54 / The Twenties

world I naturally received information that w as n one too good fo r me and

POET AND NOVELIST LANGSTON HUGHES

Ii
was piloted by ignorant men to dance resorts which were open to the entire
town. These dance resorts were known as "Honky-Tonks"-a name which (1902-1967) belonged to that extraordinary
in itself suggests some of the rhythms of jazz. The vulgar word "Jazz" was in clrde of black writers and musicians whose
creative efflorescence in the 1920s became
ge neral currency in those dance halls thirty years or more ago. Therefore Jazz
known as the Harlem Renaissance. While all
to me does n ot seem to be of American negro origin as many su ppose.
The primitive music that went with the "Jazz" of those mining-town dance
halls is unquestionably the lineal ancestry of much of the Jazz music of to-
of these "New Negro" intellectuals produced
sophisticated, confident work that was meant "The Negro
day. The highly vulgar dances that accompany some of the modern Jazz are
sometimes far too suggestive of the ugly origin of the word.
to displace old stereotypes, Hughes articu-
lated the views of a younger generation that
was just as interested in celebrating difference
Artist ana
I know that this will prove shocking to some people but why n ot tell
the truth? "The Truth is mighty and will prevail. " "Jazz" was born and chris-
as in proving equality. At a time when most
Renaissance thinkers looked to black concert
the Racial
tened in the l ow dance halls of our fa r west of three decades ago. Present
day "Jazz" has gone through many reformations and absorbed many racial
composers such as William Grant Still to "el-
evate" black music, Hughes insisted that the Mountain"
most important music of the Harlem Renais-
colors from our own South, from Africa, the Near East and the Far East. But
sance was the blues of Bessie Smith and the
why stigmatize what is good in the music by the unmentionably low word
jazz of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson .1 In this essay, he scornfully invokes
"Jazz"? "Philadelphia clubwoman" to stand for those in the black community who advo-
If I were to get upon the platform and merely repeat some of the utterly cated assimilation to white cultural traditions.
horrible scenes that were forced upon me at those "Jazz" resorts during those
boyhood tours , any respectable audience would be petrified. Do you won- ne of the most promising of the young ~egro p_oets said_tom~ once,
der that the very name "Jazz" is anathe ma to me!
Having pl ayed high-class music with the Smith-Spring-Holmes Company,
in some three thousand engageme nts in Chautauqua and Lyceum, which have
taken me to the remotest parts of the country, I have heard so-called mod-
0
l
"I want to be a poet-not a Negro p oet, · meaning, I believe, I want
to write like a white poet" ; meaning subconsciously, "I would like
, a white poet"; meaning b ehind that, "I would like to be white." And I
\\ a: · rry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid
ern Jazz of all kinds. Who can help it? f being himself. And I doubted then that, with his desire to run away spir-
Some of the modern Jazz arrangements are strikingly original and re- itually from his race , this boy would ever be a great poet. But this is the
freshing, with a n instrume ntation that is often very novel and charming. Mu- m untain standing in the way of any tru e Negro art in America-this urge
sic of this kind is fa r too good and far too clever to slander with the nam ,, 11hin lhe race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into
"Jazz. " It is very America n in its snap, speed , smartness and cosmopolitan th• moid of American standard ization, and to be as little Negro a nd as mu ch
character. Why not call it "Ragtonia" or "Calithumpia" or anything on earth ri n as possible.
to get away from the term "Jazz"? But, even the best of this entertaining and rtainly there is, for the American Negro attist who can escape the re-
popular music has no place w ith the great classics or even with fine concert the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a
numbers, except perhaps in a few cases where musicians of the highest stand- -:u I Id of u nused material ready fo r his art. Without going outside h is race,
ing, such as Stravinsky, Carpenter, Cadman, Guion, Grainger, Hue rter, an<l JncJ en among the better classes with their "white" culture and conscious
others with real musical training, have playfully taken "Jazz" idioms and made \m ri an manners, but still Negro enough to be different, there is sufficient
them into modernistic pieces of the super-jazz type . m~mcr to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work. And w hen he
h . to touch on the relations between Negroes and whites in this coun-
rrv with their innumerable overtones and undertones, surely, and especially for
It;, mure and the drama, there is an inexhaustible supply of themes at hand.
r) th, the Negro artist can give his racial individuality, his heritage of rhythm
Jncl wr1m1th, and his incongruous humor that so often, as in the Blues, be-
m i nic laughter mixed with tears. But let us look at the mountain.

ll'l. Lmgston Hughes, ·'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," The Nation , June 23,
I 26, pp. 692- 93

.1muel A. Floyd, Jr., ed., Black Music in the Harlern Renaissance: A Collection
1,J f ~I ( Knoxville: University of Te nnessee Press, 1990).
55
56 / The Twenties A Black Jo urnalist Criticizes Ja zz / 57

