Picturing Jazz: A Celebration of Jazz and Great Food
Review by Dr. Jerry Flack
Jazz for Lunch! is a picture book paean to a music form that originated more than a century ago principally among African-American musicians. Beginning in the 1920s, Le Jazz Hot became enormously popular in France, especially in Paris, following the long, dark years of World War I. Today, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) annually celebrates International Jazz Day (April 30, 2022) because of the peaceful and diplomatic role this great music plays in uniting people around the globe.
Jazz for Lunch! is narrated in rhymed verse by a young Black child accompanied by his beloved Auntie Nina to a jazz club (presumably in Harlem) where they expect to hear some crazy, wonderful music capped off with some noontime grub. Auntie Nina loves jazz, cooking, and her favorite nephew in equal measures. Musicians make music that has soul. Their tunes swing and patrons respond as they begin to shout, dance, and sing. The club is bursting with frenetic lunch hour energy, but it is so crowded that the young narrator cannot even find a snack. Ebullient dancers even stomp on his feet! Auntie Nina is a sensational food shopper and cook. She invites her nephew to a jazz luncheon feast to be served up in her pulsating kitchen the following day.
“Throw some jazz on the stereo” Nina exclaims preliminary to a high-flying cooking lesson. It is going to be a kitchen jam session. The narrator is her new junior cook who quickly learns how to use a salt shaker tambourine and make hot eats named after jazz greats. The jazz-inspired menu features such delights as Thelonius Monk fish, Billie Hollandaise sauce, Art Pepper steak, and Dexter Gordon cheesecake.
Soon the neighbors – all cool cats – hear the jazzy kitchen noises and smell the wafting aromas coming from Auntie Nina’s place. They come knocking at the door for some rhythmic jambalaya and they don’t come empty handed. Their hands are for clapping and tickling the ivories. They create hot trumpet and smooth tenor saxophone sounds to complement Auntie Nina’s hot eats. Their music spreads beyond her kitchen, spilling throughout her apartment, her NYC tenement building, and onward to the streets below. Auntie Nina and her luncheon soul food are both soon exhausted, yet in a fitting ending her new junior cook peers into the fridge and wonders aloud, “What’s for dinner?”
The first-person narrative, penned in bouncy rhymed verse, conveys a young boy’s discovery of the twin joys of jazz and culinary delights. Poet Jarrett Dapier who loves jazz makes clever use of word play (Nat King Cole slaw) and onomatopoeia (CRASH! FLAM!) Jazz for Lunch! is a terrific read-aloud picture book.
Eugenia Mello’s flamboyant digitally-generated artwork is infused with neon colors and visual kicks. In Auntie Nina’s jazz-infused kitchen, vegetables and utensils become musical instruments. Nina plays stalks of celery as a cool green trumpet just as her new second banana (junior cook) uses a long wooden spoon as a bluesy saxophone. Splash Cymbal guacamole becomes a Hot Buddy Rich pozole! Caricatures of jazz greats and even classic vinyl jazz album covers are pictured throughout narrative pages and in the information-packed end pages. Funky, boldface hand lettering and over-size fonts are used to provide a visual improvisation akin to musical extemporizations. Auntie Nina’s luncheon banquet is a visual feast.
Jazz for Lunch! presents an exquisite introduction to children of essential print picture book anatomy. The book jacket, front and back, highlights both the music and culinary picture book themes. First, the junior cook and Auntie Nina are shown making music with kitchen utensils and are surrounded by fresh produce while poised upon the over-sized block letters that spell out the book title. The contrasting back jacket art is a less ebullient but colorful image of the star players standing side-by-side washing the luncheon pots and pans. The front jacket flap spotlights tantalizing story highlights. The back jacket flap introduces readers to author Jarrett Dapier, particularly noting that his favorite side dish is Art Tatum tots. A similarly brief profile of Eugenia Mello informs readers that she is an illustrator and graphic designer from Argentina. The website addresses of both creators are shared.
The front and back hard cover reveal the riches of this picture book and the visual (and verbal) word play so appropriate to the themes of jazz and food. The front cover image is of a vinyl record album “platter” spelling out the book title along with “written by…” and “illustrated by…” nods. The back cover features a china food “platter” and a luncheon knife and fork.
The end pages double as the kind of back matter often found in other picture books. Thumbnail visual sketches and brief factual material about 20 jazz and blues greats fill these four end papers. Mainstream jazz and blues performers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk are showcased along with lesser known jazz super stars that include Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper, Art Blakey, and Harold “Shorty” Baker. The 20 brief biographical sketches will lead young jazz researchers to far greater detailed reference works such as biographies and websites of particular interest. A singular note is that each profile also lists the most admired, popular, or representative vinyl album covers of each of the 20 jazz greats.
The title and verso pages, facing each other, are the initial pages readers encounter when opening up the book. Blue silhouettes of two jazz club lunch servers carrying large platters of dinner bowls form the background for copyright information and the book dedications. An extemporization of font colors and arrangements highlight the title page that provides readers with the book, author, illustrator, and publisher names.
The remainder of this exemplary picture book is given over to the unfolding story. The illustrations totally occupy every additional book page. The expansiveness of the story line is matched by a graphic design that features great many double page spreads. The high spirited use of color, dynamic hand lettering, and quirky font styles are appropriately exuberant.
There is no back matter in Jazz for Lunch! most likely due to two reasons. Firstly, this print picture book is a celebration of jazz and great ethnic food. It never purports to be a history of jazz, for example. Hence, there are no accompanying bibliographies, further print or online references, lunch recipes, or any need for glossaries or indexes. Secondly, the excellent opening and closing end pages do provide capsule biographies of 20 jazz greats that would normally appear in many picture books as end matter.
Home Activities
The American Library Association has bestowed the Randoph Caldecott medal to the illustrator of the most distinguished picture book published in the United States in the previous year since 1938. Chris Raschka who has won the Caldecott Medal twice is a prolific American illustrator. He has created stunning picture books about such jazz greats as Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, and John Coltrane. Encourage young gifted researchers to read these amazing biographical tributes and then write and illustrate a poster advertising a make-believe concert that one or more of Raschka’s heroic jazz figures might have given. Can they also locate jazz CDs that feature the music of Raschka’s heroes?
Urge gifted writers and artists to create tributes or commemorations in picture book fashion to honor historic events. One example would be the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American U. S. President.
Encourage gifted children to visit the websites of both the author, Jarrett Dapier, and the illustrator, Eugenia Mello, to learn more about their lives and their work. Next, invite readers to write and illustrate thumbnail biographical sketches about them that are similar in appearance to the dramatic and informative end papers of Jazz for Lunch!
