The record changer (Mar-Dec 1947)

I NEVER WAS A JAZZ EXPERT! !Y WILLIAM GENES .s Told to AH Helfensteller a This is the story of a guy named William enes who just found out that he never as a jazz expert, because there never was !rUiy such thing as jazz in the first place. Of A Durse, a lot of people had the idea that jazz it; -as a way of playing music so that it had a if-sat, and you could dance to it, but this was sftist something that some of the experts 'ere saying, and a lot of people would read le stuff and be convinced. Of course there L.^ever was any such thing as jazz, so there ouldn't be any true experts, only false rophets. Of course, I'm not claiming to be any marter than anybody else, except that I've lways found that it pays to be a little ahead f the times. Back in 1937 when the whole tiing was just a little bit new, I became a azz specialist (not expert), and stayed up lany-a-night memorizing matrix numbers nd figurin' out personnels. Of course in |hose days not many people had caught on 10 jazz, so it was all right to carry the torch. But I never was a jazz critic, and I can rove it. This isn't just an opinion, it's a act, and I can prove it by what I say. I lever was any such thing as jazz, so there vas any jazz. In the last six months I've been hearing ome music in the Pink Room like nobody lse ever heard before. It's a new kind of nusic. I don't think I'll tell you the name SEPTEMBER, 1947 of the band, and I don't think I should have said where they were playing — but maybe that will be OK, because I kept it such a good secret all the time they were there. I'm not telling you these things because you wouldn't like the music if you heard it. And even if you did hear it and like it, it wouldn't be right, because you wouldn't be liking it for the right reasons, and I can prove it. None of the jazz experts would hear it right either, because it isn't jazz, only they wouldn't know that. They'd go right on calling it jazz, even though it's a new kind of music that the American public haven't (sic) heard yet. Of course, if and when the American people do hear this new music, they are going to be happy. The people everywhere will be happy. Just, like Cole Bilborn says, this new kind of music that only he and I can hear because we listen right, will make everybody in the world happy. Then when they all get happy, everybody will be playing this kind of music, and nobody will be unhappy any more. Cole Bilborn even says there won't be any more wars when people hear this new music, because the new music will make everybody so happy. Of course I don't say this, because I'm just talking about the music, and I can prove it. But Cole says this, and he should know, because he is the only person besides myself who can hear this happy new music, and he can prove it. The other experts, and the great American public may listen to it, but they listen to it wrong, so they never hear it, and this is a fact, it is important, and it can be proved, and I can prove it by what I am saying, and you can't tell me how wrong I am until you have heard it too. But you haven't heard it, and you can't hear it, because you don't listen right. Only Cole Bilborn and I listen right, and we aren't jazz experts, and we never were jazz experts, because there never was any jazz, because nobody ever listened to jazz right. "Gad! Just as I suspected! Columbia has been laminating Sinatra over old Hot Fives!!" 11