What Is The Theme Of Jazz Music In Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter And Sweet '

Duke Ellington, an extremely popular jazz musician of the 1940’s, did not call the genre he played “Jazz,” instead he called it “American Music.” Throughout the book, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, the idea of people being American was brought up many times by multiple characters in a few different situations. There are also certain sub genres in jazz that can relate to the bitter and the sweet components of the story. Finally, both jazz and the book share similar characteristics that form them into either the genre or the story that they are. Aspects of jazz music makes it the perfect genre to be incorporated in the novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Jazz first became a genre in the early 1900’s in New Orleans, California. Although it did

Before this time the most common type of jazz was swing jazz which was a type of music that people were able to dance to. In the 1940’s the popularity of this type of jazz declined while a new type of jazz called “Bebop” became more popular which was a genre that was meant to be listened to instead of being danced to. When Keiko and Henry go to the Black Elk’s Club they listen to swing jazz and have a sweet time. Later in the story, Henry visits Keiko at the internment camp. Keiko tells him about a dream that she had where Henry was dancing “‘I don't know how to dance,’ Henry protested. ‘You knew how to dance in my dream. We were dancing in some club, with all kinds of people, and the music—it was the song he played for us.’” (Ford 162). In this part of the story Keiko is dreaming of the sweet times with Henry dancing to swing jazz. However, the bitter reality was that she was stuck in the internment camp and Henry is unable to dance. This reflects the shift of jazz music from sweet, swing jazz that people can dance to, to bitter, bebop jazz that people can only listen