Harlem NYC, 1925. It is the time of one of the most creative cultural revolutions America has ever experienced. The Harlem Renaissance is up and running! Young Nick Carraway runs away from the racially segregated Jim Crow laws of the Deep South for a better life as an African American in New York City. He is reunited with his cousin Daisy and meets her domineering husband, uptight black businessman Tom Buchanan. Nick rents a ground-floor grubby apartment, right in the heart of Harlem. He resides next door next to the fanciest, as well as, largest Brownstone mansion on the block - owned by one Jay Gatsby, a mysterious black business magnate who often hosts extravagant all night jazz parties on every floor of his home.
Gatsby’s parties are the talk of Harlem! Set in an all-black neighbourhood with a heavy jazz score. This slightly reimagined take of the original classic, moves the location from Long Island, dominated by WASPS (White Anglo Saxon Protestants), to the pulsating, jazz-loving streets of African American Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance offered African Americans across the country a new spirit of self determination, pride and a belief in their own American Dream, that all Americans would one day be able live and be respected and accepted as one, living in a time when segregation becomes a thing of the past.
Harlem is the perfect setting for a re-imagined world of The Great Gatsby. The 1920s Jazz Age, during which Fitzgerald's novel is set, overlaps directly with The Harlem Renaissance, a vibrant cultural and artistic movement. Both movements emphasised the transformative power of creativity, music (especially Jazz), and breaking free from societal norms. Gatsby’s opulent parties, filled with Jazz and excess, align with the rise of Black culture and expression. Fitzgerald was also looking at reinvention, with Gatsby embodying the self-made man. Similarly Harlem represented a cultural reinvention for African Americans, a reclaiming of identity and a celebration of achievements in all areas of the arts and politics.
Listen now on BBC Sounds!
Listen now on BBC Sounds!