LIGHT MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 821, 22 April 1955, Page 25

LIGHT MUSIC

Sir,-"Syncopation" writes in your issue of April 1 as an advocate for jazz music, but in his attempt to make @ case for it he reveals the quality of mind that goes with the jazz addict. It by no means follows that, because this sort of music was banned in Nazi Germany and likewise today under Communism, it is therefore good music. *It would be just as sensible to argue that, because the head of a gang of burglars vetoed robbery with violence and homicide, such actions were therefore good and tolerable. The reference to written jazz music is equally pointless. The writers and printers of this music, of course, use the same kind of symbols as Schubert used for ‘his symphonies or Sullivan for his songs; and there the similarity ends. It may be admitted that there is sometimes an air Or melody in a jazz composition that would be acceptable and pleasing to a cultivated ear. But too often the orchestration and instrumental rendering smothers the melody in a mass of cacophony. The trombones blare and seem to delight in augmenting the excruciating effect by playing a little flat. The saxophones grunt or squeal as if emulating a pig having its throat cut. The percussion adds its bumpety-bump. The penny squeakers and toy trumpets that used to afford some amusement to young children are resurrected. If success depends on producing something different from established musical standards the jazzers have achieved it -by perpetrating auditory irritants that afflict the senses and nauseate the mind. And when a vocalist comes into it he or she usually rivals and often beats the band in producing unpleasant sounds

apparently designed to convey the impression that the singer is very drunk. Why has it become so prevalent and so popular? The explanation most probably lies in the fact that the majority of people never grow up mentally but retain in adult life the standards of taste and intellectual judgment that belong to the juvenile stage which is primitive and undiscriminating. This has been substantially demonstrated as a fact in the U.S.A., th. original source of jazz. The marke‘ for music contains far more potential customers for the crude stuff that appeals to minds that are immature so far as aesthetic training and educated discrimination are concerned. Successful composers of good music, even those rare ones with inborn genius, must go through a course of disciplined training. They have to strive before they arrive. B:* jazz composing is relatively easy (mucii of it cribbed, with appallin« mutilations appropriate to the purpose) and what is more, it is asier tc sell, becaus> the-e are far more people lacking in a cultivated musical taste (a process calling for some time and trouble) than otherwise: a condition that can be truly termed "the Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Yes, it is with us in the spher2 of entertainment if not in the political world. A University Professor of Jazz! Presumably for the Chair of Music Pathology There’s certainly scope for a serious -tudy of this plague. Let us hope it may lead to the elimination of the septic symptoms that have too long afflicted and disficurec the bodv |. of

popular music.

A.E.

H.

. (Dunedin). |