Written in 1958

"The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstance, whether created by others or by one's own human failings. They are the only consistent art in the United States which constantly remind us of our limitations while encouraging us to see how far we can actually go. When understood in their more profound implication, they are a corrective, an attempt to draw a line upon man's own limitless assertion." -- Ralph Ellison, in his fine essay "Remembering Jimmy" collected in Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings