The record changer (Jan-Dec 1944)

The Record Changer, July 1944 QueJtivhJ and rfttJue/iA . . . (Continued from page37) feet anticipation oi the player pianists rolling bass. Translate this sort ot 4-tothe-bar guitar blues to the piano and add the influence of the ragtime era and the automatic piano: what emerges is pretty close to the first party piano boogie. Any other suggestions on this genesis of boogie will be very welcome. Please write to me if you have any information. IV Messrs. Browdon, Rowland, Cohn, Wilder, Levin and McGrath all write in to complain of my "criticism" of Goodman, Tatum and Hawkins in the May installment. Let me say quite categorically that no criticism of these men's musicianship was ever intended. If I say that Toscanini isn't a great jazzband leader or that Szigeti plays a poor jazz fiddle, no admirer of Toscanini or Szigeti would bother to contradict me. Yet when I say that Bix, Goodman, Tatum, Wilson are, or were, poor jazz musicians, a whole galaxy of authorities rise to challenge my judgment. Let me repeat then that these men are fine musicians, that they have great instrumental skill, that they are masters of their own chosen brand of music, but that this brand of music has little or nothing to do with jazz. Put them in a seven-piece band with proper jazz musicians like, say, Armstrong, Bechet, Brunis, J. P. Johnson, Johnnie St. Cyr, Pop Foster and Zuty or Wettling, let them play the blues with out having a score or an arrangement to play from, and you will see what utter misfits they are: Goodman, Tatum and Wilson couldn't even be heard. Their florid line and their delicate touch would be lost. Passing notes would wreck their precious melodic line. No unity of collective improvisation could possibly be reached. Bix's case is, of course, different from these men; he had the vigor and the spirit of collective improvisation, but his straight brass-band phrasing and his timing on the beat always prevented him from producing those inflections, quartertones and portamenti which are the basis of all Negro folk music and thus the defining mark of all proper jazz. V Mr. Richard Hornibrook Kendrigan sent in a very funny parody on the ANTHROPOLOGIST serial. If we can find time and space, we shall try to publish it in its entirety as soon as possible. Meanwhile let me ask a question: Is the anthropological vocabulary really too dull, pedantic and stilted to serve its purpose? It's inevitable that the scientific vocabulary should strike the lay reader as funny. Every single-minded aspersion always strikes us as comic if we don't share it. At the same time, there has been so much slick, smart tabloid writing in such contemporaries of ours as DOWNBEAT and METRONOME that we felt it was about time for us to follow a policy of dry analysis and strict musical research, even at the risk of becoming dull, tiresome and pedantic. There is no way of combining the two manners of writing. It's up to you, our readers, to let us know what you expect of us. Please write in to give us your opinion. FOR SALE VICTOR ALBUM C-28 $3.68 Symposium of Swing (Plus 50c for packing mail orders — Express extra) Includes "Sing, Sing, Sing" by Benny Goodman; "Can't Get Started" by Bunny Berigan; "Honeysuckle Rose" by Fats Waller and "Beale Street Blues" by Tommy Dorsey. 4-12" Records. J. O'BYRNE DE Win 51 WARREN STREET, ROXBURY, 19, MASS. 41