JAZZ AND MORALITY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5190, 12 October 1927, Page 4

JAZZ AND MORALITY.

SIR H. COWARD’S DENUNCIATION.

SOUTHERN NEWSPAPER’S VIEWS.

Those who remembered the beautiful signing of the Shiefield Choir in New Zealand fifteen years ago were probably not surprised to learn that Sir Henry Coward had broken out into a furious denunciation of jazz (states the Christchurch Press). Sir Henry is one of the greatest choirmasters England has produced, and he has spent his life training men and women to sing good music ; indeed, a great deal of the music he has interpreted so nobly for the public is definitely sacred in character. But even to ordinary people a jump from, say, Edgar’s “Dream of Gerontus” to a blare of jazz bellowed out by a negro band is about as sharp and painful a transition as the world of art provides. One cannot wonder, therefore, that Sir Henry says that “jazz makes the trombone bray like an assi and guffaw like a village idiot,” and that “it debases both music and musical instruments.” The worst of jazz music is hideous in sound and even worse in the associations it suggests—though it may not always, as Sir Henry hints, call up pictures of primitive savagery in Congo forests with tom-toms beating'through a miasma of blood and heat. Yet it would be merely an anticlimax tp say that jazz is often vulgar. To realise how low musically some jazz compositions are it is only necessary to introduce into the middle of a programme a tune from one of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, when the effect is like opening the door of a close, stale room and going out into a spring morning. Sir Henry, Coward, however, doeis not appear tp realise that there are; many people who can, and do, enjoy jazz without being vulgar or risking anything. While jazz music is sometimes demoralising, and dances to it sometimep unpleasant, it is absurd to s;Uggest that, the average young man or woman who jazzes an evening away is on the downward path to destruction. These young people remain for the most part quite unaffected by the, change from waltz, polka, and lances to jazzing. It isi a dance, and as such they enjoy it, and there is no more in it than that. It must not be forgotten that the waltz Was regarded as seductive apd immoral whqn it was introduced, and there are probably many popple to-day who still hold that it is an undesirable- form of amusement. The popularity of jazz is due in part to its-, novelty. Music has become a great popular recreation, and there is something in the rhythm of jazz which suits this age—something new, stimulating*, and intriguing. There are* any number of men and women—and some prominent musicians—who enjoy jazzing without losing their tastp for good music. On the other hand, there are numbers who are incapable of living anything better, and if there were no jazz they would feed as former generations did —on the lush growths of sentimentality.