Click Here for Audio Sample
"My idea of a band is one that can play all types of music, not just one certain style. I try to adapt myself to whatever the dancers demand. In California, for example, it's the rhumbas. I find that a band is better off if it adapts it's style to public demand. In order to keep up with the new popular tunes ... Many of us have made the mistake of playing for musicians alone, and in trying to please them we have lost our box-office attraction. To be successful you must be commercial." (Earl Hines, August 1938)
One of these days, say those close to the situation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will investigate the claim that marijuana weed is promiscuously used and smoked by players of swing music. The idea that weed, which is supposed to have first taken hold of the low-down musicians playing in Harlem dives, is now spreading to the bigger bands where instrumentalists now use it to emit the wild abandoned rhythms which comprise swing music, is said to be arousing intense interest at J. Edgar Hoover's headquarters. (August 1938)
Hollywood - Maxine Sullivan was all set to do one of the William Shakespeare songs from "Twelth Night" for Paramount's "St. Louis Blues," but the Hays Office rejected the song because it had the word "mistress" in it. (October 1938)N.Y. Women Want To Toot For Dough! (June 1938)
"There are several psychological reasons underlying the apparent futility of women in dance orchestras, especially applicable to wind instruments. In the first place, women as a whole are emotionally unstable, which prevents their being consistent performers on musical instruments." (Unsigned opinion piece, February 1938)
........ "... women are never hired because of their ability as musicians, but as an attraction for the very reason that they are women, and men like to look at attractive women. Consequently, the manager is continually reminding the girls not to take the music so seriously, but to relax, to smile. How can you smile with a horn in your mouth? How can you relax when a girdle is throttling you and the left brassiere strap holds your arm in a vise? If we quaver a little on the high notes, it's because we are asked to do a Houdini ... On the other hand, men's orchestras are ususlly hired because of their ability as musicians. Their good looks, their presentability other than neatness, will rarely enter the question." (Peggy Gilbert, April 1938)Ellington Refutes Cry That Swing Started Sex Crimes! (December 1937)
In refutation of the hue and cry against swing music by Arthur Cremin, of the New York Schools for Music, in which the instructor attributed the recent wave of sex crimes to the current "hot" jazz vogue, Duke Ellington, prominent composer-pianist-bandsman, denounced Cremin's psychological experiments as being totally unfair and completely lacking in authoritative material.
Cremin, in his recent attact, said he would prove through tests he conducted that swing music produced debased emotions in human beings. He is reported to have placed a young man and woman in a room alone, first playing a series of symphonic recordings followed by a set of swing recordings. According to the teacher, the young couple remained formal throughout the first renditions, but as the music turned to jazz, they became familiar and more personal towards one another.
"If this experiment is earnestly offered as proof for the ill effects derived from swing music," said Duke Ellington, in discussing the matter before the Musician's Circle of New York, "then the facts must be totally discounted as not being a true psychology test, for there was no `proper constant' - a prerequisite of an accurate experiment of this nature."
Ellington, who studied psychology during his collegiate courses at Howard University, further commented ... "Music invigorates emotions to certain degrees, but on the other hand, so do baseball and football games. If music can be proved a neurotic influence, then I'm certain you will find Stravinsky's `Le Sacre Du Printempts' a great deal more exciting, emotionally, than a slow 'ride' arrangement of `Body And Soul' or even a fast rendition of `Tiger Rag.' (Demember 1937)
"There were some colossal jam sessions in New York during mid- April in two of New York's dives, the Wonderbar and "262." Some of the great Kansas City stars from the bands of Andy Kirk and Count Basie vied with each other night after night; it was not unusual to see seven or eight tenor players all attempting to outplay each other, assisted only by a one or two piece rhythm section. Basie and Mary Lou Williams played so well that it would be useless for a mere kiblizer to compare them, but the observation could well be made that Lester Young was invariably that last man on the stage among tenor players." (John Hammond, May 1937)
New York, N.Y. - The much heralded "Battle of Swing" between Chick Webb's and Count Basie's bands took place at the Savoy Ballroom, Sunday night, Jan. 16. The affair drew a record attendance and hundreds were turned away at the box office, with the crowds tying up traffic for several blocks in that vicinity.
