dropped by Mercury records that same year, Broonzy found a new audience

in Europe. According to Bruce Eder, Broonzy led the way to Europe for a generation
of elder statesmen of the blues, and his performances were so wellreceived
that for fi fteen years after he fi rst went over, American bluesmen
like Memphis Slim (a.k.a. Peter Chatman, Jr.), Broonzys friend and accompanist
since the late 1930s, were able to follow his path across the Atlantic,
to bigger, more enthusiastic audiences and better paying engagements than
theyd ever known in their native United States.7
Big Bill Blues, one of the fi rst autobiographies of a blues man, was originally
published not on his home soil but in London
By the early sixties Europe heard scores of blues greats through the
auspices of the American Folk Blues Festivals 253 1962-1972
Bechets microtonal
playing, alternative (false) fi ngering techniques, and distinctive tonality are
still being emulated today. Yet Bechets fi rst records were not made in America
but with Benny Peytons Jazz Kings in London for English Columbia, probably in
1921 and never issued
The point is that jazz
became not just American, but an international music shaped and formed
beyond the shores of the United States. Jazz is part of the transatlantic culture
in which African Americans have played a major role. 254
When I left
America, I was thought of as the lowest man on the totem poll because I was
a jazz musician. In the status structure of America I was considered to be the
lowest one because I was a jazz musician, while in Europe when I got there,
it was just the opposite. I was considered to be the top, the best one they
could fi nd. It was such a revelation. I decided why should I settle for that
when I can have something like this.19 (Waldron in Bakriges 256)
---

http://richardmalinhst.blogspot.ro/2011_07_01_archive.html
at first way of releasing the tension brought on by global upheaval, then fear of
European cultural institutions being overrun by a foreign element, or a racialized
other.; against background of racist theories; moral corruption
J.R. Toimie, answered the question by stating that though it is a suitable art form, it
is not for white society. Toimie pointed to the lower quality of life and lesser
emotions of the type of people who would deem it worthy music to listen to. Suitable
for those at the negros level, Toimie states that jazz awakens primitive emotions
which we have mostly outgrown, and which is injudicious to revive.
Even those responding in favor of broadcasting jazz did so with degrading responses.
The Washington Post article displays supportive quotes declaring jazz as
invigorating, a pleasant change after the heavier programmes. These examples

appear to be trying to lend their support to the broadcasts, but they feed directly into
the degrading characterizations of jazz as being a lesser form (less heavy) that feeds
into unpredictable (invigorating) behavior. This is an aspect of much of the earliest
works of jazz criticism, or review.
scientific approaches: This sort of unpredictability stirred by jazz was an
established theme of contemporary detractors. The Los Angeles Times ran a story
about a zoo experiment that tested the effects of music on different animals. Tigers
were riled by jazz, while a waltz put them at ease. Savage beasts were soothed. 1[14]
Another attempt at a scientific explanation, J.B. Eggen wrote in 1926 for the
Psychological Review that the reaction of jazz audiences is much different than the
reaction caused by classical music performances. Jazz audiences are stirred into
overt reaction, consisting of rhythmical body movements, whereas a classical
performance does not cause any outwardly apparent reaction.2[15]
To return to the notion that jazz is formed by a lesser culture, Edwin J.
Stringham, writing in The Musical Quarterly provides a similarly backhanded
compliment to jazz music to the ones in response to the Manchester Guardian
question (though this was not, it would seem, a purposeful insult, but a sign of the
times). Though he states that nothing is so absurd as to state that jazz is immoral, 3
[16]

he goes on to clearly define jazz as an inferior counterpart to European classical

music. By stating that jazz music used dominant secondary seventh chords with as
much effectiveness as serious works,4[17] Stringham slips in the implication that jazz
is not a mode for so-called serious works.
Robert Goffin, credited as being the first of the three pioneers of jazz studies
that also included Hugues Panassie and Charles Delaunay,5[18] wrote that jazz required
the intelligence centers to give up their control over the brain. 6[19] Stating that the jazz
musician must not let the superior brain centers to be the driving force, he declares
that the best jazz comes from a trance-like state where the musician neutralizes
reason.

1
2
3
4
5
6

In his article on Jazz and the Primitivist Myth, Ted Gioia writes that this fed
into the notion that jazz is an inherently lower art form of a primitive culture an
atavistic endeavor feeding off of anti-intellectualism of artists who dont understand
music, but spewed notes out from a trance. Hugues Panassie, the most prominent
member of the founding fathers of jazz studies, though he regarded Louis
Armstrong as the Real King of Jazz as opposed to Paul Whiteman, the accepted
king of jazz, wrote that the reason for Armstrongs success as a practitioner of
enlightened ignorance was that he was a full-blooded Negro. This notion of
primitive man creating beautiful jazz music was based on the notion that he was not
burdened by an excess of culture. This, Pannasie stated, atrophies inspiration and
leaves the music without its requisite vitality.7[20] Here we see that even in the efforts
of those trying to spread the word of jazz, the promoters hold deep-seated prejudices
that assume a limited capacity for intellect and sophistication.
In the July 1925 issue of Music & Letters, Cecil Austin writes of jazz coming
out of ragtime, which traces its own roots back to ragging on Christian spirituals.8[21]
In other words, taking European traditions and treating them with derision.

https://books.google.ro/books?
id=HbBbn3x7PZsC&pg=PA504&dq=jazz+in+britain&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2qAvVYryP
KGvygO34IG4AQ&ved=0CF0Q6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=jazz%20in
%20britain&f=false: Revival of jazz in US-> impact in Britain authenticity Britain
And The Americas: Culture, Politics, And History: A ...
7
8

jazz in Britain: against convention, where in mainstream: polished 503

Jack Payne declared he hated jazz and wanted and wanted to put instead

happiness on BBC vs US where big bang swing was mainstream for a while

The Radical Twenties: Writing, Politics, and Culture

By
John
Lucas:
https://books.google.ro/books?
id=wrFAxZH7tnYC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=welsh+invoke+curfews+law+as+o
ne+way+to+stop+the+jazz&source=bl&ots=5a_lqvyfFJ&sig=IPMTRkprkx8GOP7vK
ACQkWseSnk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=p3orVbCcD8mnsgH064PQBw&redir_esc=y#v=on
epage&q=welsh%20invoke%20curfews%20law%20as%20one%20way%20to
%20stop%20the%20jazz&f=false
- the phrase nigger music (or its equivalents) appears often in publications of
that time, associated with primitiveness, barbaric music: music for sexual
dance
- George Thompson: people were seduced by this genre forgetting that the pure
music
- according to Adorno, jazz was a form of repressive tolerance (Lucas 128)
- Kathy Ogren notes Adornos interpretation of it: because it created the
illusion rather than the reality of creation (128)
- Causes of rejection: Political, social
Ogren: Jazz a way of releasing buried emotions or instincts, thus liberating an
inner, perhaps more creative, person (129)