Mrs. Ellsworth's desire to groom Oceola for the pursuit of the "pure art" of classical music is met with conflict most specifically by Oceola's "sheer love of jazz." As Oceola continues to play at Harlem house parties, for free, Mrs. Ellsworth objects to the mixture of dance and alcohol with a musical form which she regards as primitive, describing it as "the most tom-tom music she had ever heard." She prefers music which she associates with abstract concepts, such as the "soul" and the "eternal," which, both literally and figuratively, rise above human concerns.

So in the spring, Mrs. Ellsworth organized weekends in the up-state mountains where she had a little lodge and where Oceola could look from the high places at the stars, and fill her soul with the vastness of the eternal, and forget about jazz. Mrs. Ellsworth began to hate jazz especially on grand...