Modern Madness and Tribal Truth
How jazz invaded The Netherlands: 1926-1939
Max van Deurzen 5966051 Masterthesis MA – American Studies Mr. George Blaustein 30/06/2014
Table of Contents
Introduction ... 4
1. Paul Whiteman’s touch down ... 11
2. De Jazzwereld’s fight for jazz and America ... 21
3. Duke Ellington’s true music ... 32
4. Kid Dynamite’s unconscious dream of Harlem ... 44
Conclusion ... 51
Bibliography ... 56
Archives ... 57
Introduction
‘What is this jazz thing?’ This might well be the most used quote in the entirety of jazz studies. The famous answer by trumpet player and jazz legend Louis Armstrong, even more so: ‘Well, ma’am, if you have to ask you never know.’ Therefore, to follow Satchmo’s witty answer, the central theme won’t be exactly this question of what this jazz thing was. Maybe, though, it is better to ask what this jazz thing was to the Dutch in the interbellum period of the 1930s. And more precise the question that will be central to this thesis is what jazz meant to the Dutch in an American context. What role played jazz as a music genre and a cultural phenomenon in the spread of American culture in The Netherlands during the 1930s?
This thesis will make the argument that jazz, as one of the first American cultural exports, played a huge role in starting what could later be called the Americanization of Europe. Although most associate this phenomenon with American cultural policies after World War II, during America’s Cold War struggle against communism, this thesis will argue that Americanization as a cultural phenomenon has firm and established roots in the period between World War I and World War II, known as the interbellum. Americanization at this time wasn’t set in clear rules or descriptions, most of the time it was creeping in the background. This thesis, in so much, stands in line with the argument the historian Frank Costigliola makes in his work Awkward Dominion. Dealing with interbellum spread of American culture Costigliola concludes that Americanization before World War II was existent though fundamentally different mostly because of the lack of structure. It wasn’t organized yet as much as it would later be after Hitler was defeated and America had to turn to cultural weapons to defeat the communist threat.1
The Netherlands as a country and a distinct European culture will serve as the central example in this. Mostly because jazz in The Netherlands during this time shows characteristics that are similar to the way jazz and American culture were adopted before World War II in other European countries. At the same time there were certain specific social processes in The Netherlands, that also make the development of jazz as a cultural phenomen in the country stand out. In doing so this thesis encompasses three aspects that are closely tied with each other. Firstly it reveals the structure of interbellum Dutch society, secondly it shows how the invasion of jazz changed this society and lastly it examines the development of Americanization in Europe during this time period that happened because of it. Individually
1
Frank Costigliola, Awkward Dominion: American political, economic, and cultural relations with Europe, 1919‐
on each of these three subjects a lot has been written, there have been little academic studies however that tried to combine the three of them.
The primary sources used to illustrate this academic narrative are mostly Dutch of origin. In this thesis the collection of the Dutch jazzmagazine De Jazzwereld, as can be found in the Dutch Jazzarchives (Nederlands Jazzarchief), will be much used as well as other standard Dutch newspapers reporting about jazz related events. These newspapers can mostly be found either on paper in the newspaper archive of Koninklijke Bibliotheek and also in the online newspaper database Delpher. Furthermore as primary sources this thesis will use several autobiographies of important figures involved in the narrative of this thesis, as well as other documentation (such as drawings, photos, reports of commissions, personal memoires etc.) found in such archives as Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Nederlandse Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD) and Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG).
