In “Sonny’s Blues”, Baldwin’s language conveys the rhythm, melody, and heavy mood of the jazz music of the late Harlem Renaissance. It is this new form, (bop or blues form jazz) that bears great importance in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.” Charlie Parker was a new breed of musician, taking from the old standards and improvising upon them, giving jazz a new voice. “Now’s The Time” is composed on a twelve bar blues form chord progression, different from the thirty-two bar song form jazz form chord progression of popular jazz-age players. Rising above that steadying sound are the bright harmonizing melodies of conversations between sax and trumpet – all riding along over that composed melodic train of rhythm. Closing one’s eyes and listening to the head of the piece – the tune recalls the sounds of a train or trolley, struggling and then steadying along its route. The melody is underlined with repeated bass tones, and it is then electrified by the improvised rising harmonies of saxophone and trumpet. The first few charged fast-passing piano chords and soft brush hits of high jazz cymbal in “Now’s the Time”, set a rhythmic (composed) melodic head for the tune.
The outstanding piece from that recording, “Now’s the Time”, exemplifies the blues-form jazz that influenced Baldwin’s writing and that he employs as the story form for “Sonny’s Blues”. The session, known as The Savoy recordings, was led by the “messiah of modern jazz” Charlie Parker (better known as Bird), and included the great Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillesspie, and Max Roach. In 1945, (at about the time that Baldwin was starting out as a writer), one of bebop’s best known recorded sessions was put to vinyl. This style of jazz, better known as be-bop, was quite influential on artists of the time, and this “new” jazz idiom greatly influenced the arts scene in Harlem, playing a key role in the works not only of musicians, but also painters like Beauford Delaney, and young writers like James Baldwin for whom jazz was an important mode of expression. In struggling to compose and perform music, I learned to appreciate improvisational hip-hop composition on a structural level – taking note of its origins in the rich history of jazz, the hard jazz of the forties and fifties. Over the years I spent time studying music, learning classical piano and attempting to teach myself guitar. Closing my eyes, I could feel the vibrating rhythm of the train rising through the soles of my feet, and I could hear the melodies of the voices and the surrounding conversations – all those stories blending into one sound. On the train, young men rapped and improvised, telling their stories in melodic lyrics imposed over the sound of the subway moving along the tracks. I distinctly remember holding onto my father’s hand as we rode the B train home after nights at the symphony, and hearing a different kind of music, a music that felt more tangible and intertwined with the surroundings, though I didn’t yet have the words to articulate what I felt. Improvisational impromptu hip-hop erupted from every corner. It was in Harlem I learned to appreciate street music. When I was a young girl my father lectured at Columbia, and for a brief time we lived in a small apartment off 145 th street in Harlem. In that soundscape, there is music, and if one truly listens, within that music there are stories.