Jazz at Home

Rogers, Joel A. "Jazz at Home." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 52-57. Print.

I’m not really sure what to say about this essay, since it isn’t exactly trying to prove anything that anyone is about to argue with. Basically, it spends its couple of pages on what could be said in a sentence: “Jazz is a good outlet for people and isn’t going away.” I don’t know why the author goes on and on trying to prove this point when I doubt anyone would disagree. The feeling, overall, is one of a young person writing about how much they love a certain band, and how sure they are that their band is the best. It’s not interesting to read on any level.

The one sentence, however, that gave me a reason to pause was the final, closing one. I think that the author wrote it without thinking about what he was saying, because it has that kind of finality of a concluding sentence that lacks real extra meaning; strangely, it brings up a point that isn’t mentioned in the rest of the essay and might have proven a better (or at least a more interesting) thesis than the actual topic. That is, he believes that jazz should be diverted to more noble uses. Now what, exactly, he means by this I have no inkling. Perhaps he had some distant thought about using jazz for a social medicine, reducing the pent up energy and frustration so many people face in a kind of pre-hippie movement.
That doesn’t really matter, since there are no answers here (in this essay). What does matter is the fact that he said it. Does he not believe that the use of jazz as an outlet for African Americans is a noble use? He’s already droned on about how African Americans created jazz and perform it better than any other race, but then he turns around and basically implies that all of that doesn’t matter against what could be done with jazz. I’d like to know what, exactly, he thinks is a noble use of jazz beyond the societal calming therapy it gives African Americans.

I’d also like to point out that I disagree with his stance on how black people “know” jazz more than white people. That sounds about as thought-worthy as saying that all Jewish people lack rhythm, all Mexicans are sleepy, or all Arabs are terrorists. It’s a bland, boring generalization that doesn’t mean anything, and trying to prove it (without any proof, I might add) in such an essay devalues whatever else the author might have said.