Prelude: The Cadences of Black Art: Romare Bearden created a decidedly idiosyncratic visual expression of Black identity in his collages and photomontages of the 1960s by using the compositional musical language of jazz. The organization of this book reflects the influence of his selection process and his thoughtful juxtaposition of images based on the syntax of jazz improvisation. His way of visually unifying fragments of the Black American experience informs the book’s goal of amalgamating the multidisciplinary oeuvres of Renée Stout, Radcliffe Bailey, and María Magdalena Campos-Pons into a coherent cadence of Black expression. In the end, these visual artists transmogrify Black identity vis-à-vis the indexes of their own bodies within their work, using various mediums, including grime, glitter, and glass: the muck of viscous, wet plaster that becomes a skein (as skin), the spiky sea of piano keys with a dazzling black mannequin head, and the translucent molded glass sculptures with gurgling molasses.