I'm indebted to Neil Leonard, whose 1962 book Jazz and the White Americans (University of Chicago Press) documents the opinion above, and the ones that follow, along with much additional insight. I discovered the book in the Lincoln Center Music Library in New York. If you can locate a copy, I think you would find it enlightening reading.

Daniel G. Mason in the March 1918 issue of the New Music And Church Review, admitted that the "jerk and rattle" of ragtime might indeed be the music of the common people, but he had little faith in the people's taste. Ragtime had vitality, he admitted, but it was the vitality of the comic strip, and not a significant example of American culture. Mason's position, interestingly enough, was later attacked by other writers who argued that the comic strip, in particular Krazy Kat, was indeed a valuable cultural contribution.

Ragtime departed the scene, and jazz arrived. In a 1922 drama entitled The National Anthem, which was concerned with the debauchery of modern youth, playwright J. Hartley Manners argued that the new music was a threat to civilization itself, and that jazz was "modern man's Saturnalia." We should recall the social context in which such remarkable anxiety flourished. It was the time of Prohibition, when, as Neil Leonard points out, traditionalists "regarded jazz, along with intemperance and unconventional sexual behavior, as a sign or cause of the advancing degeneration" of society.

"Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?" asked Anne Shaw Faulkner in a 1921 issue of The Ladies' Home Journal. She quoted the opinion of Dr. Henry Van Dyke, a Presbyterian clergyman and professor at Princeton, that jazz "is not music at all." Sigmund Spaeth took the same position in his piece for Forum in 1928, which was flatly entitled "Jazz Is Not Music." Mr. Spaeth, who would later become well known as radio's Tune Detective, heard the music of the golden age of early Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke and the rest as "merely a raucous and inarticulate shouting of hoarse-throated instruments, with each player trying to outdo his fellows, in fantastic cacophony."

The Ladies' Home Journal, apparently obsessed with the matter, printed another article in 1921, "Back To Pre-War Morals." John K. McMahon claimed that "... if Beethoven should return to earth and witness the doings of (a jazz) orchestra, he would thank heaven for his deafness....All this music has a droning, jerky incoherence interrupted with a spasmodic 'blah! blah!' that reminded me of the way that live sheep are turned into mutton." And The New York Times, on November 14, 1924, quoted concert pianist Ashley Pettis: "Jazz is nothing more or less than the distortion of every esthetic principle."

Some people were bothered by the bodily movements with which listeners responded to the new music. From The New York Times once more, on October 7, 1928: "With music of the old style, even the most moving, the listener was seldom upset from his dignified posture ... the bodily anchor remained intact. The listener behaved as impassively as the radio's microphone. Nothing in his manner indicated either a struggle for self-control or an absence of decorum." For the other side of the picture, we can examine the Times for April 14, 1926, in which was printed a charge by New Jersey Supreme Court Justice J.F. Minturn that "... in response to (jazz's) call there ensues a series of snake-like gyrations and weird contortions of seemingly agonized bodies and limbs, resembling an Asiatic 'pot pourri' which ... is called a dance."

And still earlier, in 1921, Fenton T. Bott, head of the National Association of Masters of Dancing, warned that "those moaning saxophones and the rest of the instruments with their broken, jerky rhythm make a purely sensual appeal. They call out the low and rowdy instincts. All of us dancing teachers know this to be a fact....Jazz is the very foundation and essence of salacious dancing."

The manner of the musicians themselves troubled H.O. Osgood, an editor of the Musical Courier and author of the 1926 book So This Is Jazz. Mr. Osgood described the players of the Ted Lewis band as "jolting up and down and writhing about in simulated ecstasy, in the manner of Negroes at a Southern camp-meeting afflicted with religious frenzy." Ted Lewis made some good hot records that featured Fats Waller and Benny Goodman, but his vaudeville performing group was probably putting the audience on when the author witnessed the simulated ecstasy. What is significant in the writers concern is the racial element, in many quotations of the period, Black performers and their music were seen as threatening.

In a 1922 interview, the actress Laurette Taylor, who played a lead in the already mentioned National Anthem, stated that "... jazz, the impulse for wildness that has undoubtedly come over many things besides the music of this country, is traceable to the Negro influence." Ms. Faulkner, whom we met earlier in The Ladies' Home Journal, opined that "... jazz originally was the accompaniment of the voodoo dancer, stimulating the half-crazed barbarian to the vilest deeds."

Writer H.E. Krehbiel, in The Literary Digest of 1920, associated jazz with "the Negro brothels of the South" and feared that ever more music and dance would emanate therefrom. The legend of jazz has by now assimilated the viewpoint that the bordello was in fact one of a number of probable sources; but what is seen today as quaint and even romantic history was then perceived by Dr. John R. Straton, a Baptist clergyman in New York, as a tendency "endangering our civilization in its general revolt against authority and established order." (New York Times, May 26, 1927)

Improvisation itself was condemned. An editor of The Musical Courier named Fran Patterson, in "Jazz--The National Anthem?" (1922), reported that his colleagues agreed "that the 'ad libbing' or 'jazzing' of a piece is thoroughly objectionable, and several of them advanced the opinion that this Bolshevistic smashing of the rules and tenets of decorous music, this excessive freedom of interpretation, tended to a similar letting down on the part of the dancers, a similar disregard for the self-contained and self-restrained attitude that has been described by the makers of the rules of dignified social intercourse.

