Word: jazzing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Jazz, blowsiest of the arts, has been disgracefully lax about keeping her barrelhouse in order. The master recordings of hundreds of notable numbers, played by inspired but informal groups of musicians in obscure studios, have been lost or destroyed. Copies of records made in Swing's golden age, the 19203, by bands like the Wolverines, Friars Society Orchestra and New Orleans Rhythm Kings, are therefore as rare as Gutenbergs and, to lovers of America's native music, as valuable...
Last winter Victor repressed a series of early jazz masterpieces, sold them as the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Album. The late great Trumpet Player Leon Bismarck ("Bix") Beiderbecke's effortless glissando, accompanied by various old bands, was to be heard sprinkling graceful, spontaneous melody through all twelve sides of the set. Two non-commercial enterprises, the Hot Club of France and the New York Hot Club, have repressed a few scarce swing classics for their members. But the commercial record companies are chiefly interested in making and selling new records, and the hot clubs are composed of amateurs uninterested...
Space in TIME occasionally given over to Jazz is all right, but not always well informed. For instance in the current issue there is quite a piece about a piano player named Raymond Scott, who has recorded, among others. Powerhouse, Toy Trumpet, Reckless Night Aboard an Ocean Liner. Also about another musician who will make Merry Widow on a Spree, Dizzy Debutante, Lullaby to a Lamp Post, Ode to an Old Coat Sleeve...
...Astaire and Miss Rogers bring their devotees something new to talk about by way of a roller skating act. The story, of course, is unimportant, and this time concerns the rumored marriage of a psuedo-Russian ballet dancer (Astaire) and an American jazz singer (Rogers). An ocean crossing provides the setting for an original act in the engine room, where a colored swing band assembles to "slap the bass" in time with the engines and Astaire's feet...
...throwing booklets and propaganda which, by the way, I found to be about Atlantic City, Yosemite Park and Coney Island! No doubt given to them by the good-hearted Rotarians and Elks who are holding a whoopee convention at Cannes. What would Europe do without the American dollar, jazz, movies and the Elks...