Half-Blood Blues

“Jazz. Here in Germany it become something worse than a virus. We was all of us damn fleas, us Negroes and Jews and low-life hoodlums, set on playing that vulgar racket, seducing sweet blond kids into corruption and sex. It wasn’t a music, it wasn’t a fad. It was a plague sent out by the dread black hordes, engineered by the Jews. Us Negroes, see, we was only half to blame—we just can’t help it. Savages just got a natural feel for filthy rhythms, no self-control to speak of. But the Jews, brother, now they cooked up this jungle music on purpose. All part of their master plan to weaken Aryan youth, corrupt its janes, dilute its bloodlines.”

Here, Sid demonstrates his understanding of the conspiratorial views that made Nazi Germany such a hostile place for minorities and unapproved cultural artifacts, including jazz. Yet by sharing the rest of his story, Sid shows readers the multiplicity of purposes and meanings that jazz music can facilitate, far beyond the simple sensual functions attributed to it by the Nazis. Furthermore, the Nazi obsession with racial purity starkly contrasts with the blended, collaborative nature of jazz.

“I got to thinking how small we come to be these last months, me and Chip. Even two years ago, we like to holler through these damn streets like we on parade. Now we slunk in the shadows, squeamish of the light. I thought of the two of us listening to Armstrong’s records back in Baltimore when we was kids. And I thought of my ma’s family back in Virginia, fair as Frenchmen and floating like ghosts through a white world. Afraid of being seen for what they truly was.”

Sid highly values authenticity and takes issue with his relatives who try to pass as white. As conditions worsen in Germany, however, he increasingly feels the need to hide his own identity, both racially and as a musician. Yet he puts up with it because the loss of liberty has been gradual.

“Fritz frowned. ‘It might not be so bad as all that. There are still laws. They don’t just break them, not any more.’ I shook my head. ‘What country you been livin in? That exactly what they do.’”

Fritz denies the severity of the changes under the Nazi regime. Though he bears no ill will toward his fellow bandmates, his complacency keeps him from being of any real service to them, unlike Ernst. His later efforts at moderation prove fruitless, and he too ends up fleeing, having lost the chance to remain loyal to his friends.

“Delilah shook her head. […] ‘There’s a real goodness in you, Sid. I could see it right away. I understand why [Hiero] follows you like he does.’”

Delilah sees the good in Sid and knows what he is capable of. However, Sid’s later selfish choices both put Hiero at risk and cost him his relationship with Delilah. Indeed, it is Sid’s inner conflict that takes center stage, even as the world around him devolves into chaos.

“Hearing them like that, Delilah and the kid, I got filled with this weird energy, this strange aimless feeling. […] Then the kid lowered his horn, smiled at her shyly. And she stood there, looking at him, filled with a exquisite radiance. I thought, Ain’t no way I able to give her that. No way.”

As Sid’s love for Delilah becomes his primary motivation in life, his jealousy begins to overshadow his concern for Hiero. Hiero and Delilah’s relationship flourishes on a strong musical basis despite the language barrier that separates them.

“‘We got to stay calm,’ said the kid. ‘They could be comin back right now. We just don’t know.’ There was a undercurrent of strength in his voice I ain’t recognized. And then I did. It sound like Delilah.”

Though Hiero and Delilah both have certain vulnerabilities, they also demonstrate qualities of strength and perseverance. Thus, despite his youth, Hiero acts as an emotional leader to the group, especially in musical matters.

“‘I don’t think I’ve ever been more ashamed of someone in my life,’ he said. ‘Never.’ He exhaled a long slow stream of pale smoke. ‘Good luck to you, friend.’”

As Ernst bids farewell to Fritz, who intends to join a Nazi-sanctioned jazz group, he demonstrates his total commitment to the wellbeing of his fellow bandmembers. His emphatic declaration of shame takes on extra weight when we later learn how ashamed he is of his family, who lend their considerable wealth and influence to the Nazi cause.

“‘My family—well, they aren’t me. Please remember that.’ Hiero nodded. ‘We know you, Ernst. It alright.’”

