Half-Blood Blues

It’s no surprise that music plays a central role in a novel about jazz musicians. Indeed, music serves a variety of purposes, and multiple views about music are expressed. For Hiero, who only speaks German, music takes on extra importance as his primary way of communicating with English speakers, including Delilah and Armstrong. It also becomes a means for him to express his thoughts on the Nazi regime as he develops and begins to record “Half-Blood Blues,” a satirical, jazzy take on a prominent Nazi song. For others, like Sid and Chip, creating music may not have quite the same urgency, but it offers moments of catharsis and escape as the world darkens around them.

The type of music they produce also carries symbolic significance. Jazz is improvisatory by nature, while most other types of music follow a printed score (when Sid criticizes the Golden Seven, a Nazi-approved musical group, he mentions, with disgust, that they play from sheet music). This makes jazz a more accurate reflection of the uncertainty they live in, amid evolving political and personal situations. It also denotes a degree of freedom that is missing from more structured, classical forms, such as those preferred by Ernst’s father.