Jazz Explained

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 508, 18 March 1949, Page 10

Jazz Explained

WONDER how many and what sort of listeners would hear Ken Avery’s talk about listening to jazz, which came from 4YA at 10.0 in the morning? The important thing about a talk like this

is, surely, to decide what sort of listeners you are aiming at, and then to put the talk on at a time when such listeners will be able to hear it. The morning-tea-time listeners wouldn’t, I am sure, be the sort of listeners the speaker had in mind. A housewife might well be puzzled at having this . programme offered her; whether she liked jazz or not, it is doubtful whether she would survive such a programme with any increase in her knowledge or appreciation of the subject. The information and illustrations were far too sketchy to be of use, but the time-limit as well as the speaker would’ be at fault there. As a musician, I found the talk annoying. I have listened patiently to jazzpundits telling mg, where I, as a lover _-

of the classics ancient and modern, fail to understand their art; and consequently I am ready for any programme which will explain to me just what it is about jazz that is so wonderfully intricate that I can’t appreciate it. Ken Avery told me nothing. He gave no satisfactory technical explanation of how and why swing and boogie-wodgie are different from other forms of jazz, except to stress the fact that they are terribly cerebral-a statement not borne out by the excerpts played. And when he told me that bebop makes use of discordant effects, notably consecutive diminished fourths (the musical equivalent of that most melodious interval the common major third) I almost shut the radio off in rage.