Book Review
Epistrophies Jazz and the Literary Imagination . Brent Hayes Edwards . Harvard University Press , 2017 . 336 pages .
ISBN : 978-0674055438
Brent Hayes Edwards is a noted scholar of numerous aspects of the black diasporic experience . In Epistrophies Jazz and the Literary Imagination , he examines the often overlooked interplay between the emerging jazz music of the Harlem Renaissance , and , what we might think of as , the more conventional “ literature ” both preceding and following it . That is the crux of Edwards ’ s scholarly mission . He seeks to demystify the origins of jazz by showing that its history is just as rich and varied as that of any other literary form . He does not do this because he feels the need to “ justify ” the history of jazz by connecting it to some more “ acceptable ” literary genre . Instead , this study seeks to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the many literary and musical forms which melded to produce jazz , and which continue to influence popular culture today .
Formally speaking , the book is divided into eight chapters . Each chapter , ostensibly , focuses on either a great figure in jazz , like Louis Armstrong , or some aspect of music construction , like the , sometimes multifaceted , meanings of song titles . Practically speaking , however , insights and observations ebb and flow , freely between chapters like an improvised jazz tune . At every turn , new , unexpected , connections between prose , poetry , and jazz , appear . From the more familiarly styled literary introductions of James Weldon John-
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