The record changer (Mar 1945-Feb 1946)

By Frederick Ramsey, Jr. Jazz and politics seldom mix, but when they do the resulting combination is highly unstable, as they say of explosives. It's a question of two mighty forces moving in opposite directions. One is the active and creative force of jazz in America today ; the other is the stern force of political reaction. The battle-ground is OWI, propaganda agency for America in wartime. And the stake is several hundred thousand superb jazz recordings on 'film and in wax. During the war, OWI microphones have done active service everywhere that jazz was being played. As a matter of fact, due to Petrillo's ban on commercial recording of popular music, they've been the only microphones not gathering armchair cobwebs. They've been on hand at all the big jazz concerts, the jam sessions, the parties large and small, and in the homes of jazzmen entertaining their friends. The reason for all this OWI activity in jazz recording is and was the enormous demand on the part of foreign audiences and men in the services for good jazz music. Yet the offi cial attitude in regard to all this activity has been contradictory, The first reactionary sputtering came in June, 1942, when very nasty pronouncements on jaz«, art, dancing and music in general were mouthed by Washington tyros. During the course of a debate, one representative remarked that he had heard his own daughter playing Cozv Cow Boogie in his own home; that she seemed to like it, but that he was against it. At the same session, the advisability of sinking public funds into film propaganda was also questioned (the bill for Disney's Treasury film on the income tax had just come in), and the witticism of one representative, "Not one cent for Donald Duck," concluded the day's wranglings on the hill. Within OWI, there was great fear that appropriations would be cut all 4 down the line. So an era of pussyfooting began. The jazz recordings went underground. Not one word about them was ever permitted for release to the general public. Whole projects were planned and executed in a secrecy inspired by fear of reactionary Congressional policy. OWI officials were in the equivocal position of having to use for propaganda purposes those same artists which the hill expended so much wind in denouncing. Otherwise no one would ever have paid any attention to their films or broadcasts. And they certainly would have been holding the ba? if all they had left for "attraction" after the proposed cuts had been made were the tepid word solos being improvised in Washington's musty halls. Now the war is over, and there is talk of liquidating many OWI activities. This raises the question of what will happen to the invaluable jazz performances now reposing in OWI's files. For precedent in this sort of thing, we have the amazingly ignorant performance of these same Washington reactionaries when left to deal at ridiculously low rates. Artists, also got wind of the holocaust and came in droves to purchase their own paintings. Some were damaged beyond restoration. Others were discovered in fair shape. It was not unusual to hear a painter whoop for joy when he found a long-lost favorite in that dingy Canal Street back room. That's the way our representatives in Washington disposed of one project representing thousands of hours of solid work and artistic achievement. And although it may be too early to say, it looks as if the OWI's big record files might go the same way. Probably the most incredible single feature of this whole mess is the two-faced inconsistency of Government policy in regard to jazz. On one hand, this splendid work is a whispering-matter down the long corridors, because "reactionaries" might object. On the other, the music is presented to the world through propaganda facilities with the dissolution of the Federal Art Project. When the axe fell on this activity, the Project had on hand thousands of paintings by some of America's best known artists. It had cost millions of dollars to acquire these paintings. Yet without consulting anyone in the art field, these paintings were indiscriminately ripped from their frames and sold to a junk dealer on Long Island as "scrap canvass." They reposed in a small, crowded warehouse on the island for a while before anyone even knew what had happened. Here, thev were baled together tight, ready for "processing." Then a Manhattan second-hand man got on their trail, and bought in the lot for a price less than half a song. He un-baled the canvasses, spread them out on the rough tables in the backroom of his downtown emporium, and the panic was on. Dealers from all over the country heard about this scandaleous operation, and came to buy up works of art COPYRIGHT 1945, GORDON GULLICKSON as the bright side of American life. In America, they say, jazz is the great music. Not so in Nazi Germany, they continue, where jazz was banned as the product of a "culturally inferioi race." In America, they go on, the Negro and the white may sit down together and make this glorious music. But of course this is unheard-of in Fascist countries. Strange, then, that inside America, it should also be unheard-of. * * * At the risk of investigation by the House Committee on "Un-American" Activities, the following account is published. It is a true story of a government-sponsored jam session, and how it was taken down in film. If jazz fans want this work preserved in the Library of Congress, where it belongs, they'd better start lobbying now. After all, who wants to see jazz stars Jimmie Johnson, Pop Foster, Pee Wee Russell, and Bill Davison poking around in a dusty backroom to recover their favorite licks on GI film? IT'S MURDER, JACKSON! One of the most interesting sessions of the jazz underground was held on THE RECORD CHANGER