MODERN MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 59, 9 August 1940, Page 20

MODERN MUSIC

Sir-The quotation from Leonard Hibbs which your correspondent L. D. Austin uses seems to be quite a good one. It is a pity that Mr, Austin cannot interpret the quotation correctly. From it, and in a letter on the subject of "Modern Music," he produces an indictment of alcohol. Leonard Hibbs merely compared two ways of satisfying different natural senses-one sense was satisfied by drinking alcohol; another by playing and listening to. music. He did not say that the two went hand in hand -such a statement«would be ludicrous. With his partial knowledge of the subject your correspondent is unable to discriminate between genuine jazz music and the dull, lifeless tones which most of our radios emit. I agree with Hibbs when he says that "hot" jazz music is a perfectly sincere manifestation, but not what the ultrasensitive would call " quaite naice"for the simple reason that "nature in the raw is seldom mild," but I do not agree with him when he says that "the appeal of ‘swing’ is sensual rather than mental." I am not a keen dancer. In fact, if an opportunity appeared to escape from a dancing engagement I would seize it. How then do you account for my liking for sincere jazz music? Mr. Austin might be astonished to learn that only a few lovers of good jazz music whom I know are dancers at all. It might also surprise Mr. Austin to know that of the broadcast dance programmes he disparages only about twenty per cent. even approach being the good jazz to which Hibbs refers and that, of about twenty dance bands playing in this city only two or three, to my knowledge, play any sincere jazz at all. I make no claims whatever for much of the saccharine music given so much air time in New Zealand or purveyed by most of our orchestras. It is just harmless, meaningless. But I do claim that honest jazz can give as much pleasure as, say, Tchaikovski’s "Pathetic" which I enjoyed recently at the Music Festival here. Leonard Hibbs’s flowery definition would be rather confusing to the uninitiated. Could I suggest the following definition, culled, several years ago, from the English magazine "The Gramophone": eco "A rhythmic type of music, irrespective of tempo and mood, which has developed in the last thirty years from two sources, brass bands as regards technique and negro folk songs. On a steady rhythmic background is built music of the theme and variation type, ample space being left in the score for soloists, each improvising a new theme more or less closely related to the original. This spontaneous self-expression on the part of the musicians is the essence of jazz music and thus, in complete opposition to all other forms of music, the composer is of far less importance than the performer." Yours, etc.,

BRIAN

HORNIBLOW

Christchurch.