A prominent Negro clubwoman in Philadelphia paid eleve n dollars to Let the blare of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith
hear Raqu el Meller sing Andalusian popular songs. But she told me a fe w singing Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near-intellectuals un-
weeks be fore she would not think o f going to hear "that woman ," Clara Smith, til they listen and p e rhaps understand. Let Paul Robeson singing "Water Boy,"
a great black artist , sing Negro folk songs. And many an upper-class Negro and Rudo lf Fisher writing about the streets of Harlem , and Jea n Toomer ho ld-
church, even now , wou ld not dream of employing a spiritual in its services. ing the heart of Georgia in his hands, and Aaron Douglas drawing strange
The drab me lodies in white folks ' hymnbooks are much to be preferred. "We black fantasies cause the smug Negro middle class to turn fro m their white,
want to worship the Lord correctly and quietly. We don't believe in 'shout- respectable, ordinary books and papers to catch a glimmer of their own
ing.' Le t's be dull like the Nordics," they say, in effe ct. beauty. We younger Negro artists w ho create now intend to express our in-
The road for the serious black artist, then , who would produce a racial dividual dark-skinned selves witho ut fear or shame . If white people are
art is most certainly rocky and the mountain is high. Until recently he received pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matte r. We know we are beau-
almost no encourage ment for his work from either white or colored people. tiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored
The present vogue in things Negro, altho ugh it may do as much ha nn as good people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't mat-
for the budding colored artist, has at least clone this: it has brought him forcibly t r either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and
to th e atte ntion of his own people among w hom fo r so long, unl ess the other " e stand on top of the mountain , free w ithin ourselves.
race had noticed him beforehand , he was a prophet w ith little honor.
Most of my own poems are racia l in theme and treatment , de rived fro m
the life I know. In many of them I try to grasp and hold some of the mean-
ings a n~ rhythms of jazz. I am sin cere as l know how to be in these poems
FROM 1925 TO 1929, PIANIST AND BAND
and yet after every reading I answe r questions like these from my own peo-
ple: Do you think Negroes should always write abo ut Negroes? I w ish you
wouldn 't read some o f your poems to white fo lks. How do you find any-
I ad r Dave Peyton (c. 1885-1956) wrote a
w kly column, "The Musical Bunch," for the
Chicago Defender, one of the country's most
14
thing interesting in a place like a caba ret? Why do you writ e about black important black newspapers. Peyton's views
people? What makes you do so many jazz poems'
But jazz to me is one of the inhe re nt express io ns of Negro li fe in Amer-
on jazz have little in common with those of
Langston Hughes; his exhortations combine ABlack
ica: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro so ul-the tom-tom of revolt
against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work,
th pragmatic flexibility of a working musi-
c! n (leading "Dave Peyton's Symphonic
Sycopators") with the disapproving tone of
Journalist
work ; the tom-tom of joy and lau ghter, and pain swa llowed in a smile. Yet
the Philadelphia clubwoman is ashamed to say that her race created it and
she does not like me to write abo ut it. The o ld subconscious "white is best"
omeone who believes in the superiority of
European musical practices and worries that
Criticizes
runs thro ugh her mind. Yea rs of stud y under white teachers, a lifetime of
white books, pictures, and papers, and white manners, morals, and Puritan
some types of jazz might hold back "racial
progr6s." Yet Peyton's warnings also reflect
his resentment of how recording companies
Jazz
standards made her dislike the spirituals. And now she turns up he r nose at stereotyped black musicians and confined
jazz and all its manifestations-likewise almost everything else distinctly racial. th m to certain ("lower'') kinds of music.
She doesn't care fo r the Wino ld Reiss po rtrait s o f Negroes because they a re
"too Negro. " She does not want a true picture of herself from anybody. She he Musica l Bunch," a feature of The Chicago Defender, the World's
want s the artist to fl atter her, to make the white wo rld believe that all Ne- Greatest Weekly, is just two and one-half years old this issue. This
groes are as smug and as near white in soul as she wants to be. But, to my writer is proud to know that some good has come out of his ad-
mind, it is the duty of the younge r Negro artists, if he accepts any duties at , 1 • he past. Many a mu sician has been turned around and has followed
all from o ut siders, to c hange through the force of hi s art that o ld w hispering th • tr-Jil(ht path that leads to success. At times this writer has been a little
"I wa nt to be w hit e ," hidden in the aspirations of his people, to "Why should ,, •rl' c n some of our brothe rs, but it was the only way to impress them
I want to be white? I am a Negro-a nd beautiful! " th,11 th -y were going the wrong way. They probably were making a mock-
So I am ashamed for the black poet who says, "I want to be a poet, not c; n ut I music- probably w ere about to make things bad for all of us-
a Negro poet," as th o ugh his own racial world were not as interesting as any .in I .1 chc k had to be put on them, and the re is no more sure check than
othe r world . I am ashamed , too, for the colored artist who runs fro m the I 111 hot,
painting o f Negro faces to the painting of sunsets after the manne r of the
academicians because he fears the strange un-whiteness of his own features.
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, hut he m ust also m, I .1, l'1eyton, "l11e Musical 13unch," Chicago De.fender, April 28, March 10, and May
never he afraid to do what he might choose. J., 1918; all of these columns appeared in part 1, p. 6 of the National Edition.
58 / The Twenties
A 8 1:ick .Journalist Criticizes Jazz / 59
The trouble w ith most of our o rchestras today is nonversa tility. They have t!ons of the orc hestra. The players must be mu sicians to cut the stuff. Many
adapted themse lves o n one side of the fence or the othe r. If they can han- times you run into grand opera figu rations which require technical knowl-
dle jazz mu sic they fall short w hen the legitimate score is p laced before them edge of the musicians. The melodies, garnished w ith difficult eccentric fig-
and if they are real sta ndard music players they cannot handle the popular ures and propelled by artful rhythms, ho ld grip on the world today, replac-
variety music. Of course we have superversatile orchestras, but they are few ing the mush y, discordant jazz mu sic.
and fa r between. Bunch, if you are now in a jazz band do not give up proper
study on your instrument. You may be called upo n to re nder real service and
to play good mu sic. You cannot go wrong by practicing daily scale work. It
keeps the mind a le rt a nd the fingers flexible. Th e o rchestra today that is ver-
The Trouble With Our Orchestras
satile gets the prefere nce of best work and secures the best jobs, and the
same applies to mu sicians w ho can do both kinds of work , standard and jazz. 1' e listen to many of the famous white orchestras w ith their smoothness of
playing, their uniqu e attacks, their nove lty arrange ment of the score and
lllht r things that go to make fo r fine music, a nd we wonder w h y most of
Jazz Music our own orchestras w ill fail to d e liver m usic as the No rdic brothers do.
I ht.: re is only o ne answe r, and that is, we mu st get in line, w e are too sat-
Jass music seems to ho ld a firm grip upon the public today, although the re I ficd with w hat little we know about music. People pat us o n the back

