JAZZ DEFIES GALE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18202, 25 September 1933, Page 5

JAZZ DEFIES GALE

EPISODE IN HURRICANE NEW YORK. Sept. 19. While the Ward liner Mono Castle (11,300 tons) was in danger of being pounded to pieces in the hurricane winch killed 80 people in Mexico, a Philadelphia girl, Gwen Taylor, went to the piano, which was fastened to the floor, and played “Happy Days Are Here Again.” The liner's saloon presented a strange scene. Some women knelt in prayer while others wept in terror. A man who lurched toward the piano to join in Miss Taylor’s song was hurled 3011. to a corner of the saloon. Twenty passengers were injured while the vessel was hove-to for 48 hours.

“I played and sang only cheerhtl things,’’ said Miss Taylor. “Some o* the women .wanted me to play hymns, but I thought jazz better for them. An odd one joined in the song s , hut most continued to pray.” The incident recalls the bravery of the young Australian matron who put her two children to bed in the saloon and then played “Show Me the Way to Go Horne,” when Die Kanownu was wrecked while, on the way from Sydney to Melbourne, five years ago.