The record changer (Jan-Feb 1945)

possible audience, we'll have to play to the morons. This is the current stage of development. A few old-timers still play jazz, but few of them play it out of conviction. Most of them play it because they are too old to learn the new idiom. All of them are poorly paid and the youngsters despise them as corny. There is no one to prove them wrong. The critics and collectors, writing in their small esoteric magazines, have few musicians among their readers. And even if the musicians were to read the more intelligent rationalizations by writers like Blesh and Russell, they would not be able to follow the argument — not because the argument is too complex but simply because the crea tive musician evolves his music on <| entirely different plane — not rationale! and analytically but intuitively and as I craft. The musician and the critic, in ja;s more than in any other form of coi temporary music, talk to each other I cross-purposes. All this is as it should be. It is in tl nature of the social dialectic that lies the root of the great aesthetic antinom The only chance of a revival of jazz lie in a recurrence of a social and enonom: situation which will make improvise counterpoint on folk themes a payin proposition. It is up to us, therefore, nc only to write and argue about jazz bt to work for a social development whic will keep our music alive. QUESTIONS and ANSWERS ERNEST BORNEMAN All Questions Should Be Addressed To Ernest Borneman National Film Board, Ottawa, Canada From EARLE DAVIS University of Wichita Wichita, Kansas I All of us who are interested in developing understanding and appreciation of the real New Orleans tradition in jazz ought to get behind establishing a national radio program which would give the public a chance to hear the best. If the great symphony orchestras can be sold on a yearly basis at fabulous figures, surely somebody ought to see the money value in an American jazz orchestr which would create over the air th masterpieces which have been establish^ through the years. I know there are sev eral programs which have made a sta in this direction, but I am thinking of : program which would pay enough mone; to get the best musicians in the countr; seriously behind such a program — Arm strong, Bechet, Johnson, Spanier, Brunis Mezzrow and the rest. This would do ; lot more than writing in Esquire or an; other popular magazine could ever do even if the criticism were aimed in th right direction. Answer: This is exactly what this coi umn has been advocating all along. M Gleason's article in a recent issue of th RECORD CHANGER raised the ques tion of jazz propaganda through tht, popular magazines — and this is all to th best — but the most important field propaganda will always remain the practical action itself. There is no bettei propaganda for good jazz than to plaj it where as many people as possible car hear it. One after the other of the small specialized jazz journals keeps folding up. The RECORD CHANGER exists only by dint of its trade and exchange advertisements ; it would never live on its sales alone. The popular magazines can only spread the gospel to the extent of their readers' I. Q. An argument on hot jazz, translated to the level of Esquire's standard of intelligence, — emerges inevitably as an argument on swing. In this sense, the whole bitterness generated against the Feathers and Ulanovs is quite unjustified as far as their writing in popular magazines is concerned. When it comes to their work in specialized magazines, the position is of course immediately changed and the re a 10