Rapp on Jazz

"Lady Sings the Blues" is much more than a song—it’s the title of Billie Holiday’s 1956 autobiography and a window into the life of one of jazz’s most iconic voices. 

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"Lady Sings the Blues" is one of Billie Holiday’s signature recordings, and it’s a masterclass in vocal jazz. 

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Jazz helped reshape the visual arts. Artists like Romare Bearden and Jackson Pollock translated jazz's energy, rhythm, and improvisation onto canvas. 

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Colson Whitehead’s fiction often pulses with the spirit of jazz, shaping both rhythm and structure in his narratives.

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Throughout American literature, jazz has been a storytelling tool. Writers like Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison didn’t merely write about jazz — they wrote with it. 

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Ralph Ellison, author of "Invisible Man," grew up playing the trumpet and carried jazz in his bones. 

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Toni Morrison, one of America’s greatest novelists, often turned to jazz as both subject and structure.

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Allen Ginsberg, a powerful voice of the Beat Generation, drew deep inspiration from jazz. 

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When you think of the Beat Generation, you think of Jack Kerouac, and behind his writing, you’ll almost always find jazz. 

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Langston Hughes, the celebrated poet of the Harlem Renaissance, was deeply inspired by the music of Duke Ellington. 

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