Although one’s birth heritage is an aspect of identity, it need not determine nor overshadow one’s personal choices and character, nor preclude the ability to form strong relationships with those from different backgrounds. Both Hiero and Ernst demonstrate a willingness to look past external markers of identity in forming bonds of trust.

“‘My middle name be Thomas,’ he said. ‘I want you to know that. I ain’t keepin it a secret.’ I sort of smiled at him, sad like. It seemed such a small thing to offer. ‘Roscoe,’ I said. ‘Sidney Roscoe Griffiths.’”

This passage comes not long after a discussion of Chip’s unwillingness to reveal his middle name. For Sid and Hiero, exchanging their middle names thus signifies a deeper level of trust and brotherhood. It also increases the dramatic impact of Sid’s later betrayal of Hiero.

“See, a jack always reckon his own customs is the best in the world. Ain’t no way you change his mind. But my daddy, he wasn’t like that. He come to Germany, that be it. He make hisself into a German.”

Though the facts of Hiero’s self-proclaimed parentage are later brought into question, his attitude toward his father reveals a certain desire to hold on to and take pride in his African ancestry. This comes as no surprise, given the horrors committed in the name of Germanic heritage that Hiero has witnessed firsthand.

“The kid, hell, he made it muddy, passing his notes not only over seas but through soil too. Sounded rich, which might’ve been fine for a older gate, but felt fake from him. […] His was the voice of a country preacher too green to convince the flock.”

Though most of his peers immediately warm to Hiero’s extraordinary playing, Sid remains skeptical, considering Hiero too young to have anything important to say artistically. Later, however, he perceives a new depth and richness in Hiero’s playing, which he attributes to the difficulties Hiero has endured. The question remains to what extent Sid’s perception of Hiero’s music was shaped by his perception of Hiero himself (including his jealousy) as well as by any changes in Sid.

“Sitting here at the pier, staring out at the flat, grey waters, he looked so damn small, so vulnerable. Like he something blown in on the wind. And I known then that this was what Delilah seen when she looked at him.”

In a rare moment of clarity, Sid sees Hiero not merely as an enviable talent or competitor for Delilah’s attention but as a human being with needs and vulnerabilities. Sid’s inability to retain this perspective later leads him to act against Hiero’s best interests.

“I was in love. Pure and simple. This place, with its stink of sweat and medicine and perfume; these folks, all gussied up never mind the weather—this, this was life to me. Forget Sunday school and girls in white frocks. Forget stealing from corner stores. This was it, these dames swaying their hips in shimmering dresses, these chaps drinking gutbucket hooch. The gorgeous speakeasy slang. I’d found what my life was meant for.”

Witnessing the immediate attraction Sid feels to the jazz lifestyle, readers can better understand his later desperation to produce a record with Hiero while he has the chance, hoping to secure his professional future—at any cost. As it is, he ends up failing to find lasting satisfaction in either his career or his relationships.

“Look, kid, don’t be sore. You hit them skins good for you age. But playing good for you age don’t mean you playing good for the ages. ’Less you a Bolden, or a Jelly Roll or something. And they don’t come along but maybe twice a century. Listen, jazz, it ain’t just music. It life. You got to have experience to make jazz.”

Panther Brownstone explains that the best jazz is born out of experience, with a few rare exceptions. His words obviously make an impact on Sid, who seems to think that Hiero needs experience to make beautiful music, even though everyone around him proclaims Hiero to be a genius from the start.

“Delilah said, ‘He doesn’t speak English, Lou. But he speaks your language. I can tell you the rumours weren’t wrong, he’s the real thing. One of the greatest players I’ve ever heard in my life.’”

During much of the time that Hiero and Armstrong are together, Sid is reduced to the role of translator (or so it seems to him). Yet when Hiero and Armstrong play together, all questions of spoken language become irrelevant as music becomes a universal language.

“She rested her head against my chest, looking out at the slow waters, and I thought, very suddenly: Sid, brother, anything true got to always be this simple, this clear.”

