"JAZZ MAD"

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 122, 19 November 1926, Page 8

"JAZZ MAD"

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—He whom Theosophists regard as the "vehicle" of the "World Teacher" has recently stated to a New York interviewer that "I do not call your jazz-mad modern America happy." Some will regard such a statement as befitting a Divine Teacher, while others will regard such a statement as a .kill-joy point of view. That jazz has taken such a hold on the world it may be fruitful to inquire as to the reasons, and also to note what expert musicians and others think of this modern development. The conductor of the Royal Opera at Covent Garden writes: "I refuse to call music the noises of the jazz band. Thero are in London so many manufactories, where, amid a deafening din, thousands of useful articles are produced. This din, which speaks of healthy activity, industry, and progress, sounds

in my ears far more truly musical than the insupportable jazz. I regard the jazz band and the most modern forms of dancing a? two manifestations, closely connected and derived one from the other, of the degeneration of the aesthetic sense." One is not surprised at such a criticism. Almost every musician utterly condemns jazz because it vulgarises. One writer says jazz is nothing more than an artificial sound stimulant intended to satisfy cravings due to unnatural living. To the objection that a little jazz will not do much harm, this writer replies that neither, perhaps> v might a little cocaine. "But it is just as bad to become a jazzaddict as a cocaine-addict, except from the standpoint of the law, which protects the community against cocaine, but not yet against jazz, By no stretch of the imagination can jazz possibly be regarded as a product of the heart, or a longing to express beauty and truth. And if it fails in this, it most assuredly fails in true art, however much it may seem to give jollity It is not real happiness that.it gives, but an unrestrained feverish sort of pleasure, condemned alike by refined feeling and noble aspiration. One feels that the epithet "jazz mad" has sound judgment, in it, and a warning to those in its grip.—l am, MUSIC LOVER.