In The Shadow and the Act: Black Intellectual Practice, Jazz Improvisation and Philosophical Pragmatism (University of Chicago Press), Walton M. Muyumba, associate professor of English, presents authors Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka as a jazz trio.

Muyumba demonstrates how the works of the three writers form a series of calls and responses as they use their insights into jazz improvisation to analyze race and politics. He connects their writings to the philosophical tradition of pragmatism, especially through their call for individual freedoms, improvisational political discourse and democratic societies.