Primary Texts:
- Langston Hughes, Selected Poems
- Toni Morrison – Jazz
- Le Roi Jones, selected poetry
- Angela Davis, selections from Blues Legacies and Black Feminism
- Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man. “Remembering Jimmy”
- James Baldwin – “Sonny’s Blues,” “Of the Sorrow Songs”
- Billie Holiday - A Musical Romance (CD)
- Gayl Jones, Corregidora
Secondary Readings:
- James Baldwin – "Of the Sorrow Songs"
- Langston Hughes – "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," “Jazz as Communication,” “Songs Called the Blues”
- LeRoi Jones, Ch.1 and 2 from Blues People
- Lawrence Levine – “Jazz and American Culture”
- Toni Morrison - “Interview with Angels Carabi”
- Albert Murray "Improvisation and the Creative Process"
- Recordings by Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and others….