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Ralph Ellison Living With Music Analysis

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Ellison even declared that jazz music can be used as a way to emancipation from the suffering and distress that the African Americans were experiencing. He declared in his essay Living with Music that jazz music is able to “send you…into an ecstasy of rhythm and memory and brassy affirmation of the goodness of being alive and part of the community” (193) Hence, Ellison considered music as an integral part within his life.
The African American literature paved the way for this protest literature in which the African American writers used their voices in written and spoken forms to protest racial discrimination. They expressed their power by telling authentic stories in several genres of literature as poetry, narratives, essays, letters and speeches.
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Publicly displayed columns was one of the main creations that opened up opinions to the public that concern the political movements. Hughes was motivated by political movements like the civil rights movement and expressed it through his written columns. Langston Hughes, in his columns, wrote about the African Americans culture that was addressed to the public and opened up new opinions. According to Jackson’s article, “Slavery Leadbelly are Gone, but the Old Songs Go Singing on” the author argued that African Americans have lost their slave heritage. One popular artist named Leadbelly created her songs that embodied the oppression of slavery, trying to recall that slavery should be remembered this in a certain way.

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Furthermore, Ellison’s passion for jazz music and blues had led him to reflect his novel. His familiarity with jazz was taken from his musical background. According to the author of Jazz Country Horace A. Porter: “Ellison began playing trumpet when he was eight, and he listened to and practiced playing ‘hard driving blues’” (3) He also added: “jazz musicians were as a group among Ellison’s several boyhood heroes” (3). Hence, jazz music was considered as an important point within his life since he got inspired by musicians as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Luke Jordan.

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