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Modern Drama, Volume 43, Number 1, Spring 2000, pp. 100-108 (Article)

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DOI: 10.1353/mdr.2000.0026

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From Jug Band to Dixieland: The Musical

Development behind August Wilson's
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
SUSAN C.W. ABBOTSON

Ma Rainey takes place in 1927 and introduces us to a fictionalized version of

the real blues singer Ma Rainey, spending an afternoon in the recording studio
with her backup band. The latter dominates the action, and we watch as Cutler, Slow Drag, Toledo, and Levee practise a few tunes, chat about their lives,
and squabble over their differences while being overseen by the people who
have the real control: the white producer, Sturdyvant, and the band's agent,
Irvin. Ma, with her entourage, appears late in the play to make her recording,
and although she is a powerful symbol, it is Levee who dominates the action
of the play and provides the shocking denouement in which he kills Toledo.
One question the play raises is, Whom should we support - Ma or Levee?
The play's title attests to the ambivalence of Wilson's answer. Although it
names Ma, it actually refers to the song rather than to the person, and it is a
song that Levee is trying to claim for his own. The similarities between the
characters ensure that we cannot easily dismiss the claims of either one. Gerald Weales suggests that Levee's "sense of self' is "not unlike Ma's" and that
she fires him because she sees him as a personal threat. I Both characters
"appreciat[e] ... the material" things that money can buy, particularly clothes
and shoes. Both arrive late, "accentuat[ing] their similarity" to each other and
their difference from the rest. Their late arrival, James C. McKelly points out,
indicates that they "have lives beyond the world of the studio," and they both
"share the requisites of genius: a fierce need for uncompromising, undiluted
self-expression. and for unequivocal artistic control over perfonnance. Levee
even identifies Ma as his model for producing art in a white-dominated industry."2 Levee's attitude toward Ma mixes contempt and admiration. While he
seems dismissive of her "jug-band music,"3 he clearly admires her ability to
push around whites. Ma's attitude toward Levee is only contemptuous.
Ma is a complicated figure. Her music has definite benefits; it acts as a
balm to soothe - illustrated by the way she quite literally sings to make her
Modern Drama, 43:1 (Spring 2000) 100

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

tOt

feet feel better (59). However, she refuses to help Levee by singing his version
of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," though she agrees to help her nephew,
Sylvester, by having him speak the introduction. Ma's version helps Sylvester
to find his voice momentarily, but it effectively silences Levee. Ma's decision

is rooted in her narrow concept of community - as she says, she sings only for
herself and will, therefore, sing only her songs and use only her arrangements
(78-79,62). Sylvester is "family," and Dussie Mae is her lover, so she will
embrace them within her personal realm of care, but characters beyond an
immediate relationship are left to fend for themselves.
Ma's blues have value beyond entertainment - they can give her and others
strength and an understanding of their roots and connections. Ma tells us,
"You sing 'cause that's a way of understanding life. [... ] This be an empty
world without the blues" (82-83, intervening dialogue omitted), and she is
right. However, Levee's music does not deny this, but tries to build on it. Most
jazz forms, including Levee's Dixieland swing, have developed from the
blues, and so contain the same intrinsic cultural encoding that we find within
the blues, even though they sound different. We should not dismiss his work
as empty of content just because it is dance music. Levee's tunes may be more
polished than Ma's music, but they are no less authentic in their own way.
Paul Carter Harrison considers Levee's name as "signifying a possible kinship
with the new music soundings of jazz being created along the Mississippi
Levees of New Orleans during the period" and suggests that Levee is "us[ing I
the music ... to impose order on [a chaotic worldJ";4 thus, Levee's music also

clearly has value beyond entertainment.

"[B ]y his introduction of ... Levee ... into [Ma's traditional band]," McKelly
suggests, " Wilson is exploring whether" or not Ma "can accommodate the
shifting ... values, assumptions, and needs of the new generation of AfricanAmerican artist which Levee represents.'" Though Ma may be the acknowledged "Mother of the Blues," at some time her child, represented by Levee,
will need to grow and develop. However, Ma resisls any development of her
music, and she criticizes Levee when he attempts La improvise. While Ma's
older form of music has value, it fails, in the modem world, to give its musi-

cians sufficient control of their own lives. Levee, on the other hand, represents
a new form of music, grown from the same roots, but less constricted and so
able to offer a potentially new deal whereby African-Americans can gain a little more self-control.
Wilson has never made any distinction between blues and jazz. and
although he most often talks of his allegiance to the blues, he seems to use the
term generically to refer to any African-American music. As he tells Bill
Moyers, whenever he writes a play he "Iisten[s] to the music ... that blacks are
making" to "find out what their ideas and attitudes are," as "[i]nside the music
are clues to what is happening with the people.,,6 What he sees as most important is that the "black" song continues to be sung by the black community. In