In one case, the headline itself tells the story: "Cornetist to Queen Victoria Falls Dead on Hearing Coney Island Jazz Band." (New York Times, June 14, 1926)

In this day of rapping and Madonna, it is difficult to grasp the fears of the authorities in the 1920s. Jazz went on to become an art music, society did not disintegrate, civilization is still with us. So what was all the shouting about? Change--change and the inevitable resistance to it. "Jazz," however it was defined, had an important symbolic role in the '20s, but to credit it as the driving force behind all the social changes we have been through would be to exaggerate its importance.

You may have already heard Bucky's show, announced in last month's Jazz Me News: The World on Seven Strings: The Life of Jazz Guitar Master Bucky Pizzarelli. John's show, airing on Public Radio stations the week of May 9, is called Sentimental Reasons: The Story of Nat King Cole with John Pizzarelli. 

The John Pizzarelli Trio has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe. The trio earns rave reviews, often comparing the young John Pizzarelli to the jazz greats who inspired him. The New York Times stated "Mr. Pizzarelli conjured strong echoes of Nat 'King' Cole in his singing and Les Paul in his playing. Far from conflicting, these influences are smoothly integrated into a personal vision of jazz heaven as a place that's cozy but cool." "We can say that we're as lucky to listen to Pizzarelli as Nat 'King' Cole fans were in the year before he became a legend," wrote The Village Voice. Fans agree. In 1999, they voted John Pizzarelli "Jazz Vocalist of the Year" in a Swing Journal Readers Poll.

For Pizzarelli, the comparison to the Nat "King" Cole Trio is the highest of compliments. "I've always said in my concerts that Nat 'King' Cole is why I do what I do. I was fortunate enough to meet (Cole's widow) Maria Cole, and she mentioned that when she saw us on television, she said, 'My God, it's The Trio.' I couldn't believe she said that to me." But John quickly adds, "We weren't trying to copy him. Their sound was so singular and inspired. I've always said that we are an extension, a contemporary version of what that group was."

RIVERWALK GUEST ARTIST BENNY CARTER HONORED BY THE SWEET AND HOT MUSIC FESTIVAL 

Benny Carter

Another special free event will honor the latest inductees into this year's Sweet and Hot Walk of Fame. The first musician chosen for the year 2002 is the great jazzman and Riverwalk guest, Benny Carter (above). 

A gala Walk of Fame Awards Show at 8:00PM Thursday, August 29, will precede the Sweet and Hot Music Festival at the Los Angeles Marriott Hotel, Labor Day Weekend, August 30, 31, September 1 & 2. The two-hour Awards Show, produced by Joe Monte, will be hosted by Chuck Cecil, whose "Swingin' Years" radio show is syndicated throughout the country. He will introduce several guest speakers and celebrities. The six new Walk of Fame inductees will be announced and live musical performances will be based on their contributions. 

Those who have attended the festival during the Labor Day weekend are familiar with the Walk of Fame. The Sweet and Hot Foundation has dedicated a series of beautiful commemorative plaques that are permanently imbedded in the concrete around the poolside area of the L.A. Marriott Airport Hotel. The Walk is rapidly becoming an important Los Angeles attraction for visiting tourists interested in jazz. 

The tradition, launched during the first Sweet and Hot Music Festival in 1996, was established to acknowledge the work of musicians and composers who have contributed to America's Golden Age of popular music. The initial honorees were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and Benny Goodman. 

During the following years, additional plaques have acknowledged the artistry of: Thomas "Fats" Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, Bix Beiderbecke, Cole Porter, Lionel Hampton, Nat "King" Cole, Johnny Mercer, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, Jelly Roll Morton, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Gene Krupa, Hoagy Carmichael, Billie Holiday, Bobby Hackett, Sidney Bechet, Bunny Berigan, Irving Berlin, Bing Crosby, Bob Haggart, Jimmie Lunceford, Artie Shaw, Richard Rogers, Buddy Rich, Wild Bill Davison, Pete Fountain, and Mel Tormé. 

Again, this year, members of the Sweet and Hot Foundation are voting for six more prominent artists to be honored with plaques on the Walk of Fame. Members who paid their dues early had an opportunity to select one of the six honorees ahead of the general balloting. Ballots have recently been mailed to members for their selections in five additional categories: Big Band, Songwriter, Rhythm Section, Horn Section, and Vocalist. 

Admission to the seventh annual Awards Show is free. Seating is limited but reservations are required. 

If you wish to attend the event, call Martha at (310) 325-6696, or write to Walk of Fame Awards Committee, Sweet and Hot Music Foundation, Box 642269, Los Angeles, CA 90064-2269. To accommodate early arrivals, the special festival rate at the Marriott Hotel will begin on Thursday, August 29.

UNITED WE STAND

For May 2002, Jim Cullum's Landing in San Antonio offers FREE ADMISSION if you are currently employed as:

• Active-duty US Armed Forces

• Firefighter

• Law-enforcement

• EMS

Please show your ID to your server. There is a limit of 4 free admissions per party.

Jim Cullum says: "In this small way we wish to show our love for the country, and our support of our military and our President."

For reservations, email us, or please call The Landing during normal business hours, Central Time, Monday through Friday, at 210-223-7266 or 210-602-0967. Reservations are suggested only on weekend nights or for large parties.

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