ATTACK ON JAZZ.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19258, 13 March 1928, Page 2

ATTACK ON JAZZ.

SIR H. COWARD RENEWS CAMPAIGN. MENACE TO WHITE RACE. |>KOH OUR CWlf COKBESFONDEST.) LONDON, January 20.

'"The Biological Aspect of Memory and Jazzery" was the title given by Sir Henry Coward, conductor of the Sheffield Orchestral Society, to a talk to the Incorporated) Society of Musicians. It followed, as he explained, Ins recent condemnation of this newer form of music, and he carried his criticism a stage further by declaring that on moral and ethical grounds jazz should be banned and suppressed. "Many people must be asking themselves where we are drifting," lie said. "We see a decided lowering ot the pre-war standards in ethics, morals, language, and conduct. Joined to this there is a feverish exploitation of low types of pleasure in the younger generation. This has 4ed to synchronise with, or, the vulgarisation of English taste and artistic ideals by means of many American cinema pictures, the unutterable Yankee musical comedies, revues, and plays, until we are led to exclaim: 'Where are the white races drifting, morally ethically, artistically, and commercially?' I am not a pessimist, but I wish to preserve the dignity of the white races against the decadent tendencies which we see on every hand, but which, happily, are not universal or irreparable.

"If we wish to avoid the fate of the great Empires which have dominated and declined, including Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, we must see that our lotus-eating does not take the place of working, and that we do not allow jazz to pay fat dividends, while steel, cutlery, and plate, cotton and cloth languish, and our high thinking and spirituality decay." After observing that jazz was a low type of primitive music, with decidedly atavistic tendencies, Sir Henry continued: "It is founded on crude rhythms suggested by the stamping of the foot and the clapping of the hanis. and it always puts an emphasis on the grotesque by hangings andi _ clangings of pots, pans, or any shimmering metallic substance, reinforced by special drums. Thfs latter has to a great extent gone now, but the. same spirit is present. It debases both music and instruments by making hoth farcical. The noblo trombone is made to bray like an ass, guffaw like a village idiot, and moan like a cow in distress. The silver trumpet is made to screech, produce sounds like drawing a nail on a slate, tearing calico, or.like a nocturnal tom-cat. (Laughter.) Vulgarises the Perception.

"The nest* indictment is that jazz vulgarises the perception'of tone qualities. Just fancy the deplorable taste of a man who can tolerate the dull, cloudy, hooty, out-of-tune tone of a saxophone, or the twangy banjo, which is forced by its limited tonality and technique to an incessant plong, plong, plong, which is eked out by a set of exasperating tipity-tapati rampings. (Laughter.) The person who is unconscious of such bad taste is on . a level with the rich parvenu who stuffs his rooms with all sorts of glaudy ornaments and adorns his walls with oleographs. The so-called jazz classics are merely desiccated jazz, and even in that form they remind me of a buffoon parodying seriouß speech.' Those and all the other characteristics of jazz indicate atavism, a, going back to the standards' and conditions of the cave man and the negro ofthe Southern plantations. The popu-

larisation of this class of music, with its reaction on sub-conscious memory, evoking practices and usages of the past, such as immodest dances, led to a lowering of the prestige of the white races. To dieck any further loss of prestige wo must ban jazz."

Argument in Support. Mr Arthur Bliss, tho composer, disagreed with much that Sir Henry Coward had argued. "It is a figment of an over-powerful imagination," he said, ''to conceive of this great gigantic black man striding over the world with a banjo in otic hand and a saxophone in tho other, disintegrating the British Empire.' 7 The restlessness of the post-war generation which thought of progress as speed, and a fast life as necessarily a full life, would have had to invent jazz if jazz had not been there. Mr Reginald Batten, the leader of the Savoy Havana Band, in a letter which was read in support of jazz, wrote that many people who were continually damning dance music had never heard any of the best dance bands, many of which had "armed" because their renderings of popular numbers were musically clever and pleasing. Modern dances were designed to allow for the utmost originality. Tho individual dancer had ceased to be an automaton, and that he thought- was the secret of the enormous success of dancing at the piesent time. Sir Henry Coward, replying to the discussion, admitted that jazz had good points. The orchestration, he said, was very good, but there had been somo very good orchestration without jazz.

WEDDINGS. WATSON—GOUGH. St. Luke's Anglican Church, South Malvern, was the scene of a quiet wedding recently, when Miss Edith K. Gough, third daughter of the late Mr and Mrs William Gough, of Derby, England, was married to Mr William Watson, of Sheffield, North Canterbury. The bride wore a pretty frock of French rosewood crepe de chine trimmed with radium lace, and carried a beautiful bouquet of flowers to tone. In place of the usual veil and orange blossom she wore a smart picture hat to match her dress.

She was attended by her sister, Mrs A, M. "Wilson, as matrun of honour, and was given away bv her brother-in-law, Mr N. M. Dunlop. Mr A. M. Wilson attended the bridegroom. The ceremony was conducted by the Bev. H. N. Koberts, vicar of Hororata, and appropriate music was played by Mrs G. D. Marsh. After the marriage ceremony a reception was held at the home of Mr and Mrs A. M. "Wilson, at Coalgate. Mrs Wilson, who received the guests, wore a saxe blue gown and black hat, and carried a lovely bouquet of yellow roses and blue scabious. Those present were: Mr and Mrs W. Watson, Mr and Mrs N. M. Dunlop, Mr and Mrs A. M. Wilson, Mr and Mrs G. E. Davis, Mr and Mrs W. 11.I 1 . Turner, Mr and Mrs Frank Watson, Mr William Watson, jun., Miss Ruby Watson, Mr Wilfred Davis, the Rev. H. N. Koberts, the Eev. David K. Boyd, Miss Brown, Mr John Dunlop, Mr and Mrs S. W. Hayes, Mrs Jesse Prestidge, Masters Lewis, Challis, and Gough Wilson, The honeymoon was spent in Otago.