Textures of Black sound and affect: Life and death in New Orleans

Abstract

In a traditional New Orleans jazz funeral, the characteristic shift from mourning to joy is propelled by brass band musicians weaving melodies and rhythms together. This article is about how these thickly layered textures of sound elicit shared sentiments of lament and of joy. More than an accumulation of individual layers, the textures and emotions compose an atmosphere, in both the physical and metaphorical sense, of mutual aid. The relative openness of the sound—the fact that it cannot be reduced to its communicative content—means that it can also be heard as a political act of refusal, rebellion, or something else altogether. An underrecognized keyword in sound studies, texture is placed here in a web of relations with other keywords: affect, assembly, atmosphere, care, fugitivity, joy/lament, life/death, mutual aid, rebellion, refusal, religiosity, voice/instrument. Textures of sound do not explicitly call for an end to anti-Black violence, and I am hesitant to even characterize the jazz funeral as an act of resistance. But I suggest that the assemblies of Black sounds and bodies “speak” to the possibility of liberation and generate an atmosphere of mutual aid.