The Jazz Fiction Anthology [Paperback]

A gathering of the best jazz fiction from the 1920s to the present, this anthology includes 20th-century fiction by Eudora Welty, James Baldwin, Richard Yates, and others, plus important recent work from writers such as Yusef Komunyakaa, Xu Xi, and Amiri Baraka. Together these artists demonstrate the strong influence of jazz on fiction. That influence can be felt in prose styles shaped by jazzfreewheeling, dramatic, conversational, improvisatory; in stories of players and listeners searching for what lies beyond the music's aesthetic power; and in the ambience of the jazz performance as captured by the written word. What sounds throughout these stories is the universal voice of humanity that is the essence of the music.

Sascha Feinstein is editor of Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature; The Jazz Poetry Anthology (IUP, 1991) and The Second Set (IUP, 1996) (both with Yusef Komunyakaa); and Ask Me Now: Conversations on Jazz and Literature (IUP, 2007). In 2008, Feinstein was named Pennsylvania's Governor's Awards Artist of the Year.

David Rife is author of Jazz Fiction: A History and Comprehensive Reader's Guide.

The Jazz Fiction Anthology fills a vast hole in the canon of American literature. Jazz, central to the American vernacular, stimulated writers during the entire course of the 20th century, but no previous anthology of jazz-inspired fiction has assembled under one roof such a culturally varied and historically important group of stories. Here at last is a beautiful, carefully chosen collection, as surprising as the music, as swinging as the rhythms of this age.

Introduction
1. Don Asher, The Barrier
2. James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues
3. Toni Cade Bambara, Medley
4. Amiri Baraka, Norman's Date
5. Amiri Baraka, The Screamers
6. Frank London Brown, Singing Dinah's Song
7. Michelle Cliff, A Woman Who Plays Trumpet Is Deported
8. Wanda Coleman, Jazz at Twelve
9. Julio Cort?zar, Bix Beiderbeckel³‚