7-9). In fact, Armstrong was often viewed as a kind of sell-out or race-traitor of a certain degree by many black musicians (par. 10). This parallels Sonny's brothers attempts to remove himself from Harlem and the stereotypical black life; he strives to be a respectable math teacher and escape his path (par. 10).
In the final section of the story, "contraries" in the jazz motif begin to appear (par. 11). Especially unusual elements in this section are the character of Creole and the piece of music Sonny plays, "Am I Blue?" (par. 11). Creoles are not usually considered representative of the true black experience; as the descendants of French and Spanish settlers who eventually took light-skinned girls as wives, producing the black Creole (par. 12). If this moment is supposed to represent...
12). The song "Am I Blue?" is strange for the same reasons; it is not written in the traditional blues form, and was in fact written by two white men (pars. 15, 17). The song was written specifically for the black singer Ethel Waters, however, whose popularity -- like Armstrong's -- was indicative of the degree to which she catered to the moneyed whites (par. 18). As this scene is supposed to represent Sonny's brother's return to his black heritage, it makes a strange kind of sense that this heritage is not pure, and that Sonny's brother is happy with that (par. 14).
The song's message, however, is very much traditional blues, involving a woman who lost her man (par. 19). This