are many who like the standa rd classics and they always register a large hand ,Ill I tell how we ll they like ou r end eavors a nd we beg in rea ll y to think th at

when played, but gene rally jazz music is more ove rwhelmingly accepted, as \\ •.in- all the berries. We allow these complime nts to hinder our p rogress,
it appeals to the popular fancy more than the standards do . This word jazz \ • rea se to study any lo nger, we poke out o ur chests with a fe eling of
is a coined word , created by some one, as nobody has yet claimed its cre- hr.l\.tdo , we loudl y sing o ur own praises a nd at the sa me time we co ntinu e
ation , and belongs to the slang family of expressions. Ragtime music, which tu l,ind in a channel of ignorance , unconscious of the fac t that w e never
lt.1rn music.
swept the country many years ago, has evolutionized itself into the present-
day jazz music. Ragtime music ca rried in its construction sweet melody flows,
accompanied by brilliant ha rmonic embodiments , the theme or melody al-
ways dominating and the development of ragtime music fo r the orchestra was Th Ind ividual
delightful.
Pl I\ •r, individually should continu e their studies o n the vario us instrume nts·
th'\ ,J~ uld n ot give up co nstant daily practice just because the y are con~
Discordant Jazz 1dt'r ·u ood and a few people ra ve over them. We can ha ve man y ad-
lntag . these clays. Most all music co lleges all over the co untry are open
Down on the levees of the Sunny South was the real beginning of jazz mu- I
I
ur 1uuents and I mean the best of them. We wh o are working on steady
sic. New O rleans can rightfully cl aim the birth of jazz. After sundown, when h. -.,hould make every sacrifice and endeavor to ga in mo re knowledge of
the day's work was through, the folks would get together and harmoniz •. mu IC. " . • up yo_ur idle time at home , working hard to supe rperfect your-
They would select some tune the gang was familiar with and each person •h · II 1s surpnsmg to know how little some of our so-called "star" mu-
would blend in his or her part, produ cing counterpoints and fugu es uncon- 1 1.1n know about music. They rea ll y believe that they are good and they
sciously. If they were p laying instrume nts, rich, natural figures would comt: h.1, · ·1 lot of frie nds who also w ill argue this out to a finish, whe n at the
fo1th from the instrume nts. You would at times hear cru de overblown tone~: m 11111 • if th_e test is put to them by th ose who are mu sicall y effi cient,
you could see the trumpete rs with jaws poked out and a loo k of misery n ti '} o 1ld shnnk betore the ons laught o f theoretica l interrogation. Le t us
their faces. Today most of ou r jazz trnmpeters carry this hideous expression ,h >ur, •Ives of this conceit a nd ri ght now at this mome nt vow to get
while playing. This crude style of jazz playing has developed into the world- 1mo I .1rn ·s, st~dy h ard and seek a first class teacher. Things are fas t cha ng-
famous artistic jazz music. n' 1n dtt? music game. Jazz is o n the wane , and the better class of mu sic
•min I ack into favo r w ith the critica l public. It is mu ch better to be
r • d\' "ht•n the times comes. If you are now playing in a jazz band for
Popular Jazz ur lh in' do as I have suggested , use your idl e time studying you r in-
nun ·n. ·our scales, and when you think th at you have accomplished
The style of jazz pla ying today requires musicianship to handle it. There i, rn ><.I ot your instrume nt, do not wait , start right away on harmon y,
no faking , every instrument has its part to perform. The expert arrangers , th-- unt •rpotn t, and composition. Keep busy, it will only do you good in the
orists , as a rule put the notes down on paper in p a1titi oned effect fo r the sc n nm
EVEN THOUGH SWING THAT MUSIC WAS
mostly ghostwritten from his notes and in-
terviews, Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) is
usually credited with having authored the
IJ
1rsl published autobiography of a jazz musi-
ci n. (Paul Whiteman's Jazz, written with
M. M. McBride, had appeared ten years ear- What Is
lier, in 1926, so it depends on how one de-
fines Hjazz.") Since many musicians and his-
torians hail Armstrong as the first great jazz
Swing?
soloist. he speaks here with considerable au-
thority, and although his voice is highly me-
diated, the book circulated as his statement. 1
In any case, these excerpts describe well what
he actually did as a musician, unlike his other
autobiographical writings. Armstrong high-
lights the tension that exists between the creative freedom of the musician and the
authority of the arranger or conductor, insisting that much is lost when jazz is writ-
ten down. He writes of the successful swing player's 11 sheer musical instinct, 11 but
points out that it takes many years to develop the ability to improvise.
Critics and musicians from Paul Whiteman to Dave Peyton had argued in the
1920s and '30s that written arrangements and complex scoring moved jazz forward
along a path of evolutionaiy improvement. But in these excerpts Armstrong implic-
itly criticized the smoothly arranged style preferred by so many of the big bands.
The fam d trumpeter worked to refute the evolutionaiy view by claiming the pop-
ular word "swing" (rather than "jazz") for his older New Orleans style of collective
mprovisation. Creative improvisation linked Armstrong's music, as he saw it, to larger
swing bands such as Benny Goodman's, but distanced both from, say, Paul White-
m n's orchestra. The distinction is not one of race but of sensibility: "the 'regular'
style music will relax you but the swing is likely to make you feel keen-waiting on
edge for the 'hot' variations." 2

or a man to be a good swing conductor he sho uld have been a swing

player himself, for then he knows a player is n o good if the leader
' ts down on him too much and doesn't let him "go to town" when
h • ~·cl. like going. That phrase, "goin' to town," means cuttin' loose and

11ri: • 1.u is Armstrong, Swing That Music (New York: Longmans, Green , 1936), pp. 30-34,
l H 07.

