JAZZ AND ITS USES.

Shannon News, 24 April 1928, Page 2

JAZZ AND ITS USES.

DANCERS WHO IGNORE THE MUSIC. That jazz music is not altogether senseless, but that the way in which most people dance to it is devoid of art, was the substance of some observations by Mr Edwin Dennis, A.R.C.M., at his opening W.E.A. lecture for this season on ‘‘The Appreciation of. Music. ’ ’ He referred to a recent criticism of jazz by Sir Henry Coward, a .prominent English musician, with which he disagreed, stating that there were hundreds of brilliant musicians who agreed that jazz had its advantages. The trouble was that the people who were mostly drawn to jazz did not recognise its rhythm. Mr Dennis explained that rhythm started with dancing thousands of years ago. The average dance hall now would appear to be a place where people moved about without any attempt at carrying out the rhythm. He had listened to a good deal of jazz, and usually the music brought out the rhythm pretty definitely. However, the dancers did not appear to take any notice of it. The populace was at a different stage of development from what it was at 50 years ago, when Sir Henry was a young student. The modernist composer tried to go as far as possible through his piece without letting the hearer discern any melody at all, and wlien at last it was seized the hearer wondered what it was all about, in most instances. The day of melody writing had lapsed; but immortal works had been written by Balfe, Schumann, Schubert, and Mozart, who eom--1 posed beautiful melodies which the every day person eould appreciate. The present-day writer was in a little world of his own. Mr Dennis put a record on the gramophone to illustrate a high type of so-called jazz mnsie. It was ‘‘Shanghai Dreamland,” a foxtrot with an Oriental effect, and he •pointed out that the rhythm was obvious. ‘‘Against that rhythm,” he remarked, ‘‘you will find that the folks in the dance hall are just walking around, and it does not matter what the music is doing at all. They are not getting the benefit - that the jazz is meant to give them.”