Prompt #3: "Sonny's Blues" & "Waltz for Debby"

In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” jazz music serves as a sort of release for Sonny and other members of the African-American community. Jazz music was (and still is) a form of expression that sought to expose and uncover underlying pain and struggles, especially within the black community. Along with serving as a form of expression, jazz also had the ability to powerfully affect its audience, and make them feel something. The power of jazz is perfectly reflected at the end of “Sonny’s Blues” when the narrator goes to watch his brother play piano at at a local club. Here, the narrator finally understands the complexity of jazz, and how it can be joyful, yet riddled with sorrow at the same time. One jazz song that would perfectly embody the piece Sonny and his friends play towards the end of the story would be “Waltz for Debby” by Bill Evans. This instrumental jazz song exemplifies the unstructured nature of jazz and, just like Sonny’s music, beautifully evokes various emotions within the listener.

From a musical standpoint, Evans’ “Waltz for Debby” strongly resembles the type of song that Sonny and his friends would be playing at the club. The instruments that Evans’ uses are very similar to the ones that Sonny and his friends use. “Waltz for Debby” contains three main instruments: the drums, the bass fiddle, and, of course, the piano (played by Paul Motian, Scott LaFaro, and Bill Evans, respectively). Baldwin describes how the “dry, low, black man said something awful on the drums,” how Creole played his bass fiddle in a way that was “driving, beautiful and calm and old,” and finally how Sonny “filled the air with life” through the piano (20-21). Baldwin’s descriptions of the instruments align with Evans’ song fairly well. Like Sonny, Evans begins his piano playing in a very “tamed” way (0:00-1:09), and it takes him time to finally get into the full swing of things. This explosion of passion is similar to when Sonny began to play from his heart and Creole “let out the reins,” allowing the band to express themselves fully. Both Evans and Sonny allow themselves to be fully immersed in the music, and only then can they truly communicate their thoughts and feelings through the piano keys. And just like Sonny, Evans’s instrument is the focal point of this musical arrangement, and is used to evoke emotion and convey meaning.

Furthermore, another reason why “Waltz for Debby” is a perfect representation of “Sonny’s song” is because it communicates without words, and affects its listeners. In “Sonny’s Blues,” the narrator finally understands the importance of music once he truly listens to it. He comes to the conclusion that music (jazz in specific) “could help us to be free if we would listen” and that we “would never be free until we did” (21). The narrator finally understands that jazz is a way of expressing joy, and suffering. He begins to understand that there is more than one way to suffer, and more than one way to express that suffering. In this moment, the narrator realizes that perhaps music is not harming Sonny, but rather giving him a way to let out all his hurt in an artistic way. Likewise, Evans’ music also affects the listener, and makes them feel a certain way. The beginning of the song is somewhat slow, and it has a sorrowful tone to it (0:00-0:23). This makes the listener (or at least me) feel sad and gloomy; however, the tempo of the music soon speeds up (at around 1:10) and the song soon turns into a unstructured, beautiful arrangement of musical instruments that make the listener experience joy and sadness at the same time. The gentle beauty of the keys mixed with the coarse background instruments create a piece of art that can be heard in many ways. The complexity of Evans’ music perfectly coincides with the intricacy of “Sonny’s Blues.”

After doing a far amount of research on jazz music, I thought it was interesting to note that jazz music is not only exclusive to the African-American community. Of course historically, jazz originated in primarily black communities and was fueled by the need to express the ache and struggle of being an African-American in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, Bill Evans was a white man who used jazz to express emotion and meaning, and it interesting to analyze how jazz, and music in general, was (is) used as an instrument to convey pain and happiness. While Sonny’s music reflected the African-American struggle, and his own struggle with drugs, Evans’ music reflected the struggle of other racial groups. These struggles may not be as big or miserable, but they still do exist. 
LINK TO VIDEO/SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH3GSrCmzC8