Word: jazz
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Claude Hopkins didn't want to talk about swing music. "I don't like swing much," he explained. "Anyway, I'd rather play classical than jazz...
That is the key to Claude's tastes in music. He is more interested in the classical composers than he is in writers of jazz. When he plays for recreation, he prefers Bach to Ellington...
Only after completing a scholarly dissertation on classical music did Claude consent to jazz. "I prefer a smooth, neatly arranged style," he said. Hot tunes are good to break the monotony, and they make a sweet tune sound bettre but a steady diet of swing is boring...
...Chattanooga, Tenn. At 12, as a protegee of "Ma" Rainey, pioneer blues singer, she was moaning in tent shows like the Rabbit-Foot Minstrels. With a big, vibrant voice which survived even her last hard-drinking days, she sang blues songs long before the War brought the blues (and jazz) north, lived to see strict blues singing yield popularity to the sophisticated torch singing typified by the art of Ethel Waters. But Bessie Smith left her mark on jazz. Hot instrumentalists like Benny Goodman and the late "Bix" Beiderbecke, listening to her in Chicago night clubs, never forgot the mood...
...permanent monument to swing" is RCA Victor's phrase for its latest jazz album, A Symposium of Swing. Its four twelve-inch discs contain selections by four swing bands: Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, "Fats" Waller, Bunny Berigan. Familiar to fans who have listened to the four in their native haunts, on the air or on records, the selections are characteristic but, to experts, not the top choices. Best disc: Benny Goodman's Sing, Sing, Sing, a free fantasia in swing, based on the tune Christopher Columbus, with Drummer Gene Krupa battering out an expert tympanic melody...