The Shadow and the Act

            Preface

            Introduction: Vamping 'til Ready

            Movement I

            Three Ways of Looking at a Yardbird: Charlie Parker and the Theorization of Jazz Improvisation in the Work of Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Le Roi Jones/Amiri Baraka

            Movement II

            Black Is, Black Ain't: Violence, Black Masculinity, and the Novel as Democratic Symbol

            Movement III

            Cutting Session: Baldwin as Intellectual Prizefighter, Baldwin as Improvising Intellectual

            Movement IV

            Improvising over the Changes: Improvisation as Intellectual and Aesthetic Practice in the Transitional Poems of Le Roi Jones/Amiri Baraka

            Coda

            Acknowledgments

            Index