In terms of secondary literature on jazz in Dutch society two historians stand out. Cees Wouters wrote the book Ongewenschte Muziek, which although focusing more on jazz during the period of World War II in The Netherlands, offers a standardized version of interbellum Dutch jazz history as well. His observations about how jazz spread in The Netherlands will be used in chapter 1, when we look at how jazz became popular in the country.2 Another Dutch historian and music teacher that provides a sociological and historical background for the beginnings of jazz in Holland is Walter van de Leur. His academic efforts will be used mainly in the chapter about De Jazzwereld, the Dutch jazz magazine, where he observes how these writers saw jazz and how their opinions on that music changed throughout the 1930s.3
In terms of a theoretical framework of American culture being spread through jazz, this thesis turns to various academic works that talk about the spread of American culture in a broader sense. This thesis will follow the argument that Americanization wasn’t a one-way thing. Although the phenomenon in cultural narratives is often simplified to the image of Americans coming in and forcing their modernistic culture upon the old European countries, it has been rightfully noted how Americanization was much more a cultural exchange than a cultural enforcement. Many historians in the past have already made this argument before, most famously so the Italian historian Victoria De Grazia, in her book Irresistible Empire. She shows in this book not only how the American standard of living defeated the European way of life, she also describes how the New and the Old World formed a predominantly
2 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek: De bestrijding van jazz en moderne amusementsmuziek in Duitsland en Nederland 1920‐1943 (The Hague 1999), 13‐18. 3 Walter van de Leur, ‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanisme’: De Jazzwereld 1931‐1940.’ In: Rokus de Groot ea. e.d., Liber Plurium Vocum (Amsterdam 2012), 128.
cultural and commercial alliance, based on American consumer-oriented capitalism, 4 In the context of Americanization the Dutch historian Rob Kroes also deserves a mention, who described this phenomenon of cultural exchange as modular in his work If You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen the Mall. Through various essays he observes in this book Americanization from the receiving European end, reaching the conclusion that American and European culture throughout the ages have influenced each other in almost equal amounts. This thesis will strive to do much the same, also describing mostly the receiving end of the invasion of American culture in Europe, only from an interbellum point of view with jazz in Holland as the central example of this invasion.5
Already at this time there was an exchange going on between European listener and American performer. This beside from the fact that jazz has and will always be a genre that is influenced by numerous cultural influences, spread globally. In this regard it is interesting to see how despite the fact that it can be heavily questioned whether jazz is a purely American phenomenon, it is still seen already in the 1930s in countries across Europe and indeed the world as a symbol of American culture and even the American way of life. Many jazz historians have noted this in the past. They go against the general assumption by the grand public that jazz is purely American. Classic jazz studies as for example E.J. Hobsbawm’s The Jazz Scene (published under the synonym Francis Newton) note this, and this thesis will definitely stay in this strive. This thesis will show how this idea of jazz being an American thing was already an accepted idea from the first time the grand public got into touch with the genre and also that there were those jazz critics that tried to show how this assumption wasn’t correct.6
This is reflected in all kinds of academic works, in the wide and populous field of studies on Americanization in Europe. A small part of those works focus on the role of jazz, an even smaller part focuses on the role of jazz before World War II. The amount of academics works that review jazz and Americanization in this regard is limited to a small number of works. Laurent Cugny, in the co-authored work on Americanization and jazz in Europe Eurojazzland, writes about the introduction of jazz in Europe before World War II. In this particular chapter, called ‘Did Europe ‘Discover’ Jazz?’ he reflects on this idea of cultural interaction within the framework of cultural Americanization. In this Cugny gives a broad overview of how African-American music invaded Europe from a very early point (he singles
4 Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through twentieth‐century Europe (Cambridge, MA 2005), 498. 5 Rob Kroes, If You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen the Mall: Europeans and American mass culture (Urbana, IL 1996). 6 Eric Hobsbawm (Francis Newton), The Jazz Scene (New York 1993),48.
it about halfway through the nineteenth century). He notes differences in the way jazz was introduced and established in the United States and then in European countries.7
He does so in order to tackle the largely and widely accepted idea that these differences are based on a different racial perception. The accepted idea, as Cugny notes, is that Europeans are less racist because they don’t have the slave history that the United States has. Thus they were able to approach the phenomenon of jazz itself differently than Americans did, and in doing so made jazz in Europe a different stand-alone cultural phenomenon detached of any American influence.8 This also stands in line, if you draw it to a broader framework, with the idea that Americanization like jazz wasn’t a one-way thing.
