BOOTLEG MUSIC.”

Hokitika Guardian, 22 June 1926, Page 4

BOOTLEG MUSIC.”

SAX FRANCISCO, .May IS. Sparks ilew •when the Rev. John Roach Straton. Baptist minister, of New York, debated with Madame De’Alvarcw. the Metropolitan grand opera singer, on ’ ‘ At hat shall wp do about jazz ? ” _ Dr Straton suggested consigning it to a hotter place than New York and referred to its adherents as “bandits” and “rattlesnakes.” “Let us curb it, let us put- it down, let us outlaw this thing” Dr Stiaton said. “It is the music of the savage intellectual and spiritual debauchery, utter degradation. The iazz hound is a musical bandit, running amuck. Jazz is bootleg niusie. and should he outlawed.” Music, he declared, is one oi the few things the sold will enjoy in Heaven at the feet, of God, and the music of i!:e Church, he added, was as beautiful in the sight of God as jazz is hideous. After this outburst Mine. De’Alvarez. who speaks English a bit hnltiiuj v. was so upset that she could not make a speech which she had prepared, lnil she did manage to toll the Rev. Dr Straton that so far as she was concerned she intended to have jnc.z—that it was the •■musical cocktail” and that when she died she intended to have George Gershwin’s jazz symphony prayed at her funeral.