Literary Analytic Response

"Sonny's Blues," was a short story written by James Baldwin. It tells a story of two brothers who lived in Harlem. While the older of the two was a teacher, the younger aspired to be a jazz pianist. The story is told from the perspective of the older brother. The younger brother's name is Sonny, and his older brother doesn't think that playing jazz is a good idea. This is representative of how music affected American History, as Sonny strived for some form of success in life, and couldnt obtain it the way that the already wealthy white people could. Music was his only option if he wanted to get out of Harlem. Eventually, the narrator decides to give Sonny a chance, and lets him live with his wife, because she has a piano. Sonny practices the piano nonstop when he lives there, from the time when he gets home from school, which he actually never went to very often because he was playing jazz and doing drugs with his "jazz friends" in Greenwich Village. The way that he played, without stopping at all for whenever he was home until everyone went to sleep, was representative of his attempt to escape from Harlem. He eventually is arrested in a heroin bust, after being kicked out of his school for not attending class. After getting out of rehab, Sonny meets his brother, who recently lost his two year old daughter, giving him some insight to Sonny's problem. Sonny goes back to Greenwich Village to play with his old jazz friends in concert. The narrator goes to see Sonny play for the first time. He sees that Sonny is highly revered for his musical talent.

Research Analytic Response

American music really didn't change much from the European music that they were rooted in for quite some time. Until the blues became more prominent in the 1900's, American popular music remained the same for an extended period of time. People used the same music over and over for worship and social gatherings. This might have been the cause of the music that came later, like blues and jazz. There had been so much repetition before that people really liked the idea of improvisation in music. Both blues and jazz have roots in African and American music, so without both of these cultures, this music would never have been formed. Without this music, there would not only be much less of the music we have today, but less cultural connection between whites and blacks. Contributions from musicians like Ma Rainy led to the rise of the blues in America. She was only one of the musicians who helped the blues gain popularity in the early 1900's, and her music, along with her contemporaries, led to early New Orleans jazz. This jazz evolved from playing blues in a swing style to playing more and more complicated big band arrangements and exploring the boundries of harmony, rhythm, and the different textures that a band can create in smaller combos. While big band leaders wrote music that is still often played today, much of the progress in jazz today is in the form of smaller combos, consisting of two or three musicians in a rhythm section and a few soloists, usually playing saxophones or trumpets. The development of bebop led not only to a more advanced, complex form of jazz, but it led to more cultual connection among African Americans that helped begin the civil rights movement. I believe that without this style of music, the civil rights movement would have been significantly less effective.