102

SUSAN C.W. ABBOTSON

Ihis light, both blues and jazz forms have importance, as both are rooted in
authentic African-American experience; however, music has power only as

long as it maintains its audience, and so, in the context of this play, Levee's
Dixieland swing jazz becomes preferable to Ma's blues.
Wilson intentionally sets this play near the end of Ma's career, at a time
when she began a swift decline in popularity because of her refusal to keep up
with the times. As Bessie Smith' s fame increased, so the real-life Ma Rainey's
fame dwindled until she became a virtual unknown, though she did not fully
retire until 1935. Levee understands the attraction of Bessie Smith's style, as
indeed does Wilson, who has often commented on his admiration of Bessie
Smith's music. Levee knows how to write the kind of music that will soon be
dominating the musical scene and pushing Ma Rainey into the background. A
young Louis Armstrong played trumpet, as does Levee, on some of Ma
Rainey's 19208 sessions; Armstrong certainly made a great success out ofthe

same jazz music that Levee propounds. This should tell us that Levee's new
style has a great potential and should not be so readily dismissed by his fellow
musicians, nor by the audience. Wilson's Ma Rainey likes IO .ignore her own
weaknesses, as well as Bessie Smith's strengths, in order to boost her own

ego, but in reality she is an artist on the decline. Wilson offers proof of Bessie
Smith's growing popularity, and suggests that people may be growing tired of
Ma, by having the managers try to get her to record a Bessie Smith song,
"Moonshine Blues." They also ask her to sing Levee's newer arrangement of
her old theme tune; Ma refuses to change and will not comply with either suggestion. While this may be credited as the nobility of authenticity, it can also
be seen as self-centered bloody-mindedness.
Ma's resistance to playing Levee's arrangement of her theme song is

intended partly to show her control over him. It is also an attempt to assert
control over Slurdyvant and Irvin, in order to maintain her dignity; however, it
is really only Levee who is finally affected. Although Ma's version has a historical importance, with its tent-call opening and early blues feel, this importance is depreciated by its overtly smutty overtones and by the ridiculous
effect of Sylvester's stutter; Levee's version has more current relevance to
contemporary African-Americans and is assigned more dignity, since Wilson

presents it in the play with no deflating humor. Also, Levee's version does not
allow Ma to take center stage. As Levee says, "She got to find her own way
in" (38). In saying this, he emphasizes the whole group in its arrangement,
rather than concentrating, as the older version did, on a solo singer. Thus, a
collaborative community is privileged over an isolated individual. Wilson

seems to suggest that the song should be more important than the singer, a lesson Ma might do well to learn.
Levee may be dismissive of Ma's music on the surface, calling it "old jugband music" (25), but this is largely part of his "cool pose'" and is not deeply
felt, as evidenced by his decision to rewrite rather than working on an entirely

Ma Rainey's Black Botlom

103

new song. In this way, Levee's arrangement of the old song, " Ma Rainey's
Black Bottom," becomes a tribute to the past rather than a rejection of all that
it stands for. Levee does not really dismiss Ma's music, but tries to make it
more relevant to its audience. He does not deny the past, but insists on a progression toward the future. His music is a true reflection of his contemporary
(and future) society, especially in the North. Amiri Baraka describes the
newer jazz styles that developed from the blues in the late twenties as a more
urgent music that "took its life from the rawness and poverty of the grim
adventure of ' big city livin'.' It was a slicker, more sophisticated music, but
the people, too, could fit these descriptions. The tenements, organized slums,
gin mills, and back-breakin g labors in mills, factories, or on the docks had to
get into the music somehow.',8 Down South, in Memphis, Birmingham, and
Atlanta, Ma's records still have a market (19), but the Harlem African-Americans need something that better refl ects their busier and more complex lives.
Ju st because Ma sees Levee's version of her song as a personal attack, thi s

does not mean that we should follow suit, and it is wrong to view Levee's
music, as so many critics have done, as "a hodgepodge of new rhythms and
changes made to suit a bu sinessman who has no arti stic feel for th e music,'''} It

is this kind of careless devaluation of his music that goads Levee into his final
rage .

