Sir-May I add my few words to the many already poured forth on the subject of jazz? Music, as do the other arts, appeals to the emotions. Anyone who considers such matters knows that in some wonderful way a_ beautiful flower, a scene, a picture, a poem, a sound, yes, and even the majesty and beauty and rhythm of a good piece of music, can and does lift one spiritually. Sometimes one seems to contact Heaven itself, Beauty is Truth and Truth is Beauty, sang Keats. "There is no religion higher than Truth," said a great teacher. Now what effect has jazz on the emotions? The country of its origin tells us of no good record along this line. From its own reports we read of a mounting crime rate, the over-emphasis on and degradation of sex and the young drug addicts. Even our own New Zealand dare not criticise this too sharply. Jazz with its broken and maddening rhythm (the dance drums of primitive and not so primitive races give an example of stirring up the sexual passions), its dissonances, its close har-
monies, appeal to the lower emotions. For that reason alone it is bad-it pushes one down instead of raising one up. It is a steady drugging and poisoning of the emotions. Of course there are those who listen and enjoy jazz intellectually;. but. the intellect without emotion is cold. ° It prides itself on understanding the ultra modern in music, painting and sculpture. But does it? Not without the emotions too. I do not think the golden age of music is over, as one writer suggests. Music and the arts will revive at a higher level when the emotional turmoil of the two great wars has worn itself out and jangied nerves have become soothed and whole again. The Plan for our earth is to evolve to perfection, The Americans may boast of a "new culture," but all cultures are not of necessity good, and jazz as being good and helpful is decicedly questionable.
MARTINA
MASON
(Wellington).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19561026.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 899, 26 October 1956, Page 5
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340Untitled New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 899, 26 October 1956, Page 5
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