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In the novel Jazz, records represent the inevitability of human hurt and betrayal. Records are everywhere in 1920s Harlem, but unlike live jazz music, which makes room for improvisation and surprise, the recorded jazz music that plays on records is predestined, an endless, unchangeable loop of sound. For this reason, the novel’s unnamed narrator often uses records as a metaphor for the tragedy she sees taking place between Joe, Violet, Dorcas, and Felice. At one point, the narrator reflects that Joe is “bound to the track” of his betrayal with Dorcas (“it pulls him like a needle through the groove of a Bluebird record”); at another point, she asserts that “the past was an abused record with no choice but to repeat itself.” Indeed, the novel’s climactic event—Joe’s shooting of Dorcas at a party—is underscored by this sense of inevitable repetition, as Dorcas, losing consciousness, instructs her readers to “listen” to the record playing: “I don’t know who is that woman singing,” Dorcas remarks, “but I know the words by heart.”
But as Joe and Violet diverge from the predictions the narrator made for them, reconciling instead of splitting for good, the narrator is forced to reckon with the fact that life is more like live jazz than its recorded counterpart. Instead of playing out their story like “an abused record,” the narrator admits that the Trace couple was “busy being original, complicated, changeable—human, I’d guess you say.” It is telling, then, that by the end of the narrative, Violet and Joe embrace not records but the live music they hear performed on the rooftops and streets, a testament to the unpredictability of real, “human” relationships.
Records Quotes in Jazz
The Jazz quotes below all refer to the symbol of Records. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
The brothers turn up the wattage of their smiles. The right record is on the turntable now; [Dorcas] can hear its preparatory hiss as the needle slides through its first groove. The brothers smiles brilliantly; one leans a fraction of an inch toward the other and, never losing eye contact with Dorcas, whispers something. […] Then, just as the music, slow and smoky, loads up the air, his smile bright as ever, he wrinkles his nose and turns away.
Dorcas has been acknowledged, appraised and dismissed in the time it takes for a needle to find its opening groove. The stomach jump of possible love is nothing compared to the ice flows that block upper veins now. The body she inhabits is unworthy. […]
So by the time Joe Trace whispered to her through the crack of a closing door her life had become almost unbearable.
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Chapter 5
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I tracked my mother in Virginia and it led me right to her, and I tracked Dorcas from borough to borough. I didn't even have to work at it. Didn't even have to think. Something else takes over when the track begins to talk to you, give out its signs so strong you hardly have to look […] If the trail speaks, no matter what’s in the way, you can find yourself in a crowded room aiming a bullet at her heart, never mind it’s the heart you can't live without […]
I wasn't looking for the trail. It was looking for me and when it started talking at first I couldn’t hear it. I was rambling, just rambling all through the city. I had the gun but it was not the gun—it was my hand I wanted to touch you with.
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Chapter 8
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They agree on everything above the waist and below: muscle, tendon, bone joint and marrow cooperate. And if the dancers hesitate, have a moment of doubt, the music will solve and dissolve any question.
Dorcas is happy. Happier than she has ever been any time. No white strands grow in her partner’s mustache. He is up and coming. Hawk-eyed, tireless and a little cruel. He has never given her a present or even thought about it. Sometimes he is where he says he will be; sometimes not. Other women want him—badly—and he has been selective. What they want and the prize it is his to give is his savvy self. What could a pair of silk stockings be compared to him? No contest. Dorcas is lucky. Knows it. And is as happy as she has ever been any time.
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I want to sleep, but it is clear now. So clear the dark bowl the pile of oranges. Just oranges. Bright. Listen. I don’t know who is that woman singing but I know the words by heart.
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Chapter 9
Quotes
Somebody in the house across the alley put a record on and the music floated into us through the open window. Mr. Trace moved his head to the rhythm and his wife snapped her fingers in time. She did a little step in front of him and he smiled. By and by they were dancing. Funny, like old people do, and I laughed for real. Not because of how funny they looked. Something in it made me feel I shouldn’t be there. Shouldn't be looking at them doing that.
[…] When they finished and I asked for my sweater, Mrs. Trace said, ‘Come back anytime. I want to do your hair for you anyway. Free. Your ends need clipping.’
Mr. Trace sat down and stretched. ‘This place needs birds.’
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Chapter 10
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So I missed it altogether. I was sure one would kill the other. I waited for it so I could describe it. I was so sure it would happen. That the past was an abused record with no choice but to repeat itself at the crack and no power on earth could lift the arm that held the needle. I was so sure, and they danced and walked all over me. Busy, they were, busy being original, complicated, changeable—human, I guess you’d say, while I was the predictable one, confused in my solitude into arrogance, thinking my space, my view, was the only one that was or that mattered. I got so aroused while meddling, well finger-shaping, I overreached and missed the obvious.
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Get the entire Jazz LitChart as a printable PDF.
Records Symbol Timeline in Jazz
The timeline below shows where the symbol Records appears in Jazz. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...hair is oily, always makes Dorcas feel confident. And tonight, as they take in the records and the alcohol and the dancing, both girls are filled with reckless glee. Dorcas has...
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Chapter 5
...In the narrator’s mind, Joe “is bound to the track,” as if he is a record going around and around. In other words, the narrator thinks Joe’s affair with Dorcas was...
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Chapter 9
...she has stopped thinking about Dorcas herself. So when Felice climbs Violet’s stairs, carrying a record under her arm and dressed so similarly to her murdered friend, Violet almost imagines that...
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...of the evening, after Violet has curled a last-minute client’s hair, Felice puts on a record and the Traces start to dance with each other. It’s a little funny to Felice,...
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Chapter 10
...convinced that Joe or Violet would kill each other, “that the past was an abused record with no choice but to repeat itself.” But while the narrator was making predictions, the...
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Alice moves back to Massachusetts. Felice still buys records and brings them to Joe and Violet, walking slowly but thinking quickly. Joe gets an...
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