1
1or a m re extensive evaluation of the provenance and significance of Swing That
lfm r • William H . Kenney III, "Negotiating the Colo r Line: Louis Annstrong's
\ utt i gr.iphies," in Reginald T. Buckner and Steven Weiland , eds. , Jazz in Mind:
I. · {I 1111 the History and Meanings ofJazz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
I I pp. 38-59. See also Dan Morgenstern's "Foreword " to Louis Armstrong,
11i11g 71Jlll Music (New York: Da Capo, 1993), pp. vii- xiii.
I 1r .m analysis of the controversies over "swing" and "jazz" in the jazz press, see
I ·m:m.1 endron, "Moldy Figs and Modernists: Jazz at War (1942-1946)," Discourse
1• j 'pring, 1993), pp. 130-57.
73
74 I The Thirties Wha t is Swing? / 75

ta kin' the music with you, whatever the score may call for. Any averag • \\;l\ probably I w o uld be bearing down more on my boys and flattening o ut
player, if he 's worth anything at all , can follow through a score , as it's writ- th 1r t) le; and they would not be happy because they all know better.
ten there in front o f him on his instrument rack. But it takes a swing play 'r, if you have been hearing about swing music, but have not known
and a real good o ne , to be able to leave that score and to know , or "feel," mu ·h about the diffe rence , listen closely when you hear one of the big "reg-
just when to leave it and when to get back on it. No conducto r can tell him, ul.ir" orchestras playing on the air o r in your favo rite hotel o r club, and then
because it all happe ns in a second and doesn 't happen the same way n h t •n arefully to a swing orchestra like Benny Goodman's or Jimmy Dorse y's
two times running. It is just that libe1ty that every individual player must ha, • ,r th Casa Loma o r the Louis Armstrong Band. Pretty soon you will begin
in a real swing orchestra that makes it most worth listening to. Every tim • 1 noli t:. that all of the players in the "regula r" orc hestra are playing almost
they play there is something new swinging into the music to make it "h1..1t J)l'rt 11. together to a regular, set, rhythmic beat, and are smoothly follow-
and inte resting. And right here I want to explain that "hot," as swing mu i· lllJ.l th• melody to the end. No o ne instrument w ill be heard standing out at
cians use the word, does not necessarily mean loud or even fast. It is used an\' unw during the piece (unless, of course, there happe ns to be a solo ist
when a swing player gets warmed up and "feels" the music taking hold f 1 J<lln~ lhem for a number). The n when you listen to a swing band, you will
him so strong that he can break through the set rhythms and the melody and 1 • 1in t recognize that all through the playing of the piece, individual in-
toss the m a round as he wants w itho ut losing his way. That creates new c · ·nim m: will be hea rd to stand o ut and the n re treat and you will catch new
fects and is done w he ther the music is loud or soft or fast o r slow. , )I·. ,ind broken-up rhythms yo u are not at all familiar with. You may have
You will think that if every man in a big sixteen-piece band had his O \\ n n I\\ n 1he melody very well but you will ne ver have hea rd it played just
way and could play as he wanted , that all you would get would be a lot f 1)1:11 \\.l before and will neve r hear it played just that way again. Because
jumbled up , crazy no ise. This would be and is true with ordinary players, t 1• y are "swinging" around , and away from , the regular beat and melody
and that is why most bands have to play "regular" and their conductors can l 1u :1r • used to , following the score very loosely and improv ising as they
dare let them leave their music as it is scored. The conductor himself ma •n, h~ .,r and free musical fee ling . If you pay attention for a little while,
decide on certain variations, an "arrangeme nt" they call it, but the play •r, u \\ ill ·asily notice the differe nce . You will probably feel differently, too-
have to follow that scoring. In th at way the conductor or "arranger" may w rilt t 1 ¥1 • •ular" style music will rel ax you but the swing is like ly to make you
some "ho t" phrasing into an old score and , to those who do n 't know, the I r- t: ·I k · •n--waiting o n edge for the "hot" va riatio ns you feel are coming up
chestra may seem to be "swinging. " But w hen you've got a real bunch f l 111: moment. That is because yo u recognize , maybe w ithout knowing it,
swing players togethe r in an orchestra, you can turn them loose for the mo. I th.II m thing really creative is h ap pening right before you.
part. "Give 'em their head," as they say of a race horse. They all play to-
geth er, picking up and following each other's "swinging," all by ear and shcl'r
musica l instinct. It takes a very fine ear and some years of playing to do th. I
That is why there have been so few really fine sw ing orchestras in the world ,, I know the re are a lo t of people who will read this book who will
First you have to get a combin ation of natural swing players and then the ·,~ 1\ th.ti \ ing" is just a new n ame for the same o ld jazz they've been hear-
got to learn hmv to play in and out together as one man. No conductor c. n tn • for m:my years and that I a m trying to make it look as though it was
make the m do it, or even show them much how to. His biggest part i: I 111 ·1htn • new. Even some of the editors of the publishing house which is
make suggestions a nd tty to get them into a good humor and then let th m 1I h hin th is book told me that at first , though of course in a very p olite
al one. And I mean alo ne! If he doesn't, if he starts telling o ne man just ho\\ }. But I nnot say too strongly to these people that the re is all the <lif-
to play this part and another how to play another part, pretty soon he'll rn in r n · in the world and if they w ill just try to understand it they will very
his orc hestra and he' ll have one that just plods along with the score, pla ·in ,n I • inging out when they tune in a band on their radios, "That's swing!"
regul ar, and all the life will be gone out of the men. Swing pl ayers have g 1'11.11 n swing," and will be able to tell at once.
to have a good time w hen they are playing and they can't have a good tim• , " th• basic idea of swing music is not new. The swing idea of free
play ing and rehea rsing as they do twelve and fourteen ho urs a day, if y >U 1 111 r ,v, ,Ilion by the players was at the core of jazz when it started back
just make machines o ut of them. r • m C\\ Orleans thirty years ago. Those ea rly boys were swing-men,
No man in my band which you hear over the radio has to do anythin' u:h 1h '} didn't know so muc h about it the n as we do today. But they
except be a good musician and "show" on time and in good shape f r n:- thl l 'l.~k idea, all right. What happened was that this idea got lost when
hearsa ls. If he can 't play away from the score , I do n't want him. He doc 111 , · pt er the country . I think the reason it got overlooked and lost
be long in a real sw in g band , and, Heaven knows, there are plenty of m · 11 ,ti "h ·n the public went cra zy over jazz the music publishing com-
non-swing or "regula r" bands in the land which will be glad enough to h:iH: m tn I the record companies jumped in and had all the so ngs written
him. My men know that-and my knowing it may be the biggest reason ,, h, n ,ind re o rded and they a nd the theatre producers and northern dance
we are out in front today. If I hadn't come up myself as a sw ing trumpet ·r I~ I .ml our boys more money than they'd e ver heard of to help write down
and found out that you've got to be let alone and allowed to play your \\O nd la\' th • I! songs. Popular songs before jazz had always been played the
7 6 I The Thirties