Cugny in this chapter makes the argument that this widely spread and accepted notion of jazz in Europe is fundamentally wrong and too overtly simple. He notes that from the moment black American music was introduced in Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century, the racial ideas surrounding it also got transported. They were formed according to the country’s specific colonial tradition, and thus applied to musicians of the colonies as well. In the case of The Netherlands this is also clear, chapter four of this thesis for example will deal with this issue when the influence of Surinam saxophone player Kid Dynamite on the Dutch 1930s jazz scene is reviewed. Cugny proceeds to look at the way various (white) European intellectuals during this early age of American music being exported to the European continent viewed jazz in a racial sense. Constantly here he asks the question: how did they see the negro-artist and how did they compare him to white (jazz) musicians at the time? The racial aspect of this question will also be a major theme in this thesis.9
After going through several examples of interbellum European jazz writers, he finally comes to the conclusion that jazz critics in this time (as well as after World War II) could be divided into two groups. For one group, he writes, ‘the dilemma was not to choose between on the one hand [white American musicians] like Gershwin and Whiteman and on the other hand [black American musicians] like Armstrong and Ellington. What constitutes jazz for them was only that which was understood through written musical scores. These authors of course partly missed the point, whatever contours one would define for it.’ The other group, he argues: ‘made a contribution that consisted of a more balanced knowledge of the background of the music of the day, even if their knowledge of its historical dimension was
7 Luca Cerchiari e.a. e.d., Eurojazzland: jazz and European sources, dynamics, and contexts (Boston 2012), 301 8 Cerchiari, Eurojazzland, 301 9 Idem, 305.
more than questionable. It becomes obvious that they were not the only, nor the first, ones to do so.’ The Europeans didn’t merely discover jazz and made it their own, he concludes on basis of this, they just took a piece of it and passed it on.10
The racial background of jazz is a complex matter, but the way it is represented here in this piece by Gugny is a very clear view of how the racial ideas of European jazzwriters at this time but also later can be categorized. It sort of shows the paradox that will also come to the fore a lot in this thesis; the paradox that these white intellectual jazz lovers all admired and at the same time looked down upon the blackness of American jazz. Jazz to them was modern and primitive at the same time. It was modern madness and tribal truth. This thesis will hold this theoretical paradox posed by Gugny against the light of introduction and establishment of jazz in The Netherlands during the 1930s. As will become clear the jazz critics and jazz lovers that will be discussed by example in the coming chapters all can indeed by ranked among either of the two groups that Gugny isolates. The ones that focus on a technical and/or musical explanation of ‘what is jazz?’, and the other ones that focus more on the cultural side of that question. No matter what approach they take, it will become clear that members of both groups have their own set of ideas on what America is. In any case, as Gugny makes the case, what Europeans made of jazz and its role within American society is from the start very much decided by the racial aspect of the music genre. The way one looked at the issue of race ultimately decided what group you were on and how you viewed jazz and in turn America.11
But, as will be seen, there are other pre-conditioned mindsets that pre-determine the way a European jazz critic at this time would look at jazz in the American context. What are these other aspects that generally seem to decide what jazz critics make of the United States? American commercialism definitely is one. Here there is a certain romantic objection being made to jazz, as it was seen as the example of American moral corruptive culture. At the same time America was seen as young and powerful in potential. Here again the paradox of interbellum jazz criticism can be seen; namely the paradox of modern madness and tribal truth. At once jazz is seen as primitive and bohemian, on the other hand it is seen as modernist and as a counterexample of modern culture as it stands at odds with old classical European culture. As jazz historian John Gennari argues in his work Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and its Critics, this is the case from the 1920s onwards. He describes the relation between white (male) jazz fans and black (male) jazz artist on the basis of this idea of the relation between jazz and commercialism. He argues that from a very early age jazz critics realized this
10
Cerchiari, Eurojazzland, 41.
paradox and in America there were some jazz critics that actually went against the idea of jazz being a primitive expression of underdeveloped black culture.12 Commercialism in this sense was also connected to modernism and technological progression.
