Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

Here's the Author Behind a Bush — • From that time on my subconscious self was plugging away at this very problem. It got me into more than one minor jam. There was a time in Berkeley, when my fraternity brothers got good and tired of hearing me try to learn to play jazz on the piano. At choir practice in Trinity M. E. Church I noticed with jealous eye the isolated position of the grand piano situated well toward the center of the building. After practice one night I managed to remain in the building alone, and then I went after the problem with zeal. In no time at all, it seemed, there was a simultaneous racket at the front and back doors. Two flashlights converged on me, and I found myself pinched for disturbing the peace at 3 a. m. Later that morning I appeared before the eminent criminologist, August Vollmer, who then held the title of chief of police. His advice was the diplomatic equivalent of "hire a hall." My "rhythmic research" took me to many a queer haunt along the West Oakland water-front. There was Henry Hastings' "Oak Leaf Cafe," a tumbledown shack that from the outside would inspire fear in the heart of the brashest youth. There I first heard the "Tiger Rag" and did those black babies tear into it! They had a wooden washtub fashioned to the low ceiling; a membrane was stretched across the bottom of the tub, and a large rope dangled from a hole in the center of the membrane. • When the time came to imitate the tiger's roar, the trap-drummer took two rosined rags in his hands and proceeded to climb the rope like a monkey. The resultant indescribable noise just about shook the rickety building down on our heads. And then there was the "Creole Cafe," where a now wellknown pianist was leading the orchestra. I have never heard the "Yellow Dog Blues" rendered as they did it, nor even in the South Seas have I seen anyone "put it on" as did the "highbrown" girl who sang it. It seemed a hopeless job to find a simple answer to all THIS complexity. But in the summer of 1923, after teaching in high school and grammar school around San Francisco Bay for a couple of years, I set sail for that isle o' dreams, that opal set in aquamarine, Gauguin's Noa-Noa — Tahiti. I went as a sort of unofficial and non-professional missionary of jazz to the South Sea Islands. Like many a would-be conqueror, I was given a surprise. • Analysis of the jazz rhythm-pattern as carried out in the manner earlier indicated in this article, I had already proved to my own satisfaction would give only three variations on this rhythm. And I had heard many other variations which would not fit into such a simple scheme. When I heard the astonishing results on the percussion instruments produced by native Tahitians, I was still further bewildered. Every district has its own distinctive dances, and every dance has several widely varied movements, with correlative changes in rhythm. There is also always the CONTRAPULSITIVE effect of several rhythms going on at once. On the empty gasoline can which takes the place of our snare drum there is played what sounds like the roll of a machine gun with swift syncopation. At the same time four or five natives are beating out a slower syncopated rhythm on the same number of hollowed blocks of hard wood. And the under-current is furnished either by a bass drum or hollow cocoanut-tree log covered at one end by a membrane of shark-skin. The total effect makes shivers run up and down your spine. Your feet get "hot." During the three months I spent in Tahiti I went twice around the entire island, stopping at every village, and pounding on the village drums. When I finally analyzed what I had found I discovered the single complicating factor which united all the variations I had heard anywhere. The primitive jazzryhthm pattern can be taken through a cycle of eight phases until one reaches the beginning again. I noted seven of the total of eight phases in use by the Tahitians. • Negroes use all of the eight. Putting these eight phases together in all mathematically possible combinations taken four at a time I have, to start with, 1680 two-phase combinations in which there is no repetition within the combination. Starting with these, who is to say what the limits are? I can at least say this: such a study makes accessible to one orchestrator a veritable reservoir of suggestive rhythmic ideas. An Old African Custom, Folks RADIO DOINGS