Antagonistic Cooperation : Jazz, Collage, Fiction, and the Shaping of African American Culture

Winner, 2023 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award Finalist, 2023 Pauli Murray Book Prize in Black Intellectual History, African American Intellectual History Society Shortlisted, Historical Nonfiction Legacy Award, Hurston / Wright Foundation Ralph Ellison famously characterized ensemble jazz improvisation as "antagonistic cooperation." Both collaborative and competitive, musicians play with and against one another to create art and community. In Antagonistic Cooperation , Robert G. O'Meally shows how this idea runs throughout twentieth-century African American culture to provide a new history of Black creativity and aesthetics. From the collages of Romare Bearden and paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat to the fiction of Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison to the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, O'Meally explores how the worlds of African American jazz, art, and literature have informed one another. He argues that these artists drew on the improvisatory nature of jazz and the techniques of collage not as a way to depict a fractured or broken sense of Blackness but rather to see the Black self as beautifully layered and complex. They developed a shared set of methods and motives driven by the belief that art must involve a sense of community. O'Meally's readings of these artists and their work emphasize how they have not only contributed to understanding of Black history and culture but also provided hope for fulfilling the broken promises of American democracy. "Ralph Ellison famously characterized ensemble jazz improvisation as "antagonistic cooperation." Both collaborative and competitive, musicians play with and against one another to create art and community. In Antagonistic Cooperation, Robert G. O'Meally shows how this idea runs throughout twentieth-century African American culture to provide a new history of Black creativity and aesthetics. From the collages of Romare Bearden and paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat to the fiction of Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison to the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, O'Meally explores how the worlds of African American jazz, art, and literature have informed one another. He argues that these artists drew on the improvisatory nature of jazz and the techniques of collage not as a way to depict a fractured or broken sense of Blackness but rather to see the Black self as beautifully layered and complex. They developed a shared set of methods and motives driven by the belief that art must involve a sense of community. O'Meally's readings of these artists and their work emphasize how they have not only contributed to understanding of Black history and culture but also provided hope for fulfilling the broken promises of American democracy"-- Provided by publisher Ralph Ellison famously characterized ensemble jazz improvisation as"antagonistic cooperation." Both collaborative and competitive,musicians play with and against one another to create art andcommunity. In Antagonistic Cooperation, Robert G. O'Meallyshows how this idea runs throughout twentieth-century AfricanAmerican culture to provide a new history of Black creativity andaesthetics. From the collages of Romare Bearden and paintings ofJean-Michel Basquiat to the fiction of Ralph Ellison and ToniMorrison to the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington,O'Meally explores how the worlds of African American jazz, art, andliterature have informed one another. He argues that these artistsdrew on the improvisatory nature of jazz and the techniques ofcollage not as a way to depict a fractured or broken sense ofBlackness but rather to see the Black self as beautifully layeredand complex. They developed a shared set of methods and motivesdriven by the belief that art must involve a sense of community.O'Meally's readings of these artists and their work emphasize howthey have not only contributed to understanding of Black historyand culture but also provided hope for fulfilling the brokenpromises of American democracy Table of Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 18 1. This Music Demanded Action: Ellison, Armstrong, and the Imperatives of Jazz 36 2. We Are All a Collage: Armstrong’s Operatic Blues, Bearden’s Black Odyssey, and Morrison’s Jazz 68 3. The “Open Corner” of Black Community and Creativity: From Romare Bearden to Duke Ellington and Toni Morrison 103 4. Hare and Bear: The Racial Politics of Satchmo’s Smile 142 5. The White Trombone and the Unruly Black Cosmopolitan Trumpet, or How Paris Blues Came to Be Unfinished 192 Coda 244 Notes 252 Index 288 Color Illustrations 134 From the collages of Romare Bearden and paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat to the fiction of Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison to the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, Robert G. O'Meally explores how the worlds of African American jazz, art, and literature have informed one another.