The Influence Of Music In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

Music has been utilized by cultures around the world for centuries to express what words sometimes cannot. Music can be a mechanism that brings people together in the case that it becomes attached to the culture of a people, but it can also be an incredibly personal subject, as people often pour their individual emotions and experiences into their musical compositions. In either case, people create music as a way to share their worldviews. In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”, the narrator struggles to understand his brother Sonny’s fixation on a music career. Sonny struggles with a heroin addiction, so many of his choices do not seem reasonable to those around him, especially his dream of being a musician. He becomes lumped in with the crowd

As Sonny plays the piano his “fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And Sonny went all the way back, he really began with the spare, flat statement of the opening phrase of the song. Then he began to make it his” (Baldwin 140). Sonny uses music as a way to express himself, but since so many people growing up in Harlem during the 1950s share similar struggles, the life that Sonny puts into his music is able to be felt by others. The jazz music that Sonny plays has no words, therefore there are infinite interpretations and feelings that can be evoked in others who hear it. In an environment such as 1950s Harlem, one in which people's voices and struggles go silenced or unnoticed by those outside that frame of life, music acts as a way to project repressed emotions in a way that still keeps the private and intimate aspect of the music intact for the

One of the most famous jazz musicians is Louis Armstrong, who was known for singing and playing the trumpet. His unique voice was accompanied by a strong stage presence, but one that many African Americans thought might be working against their favor. When Louis Armstrong performs on his own, doing both the singing and instrumental roles of the song, he becomes the center focus of the show, one which is reminiscent of a minstrel show, where white actors would often pretend to be racist caricatures of African Americans for entertainment purposes (Ellison). Although Louis Armstrong was an undeniably outstanding performer and musician, the pedestal that he was put on by white Americans was one African Americans wanted to reject in order to avoid becoming objects for entertainment. Nevertheless, a positive aspect of African American musicians, such as Armstrong, was the fact that more respect was being paid to these talented musicians. The cross-cultural exchange of music broadened, and people began appreciating different forms of music. Along with this new music, came the chance for people to hear the stories of people living different lives from them. The various singing and instrumental styles of these musicians came about through cultural practices and traditions. Therefore, by sharing their