Applause for both bands was tremendous and it was difficult to determine which band was the more popular. Nevertheless, the ballot taken showed Chick Webb's band well in the lead over Basie's, and Ella Fitzgerald well out in front over Billie Holiday and James Rushing. A highlight of the evening was reached when Duke Ellington was persuaded to play some piano and sounded so good that the Basie band picked ut up and swung right along with him. (February, 1938)
Predicted Race Riot Fades As Crowd Applauds Goodman Quartet (October 1937)
Benny Goodman is completing an extraordinary engagement at the Paramount Theatre, where he broke all attendance records the opening week ... and reduced enormous crowds of respectable citizens to yelling lunatics ... the hit of the show was the Trio Quartet, where the dazzling musicianship of Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, and Teddy Wilson more than rivalled Benny's clarinet. [What was most pleasing] was that the band and the quartet attempted no comedy jive, (and) indulged in remarkably little exhibitionism ... The greatest commentary about the engagement is that the Paramount's Negro patronage rose from three per cent of the total to more than fifteen ... Goodman's appeal to Harlemites is due not only to his music but to the fact that he is the first band leader to break down the color line in music." (April 1937)
"Billie Holiday is still singing with Artie Shaw, but it is a damn shame she has to waste her talents with a band of that calibre ... Artie has a swell outfit, but they don't show Billie off any. Naturally they play white man's jazz and that's no backing for Billie's singing which, even during its more commercial moments, has a definite `race' flavor. When she had Count Basie behind her, the girl was right. Now she's as incongruous as a diamond set in a rosette of old canteloupe rinds and coffee grounds." (Ted Locke, August 1938)
Condemned by the critics of the "God damn" school for taking the "guts" out of swing, and condemned by the literati for refining it, Paul Whiteman, former "King of Jazz", [sic] says swing will one day form an important part in American symphony music and that the future American musical organization will be a 40-piece brass and woodwind choir!
"America is dynamic and the virility of the brasses expresses her spirit," declared Paul. "But the great `melting pot' of her emotions needs contrast and a richer tone color.
"There may be a place, too, for the electronic instruments. America has made great progress and the brilliant new instruments may widen the tonal possibilities of musical execution to heights hitherto unknown.
"The Therman, the Hammond Organ, the electrically amplified string instruments, have not yet been intelligently used or properly blended with the instruments we already employ. It's all an experiment, of course, but I do know America has its own message, and I think a new organ of musical expression, typically American, will evolve from this `melting pot of instruments.'" (December, 1937)
"What is important is the fact that jazz has something to say. It speaks in many manners, talking always in original and authentic form. Still in the throes of development and formation, it has fought its way upwards through the effortful struggles of sincere and irate musicians, has fought to escape mal-judgment at the hands of its own `causified critics,' those fanatical fans who have woven about it interminable toils.
It has striven in a world of other values to get across its own message, and in so doing, is striving toward legitimate acceptance in proportion to its own merits."
"... our (band's) aim has always been the development of an authentic Negro music, of which swing is only one element. We are not interested primarily in the playing of jazz or swing music, but in producing musically a genuine contribution from our race. Our music is always intended to be definitely and purely racial. We try to complete a cycle ... We write the music for the men in our band, it is inspired by those men, and they play it with the realization and understanding that it is their own music." (Duke Ellington, February, 1939)
"I must say that my opinion of swing has undergone a slight change for the better during the past year. My former criticism that swing was too barbaric must now be amended slightly. During the past year, many of the objectionable features, such as loud drums and deafening brass, have been soft-pedalled ... Naturally, when a schooled musician with interesting ideas sits down and orchestrates swing, as is now the case the result is far more worth-while than when a hot man improvises on the spur of the not-always-inspired moment." (Guy Lombardo, October, 1938)
Anita O'Day, 19-year-old rhythm singer ... will be one of the singers featured at Carl Cons' new "Off-Beat" Club in Chicago. Anita is the girl whose voice fooled Teddy Wilson. When Teddy heard a record she made, he was sure it was Billie Holliday.
At the time, Anita had never heard a Holiday (sic) record. So she went to Chicago's Lyon & Healy music store to find out what she sounded like. Miss O'Day is a real favorite of musicians. "All I know is there are four beats to a bar and a milliion ways to phrase a tune." (January, 1939)
"It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of jazz, and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902, many years before the (Original) Dixieland Band organized ... I still claim that jazz hasn't gotten to its peak as yet. I may be the only perfect specimen today in jazz that's living. It may be because of my contributions, that gives me the authority to know what is correct and incorrect. I guess I am 100 years ahead of my time. Jazz is a style, not a type of composition. Jazz may be transformed to any type of tune ... If a contest is necessary, I am ready." (Jelly Roll Morton. August, 1938)
"Jelly Roll Morton says I cannot play 'jazz.' I am 65 years old and I would not play it if I could, but I did have the good sense to write down the laws of jazz, and the music that lends itself to jazz, and had enough vision to copyright and publish all the music I wrote so I don't have to go around saying I made up this piece and I made up that piece in such and such a year like Jelly Roll and then say somebody swiped it. Nobody has swiped anything from me ... If I didn't know him, I would think that he is crazy ... (W.C. Handy, September, 1938)
Top of Page
Return to: Jazz: You Like It
Click Here for Audio Sample