way they were written and that was what made "song hits" for the publish-
LAIN LOCKE (1886-1954) WAS ONE OF

18
ers. So the commercial men wanted the new jazz tunes played the same way
so the public would come to learn them easily and sing them. The public the leaders of that surge of African-American
literary and artistic creativity during the last
liked that, too , because the new tunes were "catchy" and different and peo-
half of the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance.
ple liked to sing them and hear them played that way. Jazz was new to them
Holder of a Harvard Ph.D. in philosophy,
and they didn't understand it enough to be ready for any "crazy business."
So most of the good jazz players and jazz bands which fo llowed the Dix-
iela nd Five went down the easiest road where the big mo ney was, and you
Locke exemplified the "Talented Tenth," as
W. E. B. Du Bois had called them, the black Looking Back
can hardly blame them when you look back now and see how few people
understood what it was really all about anyway. 3 Some of the boys stuck
tntellectual elite whose existence countered
raci m by demonstrating the advancement of
th race. Renaissance leaders strove to pro-
at "The
along and just wouldn't follow scoring, it wasn't.in 'em, and some of the oth-
ers that didn't learn to read music went on swinging the way they had learned
duce and promote "the New Negro," who
would be prepared to enter American soci-
Jazz Age"
to love. Very few of them ever made much money, but playing in small clubs ety at its highest levels, and Locke edited an
and dives they kept swing alive for many years. influential collection of essays, fiction, and
poetry under that title in 1925.
Then there was another group of the boys who took a straddle and I
Locke's opinions about jazz are complex
think they were the smartest and that they have probably done more to bring
and, perhaps, conflicted. Most Harlem Renaissance leaders disliked the "lower forms"
swing into its own than anybody. They were the swing-men w ho went on of black folk and popular music and looked foiward to their eventual "elevation" as
into the commercial field, joined big conventional bands, played the game as art music. Yet in these excerpts from a later book, The Negro and His Music (1936),
it was dished out to them and made their money, and yet who loved swing Locke tried to defend jazz against charges of immorality by distinguishing between
so much that they kept it up outside of their regular jobs. They did it through rolk and commercial versions . He considered a number of theories about the mean-
the jam sessions held late at night after their work was done. It makes me ing and popularity of jazz, pointing to differences in its reception by black and white
think of the way the early Christians would hold their meetings in the cata- udlences as crucial to understanding the "Jazz Age" of the 1920s. Locke's defense
combs under Rome. With those musicians I guess it was the old saying: "He Is perhaps best understood up against the early twentieth-century culture of neuras-
who fights and runs away will live to fight another day. " At any rate , the lh nia-the "American nervousness" afflicting that privileged elite who felt most civ-
truth is that most of the best-known swing artists of today are or were the ilized and most affected by modernity. 1 Unlike Du Bois, who had tried to enfran-
crackshot musicians with big conventional bands (name bands, we call them chise blacks culturally by claiming that they, too, were sensitive enough to suffer
from neurasthenia, Locke preferred (in his words) the primitive to the decadent, the
because they are usually known by the name of their leader) or on big ra-
erotic to the neurotic, the pagan to the commercial. For him, jazz was a complex
dio programs, but they don't miss their jam sessions where they can cut loose cultural fusion with multiple, context-dependent meanings.
as they please, w ith or without a leader, feel their own music running through
them and really enjoy themselves. These swing-men who have come up to
the top because of their musicianship are slowly having an influence on the Jazz and Morals
big bands they play with. Some of them have become so popular with the
public that they now have their own bands and can do more w hat they like ~.,Iii g jazz an e pidemic brings out another important aspect of the matter:
to do , like Mr. "Red" Norvo , Mr. Benny Goodman, Mr. Tommy Dorsey, Mr. !ht. ,·onnection between jazz and that hectic neurotic period of our cu ltural
Jimmy Dorsey, Mr. "Red" Nichols , Mr. Earl Hines, Mr. Chick Webb, Mr. "Fats" lirt', not yet a completely closed chapter-the "jazz age. " The Negro, strictly
Waller, Mr. Teddy Hill, and others. ·peaking, never had a jazz age; he was born that way, as far as the original
J,17.l response went. But as a modern and particularly as an American also,
ht' Ix-came subject to the infections, spiritu al and moral , of the jazz age. The
uouc side of jazz, in terms of w hich it is often condemned, is admittedly
th •re. But there is a vast difference between its first hea lthy and earthy ex-
p ion in the original peasant paganism out of wh ich it arose and its hec-
li , artificial and sometimes morally vicious counterpart which was the out-

1 <: Alain Lucke, 7he Negro and His Music (Washington , D.C.: The Associates in Negro
Folk Education, 1936), pp. 86-90.

