Word: jazz
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...early 1920s, before jitterbugs were heard of, U. S. citizens stretched their legs to a suave, complex and relatively deliberate type of jazz. For this jazz Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths tapped out the melodies, lavishly equipped dance bands swelled the refrain. But the highly technical business of writing out the music, making accompaniments and orchestrations was done by men called "arrangers." Though the Irving Berlins and the Vincent Lopezes got the kudos and the bacon, it was their hard-working arrangers who actually butchered...
...Europe. Other eminent Atonalists, all Schöberg disciples: Anton von Webern, who wrote orchestral pieces like the slight whine of a determined mosquito; the late Alban Berg, who wrote the atrabilious opera Wozzeck; Ernest Krenek, who once relapsed so far into cheerfulness as to write an imitation jazz opera called Johnny Spielt...
SUPERFICIAL, erroneous in places and uncritical throughout, "Jazz Journalism" is nevertheless a clever defense of the tabloid press and a direct rebuke to the upper classes which abhor it. Both the demand for such a press and the fact that it is avidly read, by these same upper classes is clearly demonstrated...
Less than three years ago Mr. Bessie was an editor of this paper. He received a Harvard magna cum laude degree, and "Jazz Journalism," which is dedicated to a member of the History department, is illustrative of the shallow scholarship that Harvard too often teaches. Mr. Bessie's research is flawless, but his naivete is stupendous. In the entire work the words "morbidity," "propaganda," "sadism," "malice" and "fabrication" do not once appear. Mr. Bessie seems unaware of persecutions and deliberate hoaxes for editorial or sensational reasons. He gives credit to the ingenuity of none but the most scurvy editors...
...Preludes was the famed "Flatbush." After listening to Cailliet's orchestration, the gloomy Rachmaninoff unbent, expressed himself as "happy" with the results. After the concert he unbent still further, told Philadelphia reporters he disliked swing but greatly admired the jazz of 15 years ago. "Ah," said Pianist Rachmaninoff, "if I could only hear that fine pianist, Eddy Duchin, playing Irving Berlin's Blue Skies, I'd be very happy...