Discuss the effectiveness of Hughes' "Trumpet Player."

The effectiveness of Hughes' homage to the jazz musician
is a powerful one.  "Trumpet Player" does not miss a beat in making the connection
between jazz and the history of African- Americans.  The indelible imprints of the slave
experience upon the jazz musician is present from the first stanza, where the prelude to
playing a note is the recollection of the slave experience and its brutality.  Hughes is
able to make the postmodern connection that language does not do justice to the slave
experience.  Instead, it has to be expressed through the notes of music, a non- verbal
mode of communication.  At the same time, Hughes is able to make the argument that the
music being played by the trumpet player is one that expresses desire and a sense of
individual redemption from a historical condition that might pin one down under its
oppressive weight.  In bringing out both conditions, Hughes is able to draw a paralell
between the modern condition where the understanding of the past condition is set
against the potential for hope and redemption of the present and the future.  This
becomes one of the strongest examples of effectiveness in the poem as Hughes is able to
take an individual predicament and link it to a collective one.