Ma enjoys displaying her power: deciding what tunes they will play; insisting that they use Sylvester (despite his evident unsuitability for the task);
holding everything up by demanding a Coke; deliberately provoking Sturdyvant because she knows that until he has recorded her she has an advantage
over him. But to what end does she do all of this? It may help her to feel better
about herself, but it does not help anyone else (apart from, maybe, Sylvester).
Ma is as guilty of disempowering her musicians as the white studio bosses.
She consistently tries to control and restrict the band, even when it may be
against their own interests. In her attempt to remain dominant, she intimidates
Cutler to keep him subservient and casually insists that Levee be fired as,
among other things. a malicious revenge. She knows that her power is only

temporary and that her populari ty is waning, but she stubbornly refuses to
adapt to changing tastes.
Ma' s time is passing, and, despite her demands, even she knows that she is
being used. As she says, "As soon as they get my voice down on them record-

ing machines, then it's just like if I'd be some whore and they roll over and
put their pants on. Ain't got no use for me then" (79). Despite Ma's power
plays, she actually has very little control, which should be evident from her
first entrance. As an African-American woman, she is unable to sati sfy the

white police without the aid of Irvin, a while man. We are given a crash course
in white prejudice: the taxi driver refuses to take an African-American farc;

the police assume Ma is guilty because of her color, even suspecting her of
stealing her own car, and the other whites involved take full advantage of this.

SUSAN C. W. ABBOTSON

The Policeman patronizingly allows Irvin to take responsibility for Ma and

her entourage, implying that African-Americans cannot possibly take respon sibility for themselves and must always be under the guidance of whites.
Unable to get any respect from the Policeman, Ma tries to demand a more
respectful "Madame" from Irvin, her manager. He simply ignores her request
and continues to call her "Ma" (49), for he is prepared to accept her ego only
up to a point, and he has no real respect for her. She is suffered for her ability
to make him and Sturdyvant money.
Slurdyvanl is an ambitious white businessman; he is nol involved in blues
in the same way the African-American musicians are; music does not define
his life - but he knows what will sell. He sees that Ma's music is waning in
popularity, and he recognizes the commercial potential in the music Levee is
arranging; but Wilson wants us to see that Levee's music goes beyond mere
economics. The mood of the time has altered since Ma's day; the people need
a different kind of music to satisfy their changing lives. Soon Sturdyvant will
have no further use for Ma, and it seems as though he is trying io manipulate
Levee into a position where he may be able to use him as his next golden
goose. Levee is as much aware as Ma of the way whites try to use AfricanAmerican talents, but he hopes that his plan will allow him to do some of the
using. Whether Levee will succeed or end up as another musical pawn for
Sturdyvant remains ambiguous, but Wilson clearly admires his efforts to take
control of his own life.
Toledo distorts Levee's desire to have his arrangement played by accusing
him of capitulating to the whites, but this is unfair. Levee wants to play this
arrangement for himself; the fact that Irvin and Sturdyvant approve is just
luck. Levee expediently attempts to advance himself through the people in
control. After all, who else can record his music? In 1927 African-Americans,
unfortunately, had not yet developed an economically effective method of
controlling the commercial distribution of.their own music. It was not uncommon for them to produce work that would be palatable to the dominant white
culture, at least until they had established a good reputation. Some would say
that this is still the case today. Therefore, we should not criticize Levee for
accommodating his musical output to white tastes. Instead, we should recognize the astuteness and plausibility of his ambition. But this is also music
Levee actually feels, as witnessed by his animation when the band finally
practices his version; it is not just something he has written for a white audience.
However, most critics tend to privilege Ma over Levee. Kim Pereira, for
example, offers a confusing interpretation of Levee: he recogni zes the character's heroic qualities, yet insists on depicting him as a negative figure next to
what he sees as the positive values of Ma Rainey. He describes Levee as having "a mythical dimension," "rebellious ... creativity," and a strong "individual will," but insists that he is a shallow, immature, utterly alienated

Ma Rainey's Black Bot/om

105

individual whose music has no value whatsoever. In contrast, Ma, and the rest
of the band, are praised without censure of any kind. Pereira concludes that
Levee eventually
turns ... against his own people and, in a very real sense, against himself ,_,
... Having lived so long in despair, he is incapable of shaping any definable goal for
himself, and he finds meaning only in death.IO

Pereira ignores the fact that it is Levee's spirit that dominates the play, not
Ma's, just as it will be his Dixieland swing jazz that will dominate the music
scene in the ensuing years. It is unfair to can Levee's music worthless, especially as it becomes clear that it is his kind of music that white and AfricanAmerican audiences from the North prefer to Ma's old-fashioned tunes.
Ma's needling of Sturdyvant makes him so angry that he lashes out at
Levee and snatches back his promise to let him record his songs. Though Sturdyvant says, "I've thought about it and I just don't think the people will buy
them. They're not the type of songs we're looking for" (107), he is clearly
lying, as he still tries to buy them, though for only five dollars apiece. He
pushes the money on Levee, who does not want to take it, for he does not want
to sell his music but to play it himself. It is important that, unlike Ma, Levee
never actually takes Sturdyvan!'s money but "throws it on the floor" in defiance ('09). Sturdyvant is a classic, devil-like figure of .empta.ion who lures
people into signing away their lives, as in the tale the musicians tell of Eliza
Cotter (43-45). The devil figure is a character who features in many of Wilson's plays, like the loan agent from whom Troy buys his furniture in
Fences," or like the white man who tries to buy the Charles's piano in The
Piano Lesson; 12 sometimes the characters give in to temptation, and some-

times they hold out. Ma signs with the devil when she puts her name on the
release fonns for her music and passes them over to Sturdyvant for a meTe two
hundred dollars. The title of the play ironically implies Ma's rights and ownership of herself and her music, but we see her sign these away - an act Levee,
significantly, never performs.
From the beginning, we see that Levee has great energy and an ability to
take control. He is the only character who refuses to set any limitations on
himself, which is surely a good thing. His very name, Levee Green, contains
the idea of growth and fertility in its color and riverbank associations. Levee
does have a strong sense of who he is - "Levee got to be Levee" (68) - and he
is proud of his sense of self and of what Wilson would call his "warrior spirit"
- but will that be enough for him to get what he needs? (To Wilson, "warrior
spirits" are those who refuse to accept any limitations placed on them by a racist society and who confidently insist upon defining themselves as people of
worth.' 3) Levee's problem is, perhaps, one of consistency. He is young, and,
although he is clearly talented, he needs more experience to understand and

106

SUSAN C. W. ABBOTSON

develop th ose talents fully, rather than wasting them in fruilless pursuits. His
pride is positi ve, but a litlle too dominant, as it occasionally makes him put
himself ahead of his community. He needs to strive toward a better balance
between his own needs and those of his community, and he does have much to
offer his community. However, he allows his pride to rest too much on externals, like his shoes. This is not so much bad as dangerous, as they can be
stepped on far too easily. He needs to build his pride on his more intangible
assets. But Levee believes only in what he can physically see. It is fortunate
that he has, at least, good vision. He recognizes that the room the band has
been given to practice in is worse than the one they had last time, and righlly
feels insulted by this; the others just ignore, and thus accept, such slights.
Levee's graphic tale of violence and rape produces a strong climax to Act
One, and with it Wilson tries to ensure our sympathy and support for Levee.
Levee is no buffoon, and certainly more than a fl ashily dressed "fly-boy" with
no experience of hardship; he is a fighter from a family of fig hters, as his family's history info rms us. Levee stood up to the whites when they were gangraping his mother and got knifed for his efforts. He now resis ts more cau' tiously because he is aware of the power of whites and reali zes that they must
be beaten wi th subtlety rather than with an overt display of force. Levee
intends to act just as his father once did, smiling at one of the rapists to put
them off guard before managing to kill fou r of them (69-70).
There were devastating floods along the MisSissippi Delta in 1927 when the
levee holding back the river broke; this suggests that Wilson's choice of year
may be significant. Many African-Americans suffered from these floods
because whites barred them from the local hill country; in the same way, we
know that only African-Americans will suffer from Levee's outburst, and that
it will have little effect on the white community. McKelly points out that,
" Ials his name suggests, Levee's ontological condition is that of containment:
throughout the play, we witness his attempts to keep at bay the flood of pressures with which he is beset from every quarter." It is not surprising that by
the end of the play "the levee finally breaks."'4 When Sturdyvant crushes
Levee 's dreams and his plan in one swift blow, he is then quick to leave
before Levee can retaliate. Levee's resu lting anger has no direct outlet, and so

he turns on Toledo and uses him as a kind of scapegoat. This is a reaction for
which his fellow musicians have prepared him well, since they have been
using Levee himself as a scapegoat throughout the play. Levee appears to lash
out at Toledo simply for stepping on his shoes.
Yet Toledo is more than a scapegoat, and it is as much the way in which
Toledo constantly treats Levee - reminiscent of the dismissive way in which
whites tend to treat African Americans - that provokes Levee's violent
response. Levee is not so much annoyed at having his shoes stepped on as
upset by Toledo's subsequent refusal to acknowledge Levee and give him any
attention. While Levee shouts, Toledo pl acidly turns his back and starts to

