TRANSCRIPT:
I’m Mark Rapp, and this is Rapp on Jazz.
Jazz doesn’t just live in music—it lives in words. And nowhere is that more true than in Southern literature, where jazz becomes both soundtrack and symbol.
Writers like Tennessee Williams, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin wove jazz into their pages—not just as background noise, but as a character. Jazz in Southern fiction often represents freedom, resistance, and raw emotional truth.
In “A Streetcar Named Desire,” blues and jazz reflect the decay and beauty of New Orleans. In Hurston’s work, the music of juke joints pulses alongside the voices of Black Southern life—joyous, painful, real.
Even William Faulkner, with all his layered prose, echoed jazz’s improvisational structure—looping, unexpected, deeply human.
Jazz and literature share a rhythm. They both chase the truth between the notes.
This has been Rapp on Jazz, a co-production of ColaJazz and SC Public Radio, made possible by The ETV Endowment of South Carolina.