New York City in the 1950s was an electrifying crossroads where Jazz, unprecedented racial harmony, and the chilling upheaval of the Blacklist converged. Into this tumultuous mix Walker Smith delivers her stunning adaptation of Cain and Abel.
The story begins in 1927, when the wife of a black Mississippi tenant farmer gives birth to unusual twins—Calvin, who is dark, and Joe, who is light enough to pass for white. Growing up to learn that color is worth more than brotherhood in the Jim Crow South, they fall into a trap that was set for them by generations of racial discord. After a violent fight, Joe disappears and Calvin is convicted for his murder.
As Calvin’s life takes a downward turn, Joe basks in the bright lights of New York as a successful white Jazz singer on 52nd Street. After marrying Magda, the blue-eyed girl of his dreams, his fear of exposure takes a turn for the irrational. The entertainment industry is in a cold-sweat panic over Joseph McCarthy’s Blacklist, and Joe feels threatened by the non-stop radio reports of blacklisted witnesses “naming names.” He is unable to break the moth-and-flame hold of black trumpet player Doc Calhoun and his unforgettable wife Pearl, a paradox of wisdom and heroin addiction. And Joe begins to see his brother in the shadows.
Bluestone Rondo is a story of life-and-death choices—a Jazz masterpiece of love and hate that leads to two volatile plot twists and one fatal showdown.