Throughout the novel Sid overthinks and complicates his relationships, whether out of fear, jealousy, anger, or even love. This simple moment with Delilah shows him that such complexity can be the enemy of truth and clarity.

“‘It’s a odd thing though. Till recent, Krauts got some kind of ladder when it comes to blacks. Not like what been goin on with the Jews. If you a black American, well, you treated alright. If you a foreign student or singer or something, sure. They ain’t want you goin back home talkin bad bout their little utopia. But if you a black Kraut, a Mischling, like our boy here—’ He glanced at Hiero. ‘Well. It get real ugly.’”

Chip explains to Armstrong some of the inconsistencies in the Nazi racial hierarchy as it relates to blacks. Those who are talented or American or both are treated well, but those of German descent, such as Hiero, are treated with scorn, no matter how talented they are. In the context of their Parisian getaway, then, Hiero is at risk of being arrested by the French as a German national and of being arrested by the Nazis as a so-called “Rhineland Bastard.”

“And then Hiero raise up his horn, real soft, and start playing a uneasy nervous beat under the words, against the words, like he just slyly mocking them.”

Contrary to the Nazis’ notion of jazz as a mere sensual beat, Hiero turns his musical talent to political ends, playing a subversive, satirical counterpoint to a popular Nazi anthem. This is the first iteration of the piece that Hiero would later dub “Half-Blood Blues.”

“If I have made him think I love him,’ she begun, then broke off. ‘I hope to god I have. I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything I could think of. Someone has to. Have you even seen that kid out there, Sid? Have you taken one goddamn look? He’s a sunk little boy. Lost as a stray cat. You’re always so worried about you, so damn worried about yourself. He’s just a child. And he’s got no one.”

Ultimately, Hiero does come between Sid and Delilah, but not in the traditional love-triangle sense. Instead, Sid’s bitterness toward Hiero keeps him from enjoying full compatibility with Delilah, who looks after Hiero like a brother.

“Cause I admit it. He got genius, he got genius in spades. Cut him in half, he still worth three of me. It ain’t fair. It ain’t fair that I struggle and struggle to sound just second-rate, and the damn kid just wake up, spit through his horn, and it sing like nightingales. It ain’t fair. Gifts is divided so damn unevenly.”

In matters of artistic merit, hard work can only get you so far, as Sid discovers. Instead of learning to live with this seeming injustice, Sid tries to game the system, hoping to tag alongside a talent like Hiero or even Armstrong. In so doing, however, he ends up sacrificing the relationships forged along the way.

“‘It don’t matter much bout all that anyway,’ Armstrong added. ‘You think it do, but it don’t. A man ain’t just his one talent. Little Louis needs you. And Jones look to you like you his brother. You got the talent of making others your kin, your blood. But music, well it’s different. I reckon it got its own worth. But it ain’t a man’s whole life.’”

At the time of the Paris and Berlin sessions, Sid is understandably obsessed with making music. A mature Louis Armstrong, however, urges Sid to take a broader view, to nurture his other talents, and to find meaning in other pursuits.

“I known without a doubt I ain’t never be involved in no greater thing in my life. This was it, this was everything. We was all of us free, brother. For that night at least, we was free.”

Even in the throes of a terrible war, Sid and the others find a measure of escape, even freedom, in the music they create together. This feeling proves fleeting, however, as they cannot record this session with the power out. Thus, while music provides a release, it is fleeting, vanishing with the fade of the last echo.

“He shut the door behind him. And then I known, sitting on the edge of the bed in that dark room, sure as anything in my life, that I had to tell him about the visas. That was why I come. Not to find a friend, but to finally, and forever, lose one.”

After Sid’s constant worrying that Hiero will harbor resentment toward him proves unfounded, Sid realizes that, unpleasant as it may be, he must confess his misdeed to Hiero if he is to ever find peace. Sid’s need for honesty thus overpowers his desire to be admired, which constitutes a reversal of the motives that led him to hide Hiero’s visas in the first place (when he was dishonest in the hopes of making a record that would bring him acclaim).