C A L L A L O O
288
Callaloo 25.1 (2002) 288–308
THE CANONIZATION OF JAZZ AND AFRO-AMERICAN
LITERATURE
by Gregory V. Thomas
Institutionalized jazz is the route we have to take in order to
reach the masses. How else can we get hundreds of thousands of
people to understand what it is that we’ve mastered or garnered
from the masters . . .?
—Clark Terry, Jazz Master1
The year 2000 marked the approximate centenary of jazz music. In its early years,
jazz was, to some, the polar opposite of culture. Jazz was new, raucous, accessible,
spontaneous, and American, while culture seemed to be traditional, harmonious,
exclusive, complex, and European (Levine, “Jazz” 174). Today, jazz is considered by
many to be America’s most original and sophisticated artistic export. Some even call
jazz America’s classical art form. The clearest indication that jazz has “arrived,”
however, may be its institutionalization in the American academy and in elite
institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center.
The story of the transition in the status of jazz from folk to popular to fine art is a
fascinating one and will receive some theoretical formulation in this essay. Yet, the
main focus involves canonization, specifically the canonization of the art form jazz
(mainly through the window of Jazz at Lincoln Center, hereafter referred to as JALC)
in comparison to the canonization of Afro-American literature.
Canonization is the process by which a person, a work (or oeuvre), or a form is
assessed by institutional elites and experts as of high value, value so high that the
person, the work, or the form will be remembered and studied over long periods of
time. Canons are yardsticks of value used especially in academia. As John Guillory
puts it: “The problem of the canon is a problem of syllabus and curriculum, the
institutional forms by which works are preserved as great works” (Guillory 240,
emphasis in original). As sturdy and self-sufficient as a canon may seem at a particular
moment in time, over time, it c