Blue(s) as Cymbal

In this chapter, Fred Moten explores the relationship between Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin by way of synesthetic aesthetics: how music and the attempt to listen deeply also means attention to color, and particularly blue, but also green and yellow, in Delaney's painting and Baldwin's writing. Moten considers whether thinking the color blue in Delaney is entangled with the thought of the blues in Baldwin, particularly in Baldwin’s story “Sonny's Blues.” Because that story is so deeply concerned with the social force of the abductive movements (of embrace) that the character Sonny must perform as a pianist, and because those movements extend and echo the movements of the drummer in Black music, the essay also links Baldwin’s story and Delaney’s art with the music of the great drummer Elvin Jones.