JAZZ—THE RECREATION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17905, 22 July 1926, Page 12

JAZZ—THE RECREATION.

The people woh have rushed into print about jazz have either exaggeratedly exalted it or as exaggeratedly denounced it. There would seem to be sort of compromise. Yet in actual iact there has probably been no school of music—save hymns—that has attained so universal level of appeal, and that has left its participants so unmoved by the swirl of battle. On the jazz floor, united by the same rhythmic movement, are the devotees of classical music and the quite excellent, people whom Brahms would bore stiff. The warfare rages around them, not among them. In their own ranks, classicists and non-classicists, neither side has any illusion as to what ?azz is—and is not. All are well aware that it expresses, not the exalted emotions of the spirit, but the rhythmic reaction to the surge of active, strenuous Life. It beats the measure of a simple reaction to complexity. It intones the melody of inevitability, and tells us, in effect, that when all is said and done, from the tremor of the cosmos to the heartbeat of the individual, Life is just—rhythm. And the saxophones. with all their symbolic cacophony, blare the assurance triumphantly, even in their most discordant notes that Life with all its complexities can be reduced to a rhythmic swav of responding feet: the rhythmic beat of hearts that ask no questions while the jazz band sets the tunc.. That is all jazz pretends to offer to humanity. But humanity has shown itself universally appreciative of the gift of temporary oblivion to ail save the mingled harmony of movement and sound.