τις πρώτες σελίδες. Και εδώ τελειώνει η δράση στο παρόν και αρχίζουν οι αναδρομές. Αναδρομές χωρίς δράση. Και όσο προχωρούσα τις σελίδες αναρωτιόμουν πώς γίνεται να χτιστεί ένα μυθιστόρημα που όλη του η δράση εξαντλήθηκε στις αρχικές σελίδες.
Μια κλωστή ξεκινάει από το τώρα των ηρώων κ��ι τραβάει για το παρελθόν, κεντάει εκεί στο τότε την ιστορία της ζωής του κάθε ενός, ξαναγυρνάει στο σήμερα και οι παλινδρομήσεις δεν έχουν σταματημό. Κάθε αναγωγή στο παρελθόν έρχεται να δώσει μια παραλλαγή στην ιστορία του σήμερα. Κάθε ιστορία από την πρότερη ζωή τους αποτελεί ανάπτυξη του βασικού θέματος του βιβλίου.
Χρησιμοποιώντας τους τρεις ήρωες (που σχηματίζουν ένα ερωτικό τρίγωνο) σα τις βασικές συγχορδίες ενός μουσικού θέματος, εμπλουτίζει το θέμα της με πολλαπλές μετατροπίες και το αποτέλεσμα είναι μια ενδελεχής και συναισθηματικά φορτισμένη αποτύπωση μιας κοινωνίας ανθρώπων που υπέφεραν.. μιας κοινωνίας ανθρώπων που αγωνιούσαν για επιβίωση, μιας κοινωνίας ανθρώπων που πάσχιζαν να αντιμετωπίζονται σαν.. άνθρωποι.
Ποιος μπορεί να στερηθεί πραγματικά το όνειρό του? Και ποιος μπορεί να μη φωνάξει "θέλω να είμαι ελεύθερος άνθρωπος"?
Μπορώ να πω πως το Τζαζ δε με ενθουσίασε όσο το Γαλάζια Μάτια, όμως εδώ η Μόρισον κάνει σπουδαία δουλειά με το ψυχογράφημα των χαρακτήρων της.

[Oscar Calva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before my review, some random thoughts on some jazz albums in my collection. I love sixties jazz and I'm undecided if Blue Train or A Love Supreme is my favorite Coltrane album (he's definitely my favorite jazz musician), and I'm not going to enter the tired discussion if the latter or Miles' Kind of Blue is the greatest jazz album ever recorded. However there are two very dear gems in my collection that usually are not mentioned when discussing the top 10 albums of all time. One of them Monk's Dream (Thelonius Monk), the other The Köln Concert (Keith Jarrett), and I think those two albums are perfect introductions to what to expect reading Toni Morrison's Jazz

Neither, even though very important works, might be considered quintessential jazz albums; compared to other albums in his catalog, Monk's Dream doesn't sound as progressive or brilliantly awkward, it's not even original as most of the tracks here had been previously released elsewhere. Nevertheless it's still very tight and effortless complex --key word: effortless--, as if having that band playing for years those tracks and subconsciously knowing each note, rythm and movement in perfect synchronicity but still sounding like everything was improvised on one take, and as complex as some moments result, the overall music experience is very enjoyable and comfortable to the listener. On the other hand, "The Köln Concert" is a very gorgeous, trippy and hypnotizing live album, elegant without any pretentiousness, Jarrett sounds as if rehearsing poem writing with his piano while spreading hallucinogens on the air.

Similarly Morrison's Jazz is not her magnum opus, far from it, but the cadence, lyricism and beauty of her written words is very Jarrett-like, at the same time her writing is, while still technically very complex, as effortless complex as Monk's. She writes as if words just write themselves and none is out of place even if the reader at times has trouble grasping her continuous "free jazz" long streams of writing; the flow of the words has the same effect as listening to "Bright Mississipi" (my favorite track in Monk's Dream). Here a sample:

And when spring comes to the City people notice one another in the road; notice the strangers with whom they share aisles and tables and the space where intimate garments are laundered. Going in and out, in and out the same door, they handle the handle; on trolleys and park benches they settle thighs on a seat in which hundreds have done it too. Copper coins dropped in the palm have been swallowed by children and tested by gypsies, but it’s still money and people smile at that. It’s the time of year when the City urges contradiction most, encouraging you to buy street food when you have no appetite at all; giving you a taste for a single room occupied by you alone as well as a craving to share it with someone you passed in the street. Really there is no contradiction—rather it’s a condition: the range of what an artful City can do. What can beat bricks warming up to the sun? The return of awnings. The removal of blankets from horses’ backs. Tar softens under the heel and the darkness under bridges changes from gloom to cooling shade. After a light rain, when the leaves have come, tree limbs are like wet fingers playing in woolly green hair. Motor cars become black jet boxes gliding behind hoodlights weakened by mist. On sidewalks turned to satin figures move shoulder first, the crowns of their heads angled shields against the light buckshot that the raindrops are.

Yup, Jazz is definitely a very musical book, and Toni Morrison is as good at "playing music" with a pen as much as Coltrane is to "writing epic novels" with a tenor sax, but this is neither her A Love Supreme or her Kind of Blue, the reason I don't give it 5 stars is because it still is a very uneven composition.

As for the plot/story, there are a lot of reviews out there which make a better summary, and in this novel the plot and the story are very irrelevant compared to the beautiful writing. Enough to say, this is a story of a passion between an old man and a young woman ending in tragedy, which, being an immigrant african american in the Harlem Renaissance era has also an historic imprint of past tragedies.

But it's better explained by the author herself in a single quote:

Whatever happens, whether you get rich or stay poor, ruin your health or live to old age, you always end up back where you started: hungry for the one thing everybody loses - young loving.