UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Facing Jazz, Facing Trauma: Modern Trauma and the Jazz Archive Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/79v6m6c0 Author Singleton, Tyfahra Danielle Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Facing Jazz, Facing Trauma: Modern Trauma and the Jazz Archive By Tyfahra Danielle Singleton A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature and the Designated Emphasis in Film Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Judith Butler, Chair Professor Chana Kronfeld Professor Linda Williams Fall 2011 Facing Jazz, Facing Trauma: Modern Trauma and the Jazz Archive Copyright © 2011 by Tyfahra Danielle Singleton Abstract Facing Jazz, Facing Trauma: Modern Trauma and the Jazz Archive by Tyfahra Danielle Singleton Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Berkeley Professor Judith Butler, Chair ―Facing Jazz, Facing Trauma‖ posits American jazz music as a historical archive of an American history of trauma. By reading texts by Gayl Jones, Ralph Ellison, Franz Kafka; music and performances by Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday; the life, art and films of Josephine Baker, and the film The Jazz Singer (1927), my goal is to give African American experiences of trauma a place within American trauma studies and to offer jazz as an extensive archive of testimony for witnessing and for study. Initially, I explore the pivotal historical moment where trauma and jazz converge on a groundbreaking scale, when Billie Holiday sings ―Strange Fruit‖ in 1939. This moment illuminates the fugitive alliance between American blacks and Jews in forming the historical testimony that is jazz. ―Strange Fruit,‖ written by Jewish American Abel Meeropol, and sung by Billie Holiday, evokes the trauma of lynching in an effort to protest the same. In a career that hinges on her ability to convey the result of a traumatic life musically, Holiday nonetheless breaks from an African American coded tradition of music and participates in a Jewish coded tradition of discourse. She allows the lyrics to speak for themselves and protest the crime of lynching for which ―Strange Fruit‖ was controversial and powerful evidence. I then explore jazz and its connection to trauma, witnessing, and testimony through a literary lens. Juxtaposing larger than life figures with literary counterparts, I focus on vocal jazz where the jazz singer rewrites history from the perspective of the survivors of a legacy of slavery. Gayl Jones‘s Corregidora and Ralph Ellison‘s Invisible Man demonstrate both the trauma of invisibility/inaudibility and the imperative to be acknowledged and heard. Personal and collective traumas are one and the same in these texts. I also analyze a performance of Louis Armstrong to emphasize jazz performance as testimony. 1 Next, Kafka‘s ―Josefine the Singer or The Mouse People‖ serves to demonstrate the role of the performer in the representation and creation of a people or nation, while Josephine Baker appears as a concurrent example of the same. The singer (and/or her song) is the voice of the people and the screen upon which they reflect their collective identity. For Kafka, there is no mouse people without Josefine, and her power to create a people transcends even her abilities as a singer. Josephine Baker, too, manages to create a 1920s Paris with a talent that is contested to this day. Her life and art tell a story of survival and triumph that also reveal the history of trauma that made her story possible. Finally, Al Jolson‘s The Jazz Singer (1927) documents the beginning of the end of a very long tradition of blackface minstrelsy, a tradition which was integral in forming American popular music. Viewing this 1920s conception of ―jazz‖ music as ―black‖ music appropriated by American Jews underscores the complex history and place of jazz music in America‘s modern period. Although blackface minstrelsy has had its history rewritten repeatedly, it will remain implicated in the trauma of American racism. Understanding jazz and its musical legacy as an archive of American trauma should serve two purposes. Recognizing it as traumatic testimony will hopefully call attention to the imperative to witness to it as such. It should also emphasize what exactly is at stake in this witnessing. The survivors of trauma, the inheritors of the legacy of slavery, will continue to testify to that ever-evolving trauma. Perhaps, if we strive to listen, to recognize and be witnesses to that testimony, the careful formation of new unbroken subjectivities can finally begin. 