SOURCE: "Jazz and Letters: A Colloquy," in Tri-Quarterly 68, No. 68, Winter, 1987, pp. 118-58.

In the following essay, which was originally presented as a panel discussion among Young, Kart, and Harper at the annual meeting of the Associated Writing Programs in Chicago, Young, Kart, and Harper—all writers with a great interest in jazz—comment on the interrelationship among the arts, especially focusing on how jazz has shaped their creative process, the style and content of their works, their self-identity, and their response to other art forms.

YOUNG: My father was a professional jazz musician in the 1930's, back in the days when the tuba held down the rhythm section, along with the drums in the jazz aggregations. It wasn't until a man named Jimmy Blanton came along with the Duke Ellington orchestra that the string bass, the acoustical string bass, became the bottomizing element in swing and jazz music...