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Article: Jazz beginnings: Ralph Ellison and Charlie Christian in Oklahoma City.(Special Jazz Issue)
- Article from:
- The Antioch Review
- Article date:
- June 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Antioch Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Music of Oklahoma City
When John Hersey asked Ralph Ellison during the 1970s about the ways in which his musical experience had influenced his writing, Ellison responded: "My sense of form . . . is musical. As a boy, I tried to write songs, marches, exercises in symphonic form, really before I received any training, and then I studied it. I listened constantly to music, trying to learn the processes of developing a theme, of expanding and contracting and turning it inside out, of making bridges, and working with techniques of musical continuity, and so on. I think that basically my instinctive approach to writing is through sound."
Ralph Ellison ...