In what ways does music play an important role in Murray's Train Whistle Guitar? Why is music important in the novel?

In Albert Murray's coming-of-age novel Train Whistle Guitar, music—particularly jazz and blues—serves as both the central organizing metaphor for the novel and a strong influence on the structure and language of the novel itself. Murray, who was a music critic as well as an author, is deeply influenced by the aesthetics of jazz and blues, and that is very much reflected in the way he organizes his writing—from the sentence level to the larger structure of the work. In his lyrical language choices, his descriptive run-on sentences, and the mosaic quality of the overall storytelling, a jazz-like sensibility is evident. As writer and critic Clifford Thompson puts it, "Jazz and blues, in the Murray view, stand both as concrete products of the black American tradition and as metaphors for black American history—representing the improvisation, resilience, and skill brought to bear on the task of surviving difficult times" (see link below). This interpretation works well with Murray's novel Train Whistle Guitar, which is grounded in music, community, and storytelling, all of which inform and expand on each other.
In Scooter's recounting of and riffing on his childhood, the metaphorical resonances of music are plentiful: music as both strength and flexibility, as creativity and resourcefulness, as storytelling and community-building and connecting force.
The traveling bluesman Luzana Cholly is the character who most embodies the spirit of music that permeates the novel. Scooter is infatuated with Luzana's itinerant lifestyle and his unbeatable musical talent. The title of the novel comes from Scooter's description of Luzana's guitar playing: he could turn "guitar strings into train whistles which were not only the once-upon-a-time voices of storytellers but of all the voices saying what was being said in the stories as well." This idea of music as storytelling, as history and memory, is important to the novel, which deals with Scooter's own history and the history of his community in Gasoline Point. Jazz and blues music have a great cultural and historical importance for black Americans (and all Americans)—the roots of the musical styles are in African musical traditions, slave songs, and spirituals. There is a great sense of communal history in these musical styles, and that communal history is reflected in Train Whistle Guitar and its focus on the tradition of storytelling in the community. Reflecting on the community's storytelling habits, Scooter says:

Sometimes it would be obvious that they were only telling the tallest tales and the most outrageous lies they could either remember or fabricate, and sometimes you could be every bit as certain that their primary purpose was to spell out as precisely as possible the incontestable facts and most reliable figures involved in the circumstance under consideration. But when you listened through the meshes of the Mother Goose clock you already knew long before you came to recognize any necessity to understand (not to mention explain) that no matter which one they said or even believed they were doing they were almost always doing at least a little of both.

This is an interesting quote because it reflects on the overlaps and parallels between fiction and fact, and how often they blend together in the stories we tell. Music, when used as a storytelling tool, turns memory and history into legend and song. It stretches the truth to fit around the notes, but it is no lesser a truth for the stretching. It is also interesting to note that Train Whistle Guitar is Murray's fictionalized account of his own childhood. While the characters and dialogue and events may have been changed, the truth of growing up as a black boy in a black Southern community during that time remains strong, and that is due in no small part to the sense of authentic musicality that Murray is able to capture.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/hero-blues-celebrating-albert-murray/