The Monarch of Jazz Paul Whiteman to Tour

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 538, 15 December 1928, Page 27

The Monarch of Jazz Paul Whiteman to Tour

■ T has been announced that Paul Whiteman, familiarly known as the “Jazz King,” intends to pay a visit to this part of the world next year and the news is interesting, not only to the young people who visit cabarets and dance halls nightly, but to the members of the, community generally, for the whole world loves to dance, and to enjoy dancing it must be done to bright and melodious music. Not that we have not good bands, but Whiteman’s orchestra has made a name which will bring young and old flocking to the halls where he performs.

Rightly speaking, there is not now a kingdom of jazz. Jazz as we knew it in the war years, and in the years

immediately following the war, is dead. In Its place has come melodious syncopation, free of artificial aids. Whether Whiteman will give us an exhibition of those noises which once no jazz band could afford to be without, and which were once regarded as exhilarating and funny, but are now treated with indifference or as being out of date, remains to be seen, but it is probable that he, like other leading bandmasters, will follow the tastes and tendencies of to-day. Jazz did not arise, as some suppose, out of the feverishness of war. It was simply a part of the natural progress of syncopated music. In 1913 there was a Dixieland Jazz Band. It

played horrid stuff which every messenger boy and junior clerk whistled and every flapper hummed, and the noise was called ragtime. Trombones rasped like the tearing of a thousand rags. This followed the dreamy music of the dances of 20 and more years ajp, “when grandpapa kissed grandmama in the second minuet,” and the soft melody was provided by an orchestra of two violins, viola, cello, piano and sometimes a harp. More volume was added to such orchestras by the inclusion of bass, and then came the sudden transition to the blare and screech of dominant brass instruments in ragtime.

Fortunately ragtime did not last for long. Early in the war jazz took its place. The blatant brassiness was reduced by better blending and the introduction of instruments of more mellow tone. Thore was still much unnecessary noise, but this new thing in dancing was a novelty and it helped to relieve people’s minds from the ffifrible acts of war, or coincided with the state of excitement into which they had been plunged.

There was no jazz band, worthy of the name, which did not include a canister or two, a funnel, a flour shaker, a colander, a lemon squeezer and fly swats. The fly swats were used to imitate, on a drum, the puffing of a railway engine. The saxophone, now employed to so much greater effect, was used to reproduce a rooster’s crow, the trumpet a horse’s neigh, the trombone a cow’s moo, and bowler hats placed on instruments caused them to give vent to a noise which sounded like “wa wa.” Tomtoms, Chinese temple blocks, gongs, cymbals, slapsticks and cow bells were all widely used, and there were devices to imitate the bark of a dog, the ticking, winding up and running down of a grandfather clock, the roars of animals and eats’ meows. Now, happily, all that has gone, and in its place is an orchestra of 10 to 12 performers, each of whom probably plays three instruments. They play syncopated opera as well as popular melodies. Their rhythm is perfectly adapted to natural and graceful motions of the body, and the only effect they add to their rhythm is the colour supplied by the saxophones, trumpets and trombones. The saxophone owes its popularity to jazz. It was invented about 1840 by Adolphe Sax, and subsequent improvements have produced its present soft, full tone of alto and tenor, devoid of brassiness.

Other instruments employed in a modern dance band are the piano, tuba, drums, string bass and banjos.

They provide the background of rhythm. In place of the jazz effects we have Quartets of singers who vocalise the choruses of popular songs while we dance, and the band plays a soft accompaniment. No longer do members of the orchestra prance about the stage. Attired in formal evening dress, they serve out music to the dancers as calmly, and with as little show of effort as you see in the girl who sells you your tickets at the box office.

Most people are familiar with the work of Whiteman’s orchestra per medium of the gramophone. At the age of 17 Whiteman was second viola player in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He formed his own orchestra in 1915, but it was disbanded when the United States entered the war. As a bandmaster Whiteman enlivened the spirits of the American sailors, and subsequently he reformed his orchestra.