-'Armstrong refers here to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the white group that Tom Lutz, American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal Histo1y (Ithaca: Cornell
made the first jazz record in 1917. l 11versity Press, 1991), especiall y pp. 261-75.
77
82 / The Thirties Defining "Hot Jazz" / 83

Roller skating is his chief exercise . granddaughter of Samuel Cunard, the founder of the ship company, and thus a kind
Ethel Waters is his favorite artist, black or w hite. o traitor to her class, for the book was conceived as a way of focusing attention on
Thinks that Andy Razaf is the race's greatest lyric writer. oppression, lynchings, and racism in the United States. It linked the imperialism of
Admires W. C. Handy for his business acume n as a music publisher. the Western powers in Africa to discrimination and cruelty at home, lauding Soviet
Russia as more socially just ("Today in Russia alone is the Negro a free man"). Even
Believes that all successful songs have a "blues" idea hidden somewhere
though Cunard had convinced some prominent friends-including Ezra Pound,
in them. Theodore Dreiser, Langston Hughes, and Samuel Beckett-to contribute to the col-
He was the first director to use the three-trombo ne idea for dance band. lection, commercial presses wouldn't touch it, and she published it herself.
"Ha rlem Slang" is the latest composition he is working out with Andy
Razaf. It is an original idea o f explain ing Harlem 's own quaint express ions ot so long ago Andre Coe uroy wrote: "improvised jazz is the most
through the medium of song. potent force in music at the present time; long may it remain so. "
Recently the Boston Symphony gave a sympho nic re ndition of the num-
be r he is chiefl y identified with-"Chant of the Weed. ":l What the n exactly is this force that has received the sa nction of some of
And so the rotund left-handed director is right with the world. ur greatest modern musicians and yet is so little known to others?
It is scarcely necessary to repea t that jazz is Afro-American mu sic, de-
3The Boston Symphony Orchestra has no record of eve r ha ving performed this \. ·I ,ped in the U.S.A. during the war, and attaining its maximum o f expres-
piece-not surprisingly , given the title 's covert cele bration of ma rijuana. It is barely
i n during the period 1920-1930. In my book On the Frontiers oj]azz I have
co nceivable that A1thur Fiedler may have conducted it with the Boston Pops.
<ll".llt at sufficie nt le ngth with the va rious musi ca l, techn ica l and sentimental
dcments of jazz to make any recapitulation of them here unnecessary. They
,m., common knowledge by now.
Let us therefore confine ourselves to hot jazz, otherwise known as im-
1 r vised jazz, a type of music that was in existence long b efore it was for-
CRITICS ARGUE-THEIR JOB IS TO WRANGLE m:llly tabulated. The epithet "hot" is applied to any passage "in w hich the
over what counts as great and what doesn't,
what to buy and what to avoid, what sort of
story is unfolding or collapsing . One of the
20 • •cutant or executants abandon the melodic theme and develop an imagi-
nati\ e structure on the b asis of that theme and incorporated with it. "1
To write the history o f this "ho t" it would be necessary to trace the w ho le
earliest writers who might be called a jazz
critic was a Belgian lawyer and poet, Robert
Goffin (1898-1984). In this article, his task is Defining cvol tion of jazz in general. For we find its formulae, common enough to-
d.1 ·. present at every stage of the development of syncopated music. It may
t said that jazz would h ave died a natural death long ago but for this "hot"
to differentiate "hot jazz," exemplified for
him by Louis Armstrong, from "melodic jazz,"
typified by Paul Whiteman. It is a conse-
"Hot Jazz" ~ hlch has always been its unfailing stimulation , its purest mode of utterance,
:ind to all inte nts and purposes its raison d 'etre.
quential endeavor, for if the distinction was The Negro slaves , transplanted from their scorching Africa to the mar-
of importance to few people at the time, it ' II us but inhospitable countries of North America, treasured as their last
underpins all subsequent critical debates ession that prodigious sense of rhythm which their traditional dances a nd
(over bebop, free, fusion, and most recently
their tom-toms beating in the equ atorial night had mad e so ineradicably p art
the "smooth jazz" of Kenny G and others).
of them.
Goffin inevitably invoked the " noble sav-
age" stereotype when he elevated hot jazz by praising its "untrained," "unconscious," Instinctive and unha ppy, highly endowed with the most complete, be-
but "brilliant" practitioners. Yet he also argued that the most important musical fea- u. • the most simple, poetical faculties, they soon began to express their
tures of jazz derived from African-American cultural experience. And while he hails ·m tions in song; labourers in the cotton plantations , dockers slaving in New
Armstrong as "the supreme genius of jazz," he credits white hot musicians with cor- rl ·ans, young Negresses herded together in the markets, fu gitives hounded
rectly perceiving the grandeur of the music, and with helping to promote "mutual <.I \\ by mastiffs , they all sang their abominable ca ptivity and the brutal dom-
esteem" across the color line. in,lll n of their masters.
The English translation of this article first appeared in the context of another at- r e Africa n rhythm had not been lost; they clothed it with simple senti-
tempt to promote respect for black culture: Negro, an anthology of writings by and 111 ·nt, moving exp ressions of love , biblical cries o f celestial yearning, pastoral
about black artists and authors. Its editor, Nancy Cunard (1896-1965), was the I. mcnts; and thus the Negroes came quite naturally to improvise upon a given
rh 1h ic theme with changes of tone, combinatio ns of voices and unexpected
Sou rce: Ro be rt Goffin. "Hot Jazz," trans lated by Samue l Becke tt, in Nancy Cuna rd, ed. , Neg ro:
Anthology Made l~v Nancy Cuna rd, 193 I-793.1 (London: Nan cy Cunard at Wish att and
1 ,offm is evide ntly quoting from his own earlier work.
Co. , 1934 ), pp . .~78-79.
84 I The Thirties Detinin!-( "Jlot Jazz" / 8S

