Epistrophies

In 1941 Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke copyrighted Epistrophy, one of the best-known compositions of the bebop era. The songs title refers to a literary devicethe repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clausesthat is echoed in the construction of the melody. Written two decades later, Amiri Barakas poem Epistrophe alludes slyly to Monks tune. Whether it is composers finding formal inspiration in verse or a poet invoking the sound of music, hearing across media is the source of innovation in black art. Epistrophies explores this fertile interface through case studies in jazz literatureboth writings informed by music and the surprisingly large body of writing by jazz musicians themselves. From James Weldon Johnsons vernacular transcriptions to Sun Ras liner note poems, from Henry Threadgills arresting song titles to Nathaniel Mackeys Song of the Andoumboulou, there is an unending back-and-forth between music that hovers at the edge of language and writing that strives for the propulsive energy and melodic contours of music. At times this results in art that gravitates into multiple media. In Duke Ellingtons social significance suites, or in the striking parallels between Louis Armstrongs inventiveness as a singer and trumpeter on the one hand and his idiosyncratic creativity as a letter writer and collagist on the other, one encounters an aesthetic that takes up both literature and music as components of a uniqueand uniquely African Americansphere of art-making and performance.