HYMNS PREFERRED

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 74, 28 March 1930, Page 10

HYMNS PREFERRED

AMERICANS AND JAZZ

OPINIONS OF LISTENERS-IN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YOBK, sth March.

In these days when it is popularly] supposed that the United States is the permanent home of jazz, it is refreshing to be told by a member of the Federal Radio Commission, Judge Robinson, that the radio audience of the United States prefers hymns to 95 per cent, of the music at present being broadcast. '. . That tho good old hymns arc winning new friends is the learned Judge's conviction, based on a wide survey oi! radio music. At Christmas, millions lis-ton-in to the simple hymns of old. At Easter and Thanksgiving, hymns araj popular. Every Sunday, millions demand hymns by radio. "The Last oi? the Bed-Hot Mammas" has had her; admirers, who have now cheerfully given way to the yearning for hymns. John. Philip Sousa, when asked whafi he thought of the judicial pronouncement, remarked that an evening composed of hymns, without the relief of stirring band or orchestral music, would be tiring. Spokesmen of tha New York Pnilharmonie, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra are inclined to think the Judge has got off on the wrong tack. But Charles Schwab, the steel magnate, says ho has always likei hymns; a nation that clings to the oldtimo gospel tunes must be soua^ a^. heart, he says. Meantime, it is noiiee* able that, east and west, radio aud^ ences are hearing more hymns and sac*, red songs than ever before.