All the metaphors you are
conceptual mappings of bebop in James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’ and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v6i1.69Keywords:
bebop, blues, Jack Kerouac, James Baldwin, jazz, metaphor, On the Road, Sonny’s BluesAbstract
This article explores how two influential mid-twentieth-century texts incorporated jazz, and bebop in particular, into the context of a literary narrative. Drawing on recent work in linguistics, it argues that ‘Sonny’s Blues’ and On the Road may be distinguished on the basis of the different underlying conceptual metaphors that inform their representation of jazz. Baldwin’s text describes it first as a form of revolt; then as an updating of a coherent blues ethos. Kerouac’s text constructs jazz as a journey outward into the ineffable, a mystical transport beyond the self. Despite these differences, the depictions of jazz in these texts play analogous roles since they enable the narratives to move from problem to solution.
References
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Benston, Kimberly (2001) Performing Blackness: Enacting African-American Modernism. New York: Routledge.
Cunnell, Howard (2007) ‘Fast this Time’. In On the Road: The Original Scroll, ed. Howard Cunnell, 5–22. New York: Penguin Books.
Davis, Francis (2004) ‘Talking Kerouac’. In Davis, Jazz and its Discontents: A Francis Davis Reader, 289–92. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.
DeVeaux, Scott (1991) ‘Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography’. Black American Literature Forum 25, no. 3 (Fall): 525–60.http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3041812
—(1999) The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ellison, Ralph (1964) ‘Richard Wright’s Blues’. In Ellison, Shadow and Act, 64–78. New York: Vintage Books.
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Hansen Werner, Craig (1994) Playing the Changes: From Afro Modernism to the Jazz Impulse. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
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Jones, Leroi (1963) Blues People: Negro Music in White America. New York: William Morrow and Co.
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—(1976) [1958] On the Road. New York: Penguin Books.
—(1993) ‘Essentials of Spontaneous Prose’. In Kerouac, Good Blonde and Others. San Francisco: Grey Fox Press.
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—(1992) ‘The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor’. In Metaphor and Thought, 2nd edn, ed. Andrew Ortony, 202–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lardas, John (2001) The Bop Apocalypse: The Religious Visions of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Lott, Eric (1995) ‘Double V, Double-Time: Bebop’s Politics of Style’. In Jazz Among the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard, 241–66. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Lowney, John (2000) ‘Langston Hughes and the “Nonsense” of Bebop’. American Literature 72, no. 2 (June): 357–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-72-2-357
Malcolm, Douglas (1999) ‘“Jazz America”: Jazz and African American Culture in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road’. Contemporary Literature 40, no. 1: 85–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1208820
McCann, Paul (2008) Race, Music, and National Identity: Images of Jazz in American Fiction, 1920–1960. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Monson, Ingrid (1995) ‘The Problem with White Hipsters: Race, Gender, and Cultural Conceptions in Jazz Historical Discourse’. Journal of the American Musicological Society 48, no. 3 (Autumn): 396–422. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3519833
Panish, Jon (1997) The Color of Jazz: Race and Representation in Postwar American Culture. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Porter, Eric (2002) What Is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sandke, Randy (2010) Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet: Race and the Mythology, Politics, Business and Jazz. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Savery, Pancho (1992) ‘Baldwin, Bebop, and Sonny’s Blues’. In Understanding Others: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Studies and the Teaching of Literature, ed. Joseph Trimmer and Tilly Warnock, 165–76. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Woideck, Carl (1996) Charlie Parker: His Music and Life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Yaffe, David (2005) Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Benston, Kimberly (2001) Performing Blackness: Enacting African-American Modernism. New York: Routledge.
Cunnell, Howard (2007) ‘Fast this Time’. In On the Road: The Original Scroll, ed. Howard Cunnell, 5–22. New York: Penguin Books.
Davis, Francis (2004) ‘Talking Kerouac’. In Davis, Jazz and its Discontents: A Francis Davis Reader, 289–92. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.
DeVeaux, Scott (1991) ‘Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography’. Black American Literature Forum 25, no. 3 (Fall): 525–60.http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3041812
—(1999) The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ellison, Ralph (1964) ‘Richard Wright’s Blues’. In Ellison, Shadow and Act, 64–78. New York: Vintage Books.
Fauconnier, Gilles, and Mark Turner (2002) The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.
Gendron, Bernard (1995) ‘Moldy Figs and Modernists: Jazz at War (1942–1946)’. In Jazz Among the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard, 31–56. New York: Duke University Press.
Hansen Werner, Craig (1994) Playing the Changes: From Afro Modernism to the Jazz Impulse. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Harvey, Mark S. (1991) ‘Jazz and Modernism: Changing Conceptions of Innovation and Tradition’. In Jazz in Mind: Essays on the History and Meanings of Jazz, ed. Reginald T. Buckner and Steven Weiland, 128–47. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Jones, Leroi (1963) Blues People: Negro Music in White America. New York: William Morrow and Co.
Kerouac, Jack (1962) Big Sur. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy.
—(1976) [1958] On the Road. New York: Penguin Books.
—(1993) ‘Essentials of Spontaneous Prose’. In Kerouac, Good Blonde and Others. San Francisco: Grey Fox Press.
Lakoff, George (1987) Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226471013.001.0001
—(1992) ‘The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor’. In Metaphor and Thought, 2nd edn, ed. Andrew Ortony, 202–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lardas, John (2001) The Bop Apocalypse: The Religious Visions of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Lott, Eric (1995) ‘Double V, Double-Time: Bebop’s Politics of Style’. In Jazz Among the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard, 241–66. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Lowney, John (2000) ‘Langston Hughes and the “Nonsense” of Bebop’. American Literature 72, no. 2 (June): 357–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00029831-72-2-357
Malcolm, Douglas (1999) ‘“Jazz America”: Jazz and African American Culture in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road’. Contemporary Literature 40, no. 1: 85–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1208820
McCann, Paul (2008) Race, Music, and National Identity: Images of Jazz in American Fiction, 1920–1960. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Monson, Ingrid (1995) ‘The Problem with White Hipsters: Race, Gender, and Cultural Conceptions in Jazz Historical Discourse’. Journal of the American Musicological Society 48, no. 3 (Autumn): 396–422. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3519833
Panish, Jon (1997) The Color of Jazz: Race and Representation in Postwar American Culture. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Porter, Eric (2002) What Is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sandke, Randy (2010) Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet: Race and the Mythology, Politics, Business and Jazz. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Savery, Pancho (1992) ‘Baldwin, Bebop, and Sonny’s Blues’. In Understanding Others: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Studies and the Teaching of Literature, ed. Joseph Trimmer and Tilly Warnock, 165–76. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Woideck, Carl (1996) Charlie Parker: His Music and Life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Yaffe, David (2005) Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Published
2013-04-19
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Levinson, J. (2013). All the metaphors you are: conceptual mappings of bebop in James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’ and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Jazz Research Journal, 6(1), 69-87. https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v6i1.69
