SOURCE: “The Force Primeval: An Image of Jazz in American Literature,” in Play & Culture Vol. 3, No. 3, August, 1990, pp. 256-266.

In the following excerpt, Salamone discusses the representation of jazz music in works by Stanford Whitmore and Josef Skvorecky.

All music was a solitary sound To hollow rocks and murmuring fountains bound. (Andrew Marvel) 

Vance Bourjaily (1987) rightly remarks on the peculiar paucity of novels featuring jazz musicians in even subordinate roles. This relative neglect is even more surprising in light of the music's uniquely American essence. Those novels that do treat jazz in any fashion at all, however, are quite interesting because of the music's overall importance in understanding American culture and society as well as the manner in which authors use the music and the artists as metaphors for various aspects of American culture. In common with all metaphors, literal truth sometimes may be sacrificed for a deeper...