In Jazz, Morrison evokes distinct African-American cultural roots and at
the same time calls for a revisioning of the cultural history of the Jazz Age.She
exploresspecifically the ways in which she thematically sings the bluesof black
experience through the use of literary techniquesand images that inventively
borrow from blues patterns and the structure of jazz performance.Though these
images occur in relationship to masculinity or are related by male characters for
their freedom from racial discrimination, they become contested symbols for
women’s liberation as well. In this way, she attempts to demonstrate the ways in
which she engages in a kind of cultural mourning that ultimately serves both as
an expression of grief for lost lives and as a form of re-appropriation of lost
African cultural creations.