All that Jazz

"Black art has always existed. It just hasn't been looked for in the right places."

Romare Beaden

Toni Morrison's discusses an essay on a "Tribute to Romare Bearden" in her book on meditation "The Source of Self-Regard," 2019, which speaks to the connection of her own work, 'Song of Solomon: and "Beloved", to Bearden's art which is informed through "the essence of African American music".(p293).  She says when Bearden painted her Pilate in "Song of Solomon"

she visually saw "things I have not seen or known when I invented her." She says she purchased his "Preservation" Hall-type "musicians standing before a riverboat, all in white and their traditional sashes of color. For the first time in representation of black musicians "I saw stillness." Preservation Hall is where jazz inspired art.

Morrison's response to Bearden's Art suggests that African American music, art and writing is a conflicted meditation into "The Source of Self-Regard".