Toni Morrison’s Jazz, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992, is the sixth of her eight novels to date and is the second in her series on love. Arguably her most experimental novel, Morrison’s musically titled book is not focused primarily on music or musicians but rather on the places and the lived reality of the people that made jazz music possible. Morrison combines this focus on the context of the music movement with her own inventive jazz style in writing. Jazz is structured as an ensemble of improvisational riffs, voiced by several narrative speakers that Morrison imbues with innovative styles that are sometimes unmistakably distinct from each other and at other times are not so easily distinguished. Although

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Published 11 September 2003

Citation: Jimoh, A Yemisi. "Jazz". The Literary Encyclopedia. 11 September 2003.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4359, accessed 21 November 2009.]