The Jazz Man is a children's book written by Mary Hays Weik and illustrated by her daughter Ann Grifalconi.

[3] The Jazz Man is the story of a nine-year-old boy named Zeke, who lives with his parents on the top floor of a brownstone in Harlem.

He later explains how the five flights of stairs he usually walked up to get home made his "legs ache beat hot and fast when he first came to live there."

One of Zeke's legs is shorter than the other, and "the kids downstairs stared at his lame foot and made him feel hot and different."

The Jazz Man's music helps Zeke's mother forget her tiredness and her inability to pay the rent.

Zeke watches as the Jazz Man jams with his friends, who play the saxophone, drums, and trumpet.

He tells his neighbors that his mother left to visit her rich aunt, but everyone, including Zeke, knows that this is a lie.

After a while, Zeke realizes he hasn't heard from the Jazz Man for some time and looks across the courtyard, only to see that he has left the apartment.

[4] When speaking about the end of The Jazz Man in her book African and African American Images in Newbery Award Winning Titles: Progress in Portrayals, Binnie Tate Wilkin wrote: "The author captures enough of city flavors to entice the reader and adds elements of pathos and a harsher reality through the dream.

Kirkus Reviews stated: "The author does make you feel and is ably backed by the distinctive woodcuts of the illustrator.

Our Harlem to Watts children may be able to recognize their circumstances in this, but it's complacent suburbia where better missionary use of the book could be made.