counterpoints-an improvisation that was to culminate in the incomparable generally simple theme written by the composer. He is no longer a consci-
harmonies that have bewitched the whole of Europe. entious actor reciting his part, but one improvising on the idea or impression
Little by little this habit of improvisation was extended to the brasses and of the moment in the Italian Commedia dell' Arte tradition.
it became customary for groups of musicians to meet and improvise on the The admirable achievement of the first orchestras was an unconscious
themes of spirituals or simply on a given rhythm, each performer weaving one, ignored at the time and not fully appreciated till twenty years later. We
his own melody. must turn back to these primitive orchestras and listen humbly to the musi-
Through the cake-walk, rag-time and blues Negro music proceeded to- cal inventions of these untrained Negroes before we can realise the brilliant
wards that jazz which was soon to assume such important dimensions and audacity of these musicians who devoted themselves with enthusiasm and in
absorb the forms which had gone before it. the face of the most fatuous opposition to this new field, later to become the
"At this time jazz still belonged to the black musicians with their ancient monopoly of the intelligent and cultivated section of the new generation.
traditions of invention and their unique faculty for improvisation and embel- From this moment every black orchestra played "hot," with occasional dis-
lishment according to the dictates of their ingenuous hearts. They were the cordant abuse of wawas, washboards, and drums, which soon calmed clown.-'
first teachers of the genuine lovers of jazz, while others in whom the com- At that time only very few whites were able to appreciate the sublime
mercial instinct was more highly developed ignored this necessary contact grandeur of this music of the heart. We must not forget the first white or-
and transposed jazz airs in a way quite foreign to the Negro tradition." chestras to play "hot" in an America rotten with colour prejudice; they laid
This explains the upgrowth of a school of melodic jazz, exploited for a the foundations of a solidarity and a mutual esteem whose benefits came too
time with great success by Paul Whiteman, Jack Hylton and other famous late for the majority of those most apt to enjoy them. The Cotton Pickers,
leaders, who industrialized jazz to such an extent that nothing remained but New Orleans Rhythm Kings, California Ramblers and Original Dixieland will
a weak dilution devoid of all real musical character. all have an honoured place in the eventual Pantheon of syncopated music.
Melodic jazz has contributed nothing to music and will only be remem- Already a definite tradition is taking form in the domain of hot jazz and
bered for its unspeakable insipidness; whereas hot jazz is a creative princi- a codification is being gradually developed; such discerning critics as Panas-
ple which can scarcely fail to affect the music of the future in the most orig- sie, Prunieres, Coeuroy, and Sordet concern themselves with the manifesta-·
inal and unexpected directions. tions of hot jazz and keep its development under the strictest observation
Hot jazz has already exploded the automatism of musical composition as and control. 4 We are now so familiar with hot jazz, thanks to the countless
practised before the war, when the composer wrote a melody, or a score, on records made of different orchestras, that we can distinguish the unmistak-
the understanding that its realisation should only vary in accordance with the able note of its lyricism even in the most florid of its vulgarisations.
interpretive ability of successive executants, who generally showed but little The talent and genius of certain composers and performers have received
initiative in their reading of the work and could only express their own per- their proper recognition. A number of jazz orchestras have conquered the
sonality in their treatment of detail. It is obvious that the music of Beethoven unanimous approval of the public. Finally certain individuals have enriched
and Debussy is played today exactly as it was when composed, and as it still jazz with contributions of so personal a nature as cannot fail to delight all
will be a century hence. those who take an interest in the subject, and it is to them that we owe all
The most extraordinary achievement of hot jazz has been the dissocia- that is best in modern jazz.
tion of interpretation from the "stenographical" execution of the work, re- There are many orchestras in both Europe and America whose musical
sulting in a finished musical creation which is as much the work of the per- perfection has elicited the admiration of such competent judges as Ravel, Dar-
former as of the composer. Up to the time of jazz it is safe to say that the ius Milhaud, and Stravinsky, and in these orchestras some exponents of "hot''
performer was no more than the faithful representative of the composer, an whose style, to my mind, has had an enormous influence on the develop-
actor whose function was to transmit the least phrase and stimulus of his ment of jazz in general. Special reference must be made to Louis Armstrong,
text. 2 But hot jazz has no patience with stimuli by proxy and requires more whom I consider as the supreme genius of jazz. This extraordinary man has
of its executants, insisting that each should have ample scope for indepen- not only revolutionised the treatment of brass instruments but also modified
dence and spontaneity of expression. The task of the performer is to realise, almost every branch of musical technique as practised today. Nor should we
in whatever terms he sees fit, the possibilities of syncopation latent in the forget that colossus of jazz, the late Bix Beiderbecke, the pianist Earl Hines,
and the tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. There are hundreds of others
2Actually, it's not at all safe to say that. The primacy of the permanent musical
work or text and the devaluation of improvisation are nineteenth-century develop-
ments. Bach was best known as an improviser, Mozart added his own cadenzas :>A reference to the wah .. wali or plunger mute, used on hrass instruments and asso-
and embellishments to the pieces he composed, etc. This passage reflects a ciated in parlicular with Duke Ellington's "jungle music."
widespread historical amnesia that accepts the practices of early-twentieth-century 4The notion that a handful of French critics coulcl control tlw development of jazz
"classical music'' as eternal norms or ideals. now seems a bit self-indulgent.
86 I The Thirties An Experience in Jazz History / 87