2 —For Lula i ii Acknowledgements Were I to say that it takes a village to write a dissertation, that might easily be misconstrued as a concession to the analogy that writing a dissertation is like giving birth—an analogy I will never concede. So no, mother, it‘s still not the same and I will tell you once again if I ever give birth. However, the village part is true. This already strange text would be absurd without the help of my loving village. Thank you to my advisers Judith Butler, Chana Kronfeld, and Linda Williams for your alchemy, for turning an inkling into a dissertation. Judith, you continue to teach me independence , acceptance and breakthrough thinking. You are, by far, the sharpest black woman I know. Chana, your genius, strength, and kindness made finishing possible; you truly make me want to be a better Jew. Linda, thank you for challenging me to work outside of my discipline and comfort zone. To my secret weapon, Jillian Settle, thank you for lending your eagle-eye to this document. Every word here stands on the foundation of your love and support. To my unlikely miracle, Edward Givens, thank you for doing everything I couldn‘t. To my father Tyrone Singleton, thank you for the jazz gene, your precious musical insight and jazz indoctrination. To my mother Marion Singleton, thank you for your gift of argumentativeness, tirelessness and perfectionism, of which I inherited just enough to get by. I owe you both for multilingualism and writing skills. To my beloved grandmother, Lula Fae Mason, how did you make all of us feel like we were secretly your favorite? I‘m glad I inherited your ability to listen to the same song hundreds of times and never tire of it. I couldn‘t have written this without it. Thank you to the rest of my supportive family for all of your help on this project. Tomeiko and Dennis Givens, Alizé Spencer, Obediah Blaché, and Rosaline Sellers all helped me with invaluable research. Thank you to my extended musical and multilingual family, Robert Settle and Caron Settle-Parnell. To friends and colleagues I also give many thanks: Nicholas Jones, Ana Cara, Ernst van Alphen, Joel Katz, Mark Sandberg, David Copenhafer, Aminah Williams, Erica Roberts, Ahmed Darwish, Shannon Burson, Jackie Stevenson and Karen Checkoway. Thank you to Josephine Moreno and for thirteen years of support from the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Finally, Emma Rivkah Howell. Emma, we should have (and would have) argued over every word here. Thank you for teaching me that life is beautiful. I guess this is my first book of nightmares. iii iv Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Strange Fruit: Song of a Century 31 Holiday‘s ―Strange Fruit‖ 47 India.Arie Performs ―Strange Fruit‖ 54 Chapter 2: Song to the Devil: The Traumatic Voice of Corregidora, Invisible Man, and Louis Armstrong 65 Corregidora (Gayl Jones) 66 Song to the Devil 71 Invisible Witness (Ralph Ellison) 73 Deconstructing Dinah (Louis Armstrong) 79 Chapter 3: Josefine, Josephine, and the Power of Song 93 Josephine Baker, the Singer, the Dancer, or Paris 1920s 104 Baker on Film 121 Chapter 4: Civil Memory Wars: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Battle over Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer (1927) 135 Blackface and Lynching 155 1927 161 The Jazz Singer 162 Last Words on ―Jazz‖ 181 Bibliography 187 v vi Introduction Birds flying high, you know how I feel Sun in the sky, you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by,a you know how I feel It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new life For me And I'm feeling good — Nina Simone, ―Feeling Good‖1 The sublime tension between ―feeling good‖ and the distempered, anxious dissonance of minor blues chords I hear when Nina Simone sings "Feeling Good" has led me to connect trauma and jazz. "Is this a happy song?" I've asked numerous people and numerous people have said: yes. When I asked my father what he thought, his words summed up the song better than I ever could, which is why I start with them now: "Feeling Good" is a Nina Simone classic that is historical. If you can sit through this song and not be moved emotionally at least a little, then you should get checked to see if you're still alive. Like most blues songs, it is not that technical, musically speaking. It is a standard 12 bar blues which is pretty simple for most musicians. I think one of the gripping aspects of the song is the dichotomy of the lyrics that are so happy, hopeful and positive set against a background of music that is somewhat dark, projects sadness, hopelessness and fear, probably associated with the plight of most Black folk at the time (1960s). Not to mention her subtle yet powerful voice that presents the lyrics almost as a plea. Her plea is filled with determination to have what is in those happy lyrics regardless of the grim reality that is in the music—likewise, the reality of unemployment, homelessness, police brutality, disenfranchisement from society and possibly any number of addictions all around her.