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

107

pack his equipment away. It is this that finally goads Levee into stabbing him.
John DiGaetani asks Wilson if Levee's violence is the "product of anger," and
Wilson replies emphatically in the negative. He continues, "Anger implies
that one is out of control. When Levee stabs Toledo at the end of Ma Rainey, it
is a violent act; it is murder. Throughout the play, Toledo is presented as a
stand-in for the white man."" In this light, the killing of Toledo becomes the
murder of the restricting white man. Killing with control rather than with
anger makes Levee's act a step toward freedom. However, although Wilson
strongly admires Levee's "warrior spirit," he also admits that in killing

Toledo, Levee "does a tremendous disservice to blacks ... because he's killing
the only one who can read, he's killing the intellectual in the group. That's a
loss we have to make up. We have to raise up another one to take Toledo's
place.' But I still salute Levee's warrior spirit.... I salute his willingness to battle. even to death.,,'6
Wilson does not portray Levee as a callous killer, for he wishes to retain our
sympathy for his character. Levee is immediately shaken by what he has done
and tries to help Toledo while the others stand by. Unnerved by Toledo's lifeless eyes, Levee turns to Cutler for support. Cutler's response, however, is to
send Slow Drag to fetch Irvin; he' offers no aid, even now, to his fellow African-American, and he calls for the white man to take control. Significantly,
this scene ends with the sound of Levee's trumpet: "a muted trumpet struggling for the highest of possibilities and blowing pain and warning" (I I I).
The trumpet emphasizes Wilson's belief that Levee's actions are justifiable,
even though, and maybe even because, they lead to Toledo's death. We are
shown that Levee and his music truly reflect the African-American experi-

ence. Levee spoke his heart in his music, but he was denied a voice both by
whites and his own fellow African-Americans, as neither group allowed him
to record his own music. Wilson wants us to recognize that the catastrophe
here is only marginally Levee's fault, as he has been unfairly restricted at

every tum. Levee's music reflects the pain and potential of his existence, and
his trumpet blast acts as a warning to whites of the violence that their disregard is engendering. Ma, meanwhile, has exited from the playa full five pages
earlier, having given up her rebellion and signed over her music to white men.
Though Wilson may have sympathy for a figure like Ma, it is clear that it is in
figures like Levee that he sees a hope for the future.
NOTES

1 Gerald Weales, "American Theater Watch, 1984-1985," Georgia Review, 39:3

(1985),622-23.
James C. McKeJly, "Hymns of Sedition: Portraits of the Artist in Contemporary
African-American Drama," Arizona Quarterly, 48:1 (1992), 103.
3 August Wilson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: A Play in Two Parts (New York: Pen2

108

4
5
6
7

8
9

TO
I I

12

13
14
15

16

SUSAN C.W. ABBOTSON

guin, New American Library, Plume, 1985), 25. Subsequent references appear parenthetically in the text.
Peter Carter Harrison, "August Wilson' s Blues Poetics," in August Wilson: Three
Plays (Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1991 ),307-8.
McKeJly, 103. See note 2.
August Wilson. "August Wilson' s America: A Conversation with Bill Moyers,"
American Theatre, 6 (198!r-1990) , 14.
In Cool Pose.- The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America (New York: Macmillan, Lexington, 1992), Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson insist that to
African-Americans "style" has taken on a deep personal significance, which they
describe as part of their "cool pose" (71-72). In this light. we should not so readily
dismiss Levee' s concern with fashion as trivial; it is part of his "stylistic signature,"
whicp asserts "how he wishes to be perceived" by others, and is thus an act o(selfdefinition. See Majors and Billson, 71. It is the way in which Levee makes himself
visible to a society which has traditionally kept African-Americans invisible.
Imamu Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones], Blues People: Negro Music in White America
(Westport, Cf: Greenwood, 1980), 105.
Kim Pereira, August Wilson and the A/rican-American Odyssey (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1995), 18. This is a fairly typical reaction of the majority of critics who
have assessed Levee's worth up to this time.
Ibid., 15.22-24.
August Wilson, Fences : A Play (New York: New American Library/Plume. 1986).
August Wilson, The Piano Lesson (New York: New American Library/Plume,
1990).
Wilson has referred to the concept of a "warrior spirit" in a number of interviews,
including Wilson, " Aug ust Wilson's America," 55 (see note 6).
McKeJly, 105-6.
August Wilson , interview by John DiGaetani, in A Search/or a Postmodern Theater: Interviews with Contemporary Playwrights (New York: Greenwood, 1991),
28 3.
Wilson, "August Wilson's America," 55.