hardly less important than these four and no less deserving of honour for n uld like to talk a little bit about the history of jazz, its roots and the
being mentioned by name. iety from which it emerged, and how I believe that records serve the
Before I conclude this essay I would like to draw attention to the anal- r .1 history of jazz since 1917.
ogy between the acceptance of "hot" and the favour enjoyed throughout Eu- The general public first learned about jazz in a rather roundabout way.
rope by the Surrealiste movement. 5 Is it not remarkable that new modes bOLh IJZZ re ordings were put out by Victor and Columbia in 1917 by the Origi-
of sentiment and its exteriorisation should have been discovered indepen• n.ii · ieland Jazz Band, a group of New Orleans musicians with rather rigid
dently? What Breton and Aragon did for poetry in 1920, Chirico and Ernst for nil ·s. There wasn't really much improvisation in this, but at least the music
painting, had been instinctively accomplished as early as 1910 by humble N - \\J. n t written and there was a certain amount of excitement. It was a small

gro musicians, unaided by the control of that critical intelligence that was to •r< up hich came to New York from New Orleans in 1917. Although it had
prove such an asset to the later initiators. I 'n in existence down there before, mainly with wonderful Black musicians
Finally, it may be mentioned that hot jazz is regarded today by all the hi,.• Ru dy Bolden, King Oliver and various others, it was the Whites, as
intelligent and cultivated youth of Europe as its staple musical nourishmenl. u ual, ~ ho stole the thunder of the Negro musician and were the first to per-
As Dominique Sordet says, many young men have derived an almost r li- lonn it on records. It's true that a year or so before, W. C. Handy had got-
gious enthusiasm from the contact of this superabundant source of lyrici m. I ·n tog lher a band for Columbia playing "St. Louis Blues" and "Memphis
For them hot jazz is almost the only form of music that has any meaning for Bl 1 • " and some of his other things, but all this music was written. There
their disrupted generation, and it is my fervent hope that America will n \ ,1,;n t • note of improvisation in it, and it really was a perversion of what

disregard this extraordinary element in its sentimental life and one which i \\ · think of and know of as jazz.
surely of more importance than sky-scrapers and Fordism. The roots of jazz probably go back to the late nineteenth century when
ragtim was popular. There was a wonderful composer from Missouri, Scott
5A number of writers proposed this analogy between jazz and surrealism, a move- I plin. nd there was also an extraordinary Black piano player who was born
ment in French art and literature that flourished between the world wars. Becau in 1 • ubie Blake. I can talk about Eubie because I've just made a two-
surrealism emphasized dreams and the unconscious as sources of artistic inspiraLion r c rd album of [his] works, some of which he wrote as early as 1895. He's
and insight, the parallel minimized the conscious, learned, and collective aspects of
jazz. See, for example, Horace M. Kallen, "Swing as Surrealist Music," Att and Free-
till .in :1clive composer. He's probably the best stride piano player alive to-
1}, • nd I was astounded to find that one of the things he recorded was a
dom 2 (1942), pp. 831-34.
h, rl t n Rag" which he had composed in 1896. He also composed many
Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" of 1899. So ragtime is one of the
certainly was one of the most important foundations of jazz and,
CALLED BY LEONARD FEATHER "THE MOST from listening to pop music, rock and roll, and R and B, blues
important of all jazz writers," John Hammond
(1910-1987) was also the extraordinary
record producer who discovered Count Basie,
21 1 ntm enjoying a really sensational renaissance.

Th, is of course also church music, and I am thinking of gospels, which

, •r n'l ::ii ays called such. I guess the jubilees go back on records to 1896
Billie Holiday, George Benson, Aretha , h •n th Fisk Jubilee Singers made a tour in Europe and then came back
Franklin, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.
Hammond's 1977 autobiography explains
An m I r • rd d on those old round cylinders about twenty selections which
n a sensation in London, Paris, and Berlin. But the general public
why a well-off young man dropped out of
Yale to join the jazz world, where he pro-
moted, produced, wrote, worked against
ExP.erience n ., • h ard very much about the jubilee. They knew about spirituals from
th · \\ al r d-down arranged versions of Negro sacred music that was per-
racism, and became arguably the most influ-
ential nonmusician in jazz history. 1 This ad-
in Jazz lorml!d b reat concert artists, including Roland Hayes (an extraordinary
in, r, till live, well in his eighties).
dress, given by Hammond at a conference at
Indiana University in 1969, covers some of History I 1r l I ame interested in jazz in the early 20's. I was born in 1910, so
the first jazz musicians I heard live were from around 1922
the same ground more concisely, giving an inti I 2 . Ir nically, I didn't hear those musicians in New York, because there
insider's view of the record industry in the , J n jazz that an eleven- or twelve-year-old kid could hear there. I was
1920s and '30s, as recording amplified the impact of jazz worldwide. ma trip to London in 1923 with my family and there were two things which
Source: John Hammond, "An Experience in Jazz History," in Dominique-Rene de Lerma, ~,J l1.1ppi.'n ·din a place called Lyon's Corner House. They had an American or-
Black Music in Our Culture: Curricular Ideas on the Subjects, Materials, and Probil!fl \ h '>l .1 , . nd ~ ithin this was a band called The Georgians which may have
(Kent State University Press, 1970), pp. 42-53. 1 ·n th most outstanding small White jazz band that had been assembled
1John Hammond with Irving Townsend, john Hammond On Record (New York: Rid
up 1 , that lime. Jimmy Dorsey was in it, for example. Every afternoon at five
Press, 1977).
u , uld have your ice cream sodas or tea, or whatever they served, and