Hughes tried to capture the multifaceted nature of blues in his poems, and the nuanced feeling of the jazz played by musicians he came to know well. Although The Weary Blues first appeared in 1926, Hughes gave it its definitive feel when he recited the poems on the album Weary Blues (MGM, 1959) with music by Charles Mingus and Leonard Feather. There is therefore a distinctly different feeling for the sounds of both jazz and blues conveyed in the recording from the one that Hughes would have had and responded to at the time he wrote the poems, which were composed between 1921 and 1926 (Hughes was born in 1902).
One should also note that the political nature of Hughes's work was more overt than it seems now. His first (and indeed his last) poems appeared in The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois. This magazine published more of his poems than any other magazine or journal.
Hughes wrote fiction as well (The Ways of White Folks in the 1930s) and children's books, including The Block and a posthumous work titled Black Misery. In the Depression years, he participated in the Federal Writer's and Artist's program, continuing to protest the system of discrimination and celebrating negro people as human, and humanly beautiful. His work is accessible, and therefore sometimes not valued by academia as it should. Perhaps Montage of a Dream Deferred (beginning on page 387 of the Collected Poems) is his version of the modernist long poem?
I won't pretend to know anything about the blues, but I'm interested in Paul's note about the feeling of the music being different during the time of the recording than it would have been when Hughes wrote the poems. While listening to the pieces, I couldn't help thinking that the music, swaying and peaceful though it is, doesn't actually complement the poems all that well. There is a disconnect for me between Hughes's poems, which are fairly straightforward, and the music, which, like the Schoenberg piece we listened to at the beginning of the semester, revels in a sort of anti-melody. At times it almost feels as if the recordings were done at a bar, with Hughes taking it upon himself to recite his poems even though a band was already playing on stage. I wonder what this would have sounded like if accompanied by the style of blues that inspired Hughes to write the poems in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI read a few poems before putting on the recording, and Hughes's reading of his work definitely changed the tenor of some of the poems for me. For example, "Consider Me," which I had read as more playful, took on a more serious tone when read by Hughes. "Life is Fine," on the other hand, which I thought had a tremendous musicality, lost some of that in Hughes's recitation. What comes across most in the recordings, though, is that Hughes seemed to have a genuine passion for his work, and he obviously had a good time during these sessions, as evidenced by his readings of poems like "Morning After" and "Warning: Augmented," which have a humorous bent to them. Before this week, I had never been exposed to Hughes's poetry. Shame on academia for not giving his work its due respect.
As I was reading the poems before hearing them recited, I thought that they sounded more musical and rhythmic than they did after hearing them. Granted, “The Weary Blues” has a steady rhythm that is well complimented by musical accompaniment, but I believe that the poems would have sounded better overall if they were sung rather than spoken. Although “Life is Fine” appeared to have a rhythmic quality to it as I was reading it, I thought that it sounded pretty bad when recited to music, maybe it would have sounded better if accompanied by a different beat.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the political nature of Hughes’s poems, I agree that the impact of his messages is understated in modern times simply because racism is not as rampant as it was when he wrote them. But poems like “God to a Hungry Child” and “Drama for a Winter Night (Fifth Avenue)” are still very striking in the way that Hughes advocates humanity over race or class distinctions. Although these poems may not be as relevant in regards to race as they once were, they are still quite moving and profound and can be applied to issues of poverty and homelessness in the 21st century as well.
Good old Charlie Mingus is my favorite jazz musician (at least for right now). It should come as no surprise then that I thoroughly enjoyed Hughes' recording of Weary Blues. 1959 was the same year that Mingus Ah Um came out and it has that same sort of flavor. Hughes and Mingus worked together previously on 1957's A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry, but I digress.
ReplyDeleteA lot of disparate elements are thrown in the pot here, much in the hard bop tradition: blues, R&B and Hughes' colorful recitations. The result is something fairly different and very modernist. I think the criticism of Hughes' reading of his poem is unfair. He's not just reading over some random background music. When Hughes talks about having the "weary blues," Mingus and the band respond to what Hughes is saying by playing a matching blues riff. In that sense Hughes and the band are essentially having a conversation. And that is the essence of jazz.
I always think of more things I want to say after I've already hit submit. Anyway, another example of the sort of interplay that happens between Hughes and the band takes place when Hughes mentions "getting KDQ" on the radio "and seeing what Count Basie's playing new." In turn, the band plays a swinging Basie-esque riff, before returning to the primary melody of the piece.
DeleteWith this lively interplay in mind, I think the album is the best way to experience Hughes' poetry.