Jazz in Mumbo Jumbo

Jazz is huge aspect of Mumbo Jumbo, and I found that the Situation Reports that Reed

includes in the novel serve as a representation of jazz related themes. The centerpiece of

Mumbo Jumbo is “Jes Grew,” which, in totality, is a representation of the success and

pervasiveness of black art. The Situation Reports read like breaking news bulletins about Jes

Grew. They are written in all capital letters and oftentimes come out of nowhere, which is

analogous to the improvisational style of jazz music. These Situation Reports are written out

of place and lack context, much like the essential jazz concept syncopation, which is defined

as unanticipated rhythms that make part of or the entire song off-beat.

Mumbo Jumbo’s Situation Reports sometimes seem to be making fun of white American culture,

with examples like “Jes Grew onflying giving America rise in the town of Muncie Indiana where it

is engendering more excitement than the last dental inspection” (Reed 32). However, he also uses

them to speak on how multicultural and universal African-American culture really is. One report

reads, “In Haiti it was Papa Loa, In New Orleans it was Papa Labas, in Chicago it was Papa Joe. The

location may shift the the function remains the same. Creole bands conceal Jes Grew from Chicago’s

Psychic Department of Public Health” (Reed 77). He included all these different nationalities but

they all serve similar purposes. Jes Grew has been around since ancient times but continually adapts

and improvises, where ever it may be located, much like jazz.

In another report, Reed makes a statement about how white America will go to absurd measures

to delegitimize and dismiss African-American culture: “The Wallflower Order induces its running

dog medical societies and its jackanape punk Freudians to issue a report which ‘scientifically’ proves

that Jes Grew is hard on the appendix… The shimmy, that descendant of the Nigerian Shika dance, is

outlawed” (Reed 115). He completely exposes the pseudo science that has historically undermined

black people in general. The fact that it affects the appendix which is a useless organ shows how

desperate white society was to subvert the success of jazz music in the 1920s. The Wallflower Order

are referred to as Atonists, which is an ancient religion. Again, Reed mixes tradition and new ideas

to make them one in the same, like the basis of jazz music.