Mo' Better Bebop

Abstract

SPIKE LEE'S 199I FILM, Mo' BETTER BLUES, TELLS THE STORY OF trumpeter Bleek Gilliam, a musician whose star is rising on the New York jazz circuit. During a party, Bleek engages in a heated debate with fellow band member and rival, Shadow Henderson. The scene sizzles. As the two men argue about artistry, commercialism, and the racial composition of contemporary jazz audiences, Bleek proclaims that I have my own voice. His voice was that of the virtuoso jazz soloist. Lee modeled Bleek after the young lions, the score of young, dapper and primarily African American musicians who appeared on the jazz scene in the mid to late 1980s, each armed with recording contracts and a pocketful of hard bop riffs in their Italian cut suits. In Bleek's view, African Americans under-appreciated his artistic voice and the larger jazz tradition within which he expressed it. Jazz, Bleek insists, was black people's music-their heritage and culture-but they seemed to prefer crossover music from other people like Kenny G. The equally talented Shadow rejects Bleek's artistic stance, saying that the people don't come because you grandiose motherfuckers don't play shit that they like. The two characters find no middle ground in the Great Artist vs. the Unwashed Masses divide articulated by their respective positions. The larger cultural wars within which this fictional account circulates show little sign of abating. Moreover, the