JAZZ IN JAPAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18494, 3 September 1923, Page 12

JAZZ IN JAPAN.

Tho Orient, particularly Japan, as gone jazz crazy. The land of Nippon, having readily assimilated most of the other features of Western civilisation, has now acquired the hankering for American syncopation. Presently the cherryblossom fox uL y giV ° way to the one ste p and This observation on the prevalence of American super-ragjime comes from James „l f? i' A J mencaK . amusement manager, who has handled various theatrical attracts, bands, dancers, singers, and other musical artists it. Oriental tours, and who ha-, just returned home after journeying through China, Japan, tho Phillippihas, and the Federated Malay States, ■ y,As for the new bond of jazz which the United States and Japan now ' have in common, Mr. Barton says it is very strong, though ho does not at all imply that it will avert any possibila yellow peril. He says that many of the Japanese now dance the /ox trot, the one-step and the.two-step to jazz music.- It, is the geisha girl, generally accounted the most backward . institution of Japan, who sesms to have led in thus catching up with Western civilisation. Mr. Barton says that in Osaka his host,' J3aron Osakatani,' took him to a dance hall where half-a-dozen girls pirouetted through' the fox trot as though they had been brought up in it, while a phonograph gave forth jazz music by the hour. The Japanese like jazz, in the opinion of the manager, because it is so absolutely at variance with the music thev have heard all their lives, much as Americans several years ago turned with a sigh of relief to languorous Hawaiian music, so utterly, opposed to the strenuous , life. Moreover, Mr. Barton says that in the Japanese schools they are teaching the natives how to play the piano, the harp, the guitar, and the mandolin, and doing it chiefly with -lighter sort, of Occidental, music rather than jwith,■Eachrnani-