JAZZ

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 21 November 1927, Page 7

JAZZ

SIB H. COWARD’S CONDEMNATION. WHITE RACES DEGENERATING. London, Sept. 24. Sir Henry Cqward, the well-known conductor, had hard things to say about jazz music when he addressed the members of the Sheffield Rotary Glqb. The most rushing condemnation of jazz, h e said, was that it was a deadend sort of composition, which could not progress. It must be tabooed in every shape and form until its baneful influence was gone. "We see,” he continued, a decided lowering of pre-war standard in ethics morals, laugauge, and conduct. Joined with these there is a feverish exploitation of low types of pleasure by the younger generation, which has led to or synchronises with the vulgarisation of English taste and artistic ideals by many American kinema pictures, tuuutterabl fl Yankee musical comedies, review and plays, until wa are led to exclaim: ‘Where are the white raes drifting, morally, ethically, and commercially?’ ” Jazz(, he said, was a low type of primintive music, both in structure and performance. It was founded on crjide rhythms suggested by stamp ing the foot or clapping the hands. It always put emphasis on the grotesque by bangings and clangings of pots, pans or any shimmering metallic substance, reinforced with special drums. The vulgarity was heightened by the exaggeration of syncopation and the mauling, twisting, and breaking up of ordinary rhythms. It debased both music and instruments by making both farcial. “The noble trombone,” ho added, “is made to bray like an ass, guffaw like a village idiot, and moan like a cow in dstress. ' The silvertoned trumpet associated in poetry with the seraphim is made to screech producing sounds like tearing calico or like a nocturnal Tom cat. Jazz deadens and vulgarises the perception of one qualities. You cannot make jazz anything but the essence of vulgarity. The popularisation of this type o-f music and the attendant immodest dances leads to, and in fact has already led to a lowering of the prestige of the white races. “Unfortunately the white races have lost a lot of that subtle element of superman superiority owing to the large numbers of coloured stjudents seeing so much of the giddy side of English life.”