The record changer (Mar 1945-Feb 1946)

QUESTIONS and ANSWERS 1 ERNEST BORNEMAN All Questions Should Be Addressed To Ernest Borneman National Film Board, Ottawa, Canada I Two correspondents, my friend Charles Wilford Smith, of 33 Elgin Crescent, London W. 11, England, and Mr. R. H. Pflug-Felder, Tr., of the 27th Fighter Group, A. P. O. 374, have written in to complain more or less bitterly about my definitions of iazz, swing, ragtime, boogie and blues in the June RECORD CHANGER. Much of their criticism is quite valid, and since I have no ambition to consider my definitions as anything more than temporary working hypotheses, I think it might be best if we were to print the two letters of complaint in full, with my own annotations added as footnotes. II Mr. Smith writes : "Firstly, your definitions seem to me to err of the side of prolixity. Definitions must be reduced to the simplest possible form — the more statements they include, the more room there is for misunderstanding ... . and the harder it is to keep out expressions of opinion. Yours can mostly be improved by simple condensing. Secondly, phrases like 'perhaps', 'as it were', must be avoided. Thirdly, you use phrases which you find themselves need definition, and thus get involved in a second definition within the first, which rapidly becomes bewildering. If we are to use phrases like 'Blue note', 'significant tone', 'secondary rag', they must be made the subject of separate definitions.1 Take 'Jazz Music' first — which is I think in outline a brilliantly successful definition. But the list of names must come out. • One does not define painting as 'what Cezanne did'. And 1 See footnote 7. for anyone who is acquainted • with the playing of the old New Orleans musicians, no other definition would be necessary anyway. You are writT ing for people who — like yourself — have not heard these musicians.2 The word 'unaccented' must come out of the first sentence. It's not true, except for a certain type of slow blues playing. Listen to Albert Amnions' left hand— never were such accents! And what about Louis' stop choruses, and solos accompanied by off-beat chords only (Weary Blues)?3 Next, from the list of instruments you omit the piano, presumably deliberately ; but if it is thought necessary to list the rhythm section instruments, I think it must be included, as in fact nearly all the bands of which we have knowledge did use pianos. The 'tension between implied and stated note' sentence is an interesting theory to explain the subjective effect of the music ; but it merely complicates our definition, which should confine itself to factual description. And I don't see why you refer rather vaguely to 'timbre and tone color effects' instead of using your phrase 'significant tone'', as in 'Blues'. I don't think this is a happy phrase, by the way. Signifying what? I use the phrase 'Vocalised tone', which indicates (I hope) that the pure instrumental tone is modulated in" a manner corresponding to the hoarse and vibrant Negro singing or speaking voice.4 I'll now give my amended definition, which incorporates a good few other minor alterations : Jazz Music is a type of vocal or instrumental improvisation, over a regular bass with an even time signature, as first played by New Orleans Negroes. It can be played solo or ensemble, and on many types of instruments, but at its most characteristic it is played in a free threepart counterpoint by corner or trumpet, clarinet and trombone over 2 This point is purely academic. Of course, no definition can help the man who has never heard the music to imagine what it sounds like. Definition is precisely what Mr. Smith says it isn't : an ahstraction from the practice of the creative artist. The enumeration of the names of the artists who exemni'fv .the practice is by no means a logical fallacy. 3 The point here is that the accents are not regular, as in marchtime or waltztime, but are "rhythmic patterns" which can only be created on the basis of a non-accented beat. Try to imagine jazz syncopation in waltztime and the point becomes obvious. 4 "Significant tone" is an accepted term in phonetics and musicology. It has been used extensively in the study of various African and Chinese languages where it stands to indicate "a tone which alters the meaning of the word to which it is applied." a percussive bass of drums, piano, guitar or banjo, and brass or string bass. Its form consists of statement of theme or themes, followed by variations which preserve the same metrical and harmonic structure. Its melody, harmony, rhythm and timbre are derived from AfroAmerican rather than from European or white American sources. Its phrasing therefore has a characteristic quality in common with other Afro-American music — blues, spirituals, and Negro work-songs. This quality is given by the use of Blue notes, vocalised tone, and regular fractional displacements of the accents ; these are the three characteristics which jazz shares with the bulk of Afro-American folk music, and with no other music. This is clown to. 169 words from your 297. You'll observe I've even dispensed with your final 'aside from the latter', which when you start to look at it becomes as meaningless as an incantation. We are now involved in a secondary definition of 'Blue note', which I suggest should go as follows: Blue note : a note deliberately played off pitch. Harmonically, usually a slightly flattened third played against an accompanying major chord. These make at least a start towards improvement, I think. I realize now that an omission is to mention that jazz is dance music, which is important. Also, what exactly do you mean by Afro-American? I understand simply 'American Negro' — but why not say so. As it stands, Afro-American needs defining. And it's not very accurate to call the harmony A*fro.American, for there are only slight differences from non-jazz harmony, and these only in the blues.5 Now let's look at Swing Music. The outline of your definition is excellent ; but there is a redundancy in that your point 2 is implicit in point and these two must be combined. The only error is the 'only small room for solo improvization' in point 1. In point of fact, there is often more so\Q improvization in swing than in jazz 5 1 prefer the word "AfroAmerican" to the words "American Negro" because it indicates more of a synthesis than the latter. I call scales and harmonies "Afro-American" if and where they differ from diatonic scales and harmonies, whether major or minor. The blues scale, the spiritual scale and their Latin-American counterparts are included in the definition. The harmonic structure of jazz is therefore considered AfroAmerican to the extent it makes use of these scales and harmonies. V O V E M B E R . 19 4 5 7 THE RECORD CHANGER