‘Pushing the envelope’: The Representation of Jazz, Sex and Violence in Fred Khumalo’s Bitches’ Brew

Abstract

This paper, primarily, explores the extent to which Fred Khumalo’s novel, Bitches’ Brew, can be considered a jazz novel by looking at both its subject matter and form. It argues that the transgressive power of Khumalo’s novel lies in its use of epistolary form as a narrative strategy that is akin to a jazz solo, marked as it is by a dialogical narrative that is similar to the call and response pattern that bears an affinity to a jazz performance. In terms of the subject matter, the central thrust of the argument is that the over-arching predominance of sex and violence in the text threatens to overshadow the musicality of the text, even as masculinity and misogyny are considered as the other side of the coin of jazz. In its exploration of the jazz and gender interface, this paper highlights how the phallocratic logic that informs and dominates the novel is indicative of the fact that Khumalo may have ‘pushed the envelope’ too far in his representation of masculinity and misogyny in jazz culture in his writing of this work. That Khumalo's novel fails to interrogate the relationship between jazz and black masculinity, but rather endorses and valorises it, serves to reinforce the stereotype of misogyny in jazz culture.

Keywords: Fred Khumalo, Bitches’ Brew, jazz, musicality, masculinity, misogyny