Further on he also states that the commercial developments within the music industry at the time of the grand popularizing of jazz in the 1920s was fundamental for the ideas of jazz. The development of recording techniques, recording studios, radio programs, the establishment of such things as booking agencies and artist management, all of these played an instrumental role in making jazz popular on a global scale. He shows how this led to widespread diffusion of jazz amongst a white audience, that had the money to buy the records, listen to it on the radio and go to shows. This is probably why, he argues, so many critics from the 1920s onwards associated jazz with American commercialism as well as black African primitivism.13
Jazz was in this time a commercial modern expression of (Afro-)American culture. That’s quite briefly stated how it was seen in the 1930s by new European jazz critics coming into touch with the phenomenon for a first time. This thesis will try to explain what happens when these three broad theoretical terms, commercialism, Americanism, racialism, are applied to the specific case of jazz in interbellum Holland. It will become clear how young Dutch jazz critics and performers sometimes consciously but mostly unconsciously applied these three themes to the way they saw jazz and in turn saw its land of origin. Jazz and its interbellum development as a music genre and a form of popular culture was the deciding factor in how they perceived America, Americans and its complicated culture.
To describe this two events stand out in this narratavie. In these two events American jazz performers played the main role. In 1926 Paul Whiteman established jazz in the eye of a young Dutch audience to much praise but also directly a lot of criticism. Chapter one will be dedicated to dealing with this event and how this shaped the Dutch jazz critics’ idea of what jazz was and in turn what America meant to them because of that. Paul Whiteman’s concert caused much deliberation in Holland, with people being critical and enthusiastic about the genre. Young Dutch jazz lovers embraced the genre and defended it in the eye of the conservatist jazz haters. In De Jazzwereld they formulated an answer to the question of what is jazz to them and what is America to them. This will be reviewed in chapter two.
In chapter three, the second major Dutch jazz event of the interbellum period will be central. In 1933, namely, Duke Ellington made his first appearance in front of an enthusiastic
12
Gennari, Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics (Chicago 2006), 11.
Dutch crowd, also in Scheveningen. He shaped jazz, and paved the way for an intellectual current that is so exemplary for the paradox of jazz as primitive and modern at the same time. He became the prime example of how jazz could and indeed would once be an intellectually challenging and accepted musical genre. How he did this will be the central question in chapter three. In the final chapter, the influence of all these actors on local Dutch jazz performers will be reviewed. This chapter will mostly focus itself on Kid Dynamite, a Surinam jazzsaxophonist, illustrative for what it meant to be a jazz performer in this American framework.
This will then lead to a conclusion to what jazz was for the Dutch during the pre-World War-II period. In doing so this thesis will not only give a description of jazz and interbellum Americanization, it might in the end even go so far as to answer the question what is jazz. Or at least, what is jazz to the Dutch.
1. Paul Whiteman’s touch down
In this chapter the moment that jazz was born in The Netherlands is reviewed. The moment jazz became a thing in The Netherlands has always been the subject of much debate. This is down to the fact that the exact moment of the inception of jazz as a musical form is not entirely clear. It is clear, however, that the Dutch even before World War I were already acquainted with African-American forms of music. As early as 1877, a black American vocal group called The Fisk Jubilee Singers actually performed in The Netherlands. Jazz as a genre in Europe wouldn’t be recognized as such until World War I, when Europeans first start to use the word jazz.14 Afro-American soldiers fighting in Europe during World War I bring jazz to the old continent. The most famous example of this is the legendary James Reese Europe, who is said to have introduced jazz to France when fighting for the 369th Infantry Regiment (better known as the Harlem Hellfighters) in the war. It is generally accepted that from France jazz spread throughout the rest of the continent, and also to the country of The Netherlands.15
Jazz made its official entrée in Holland in 1920. At that moment it was not seen so much as a music form. It was introduced namely as a dance form, a modern alternative to the waltz or the tango. The Dutch jazz historian Kees Wouters in his book ‘Ongewenschte Muziek’ explains why. He argues that because the rhythmic forms of jazz, like for example the characteristic swing beat, was difficult to write down in sheet music, Dutch musicians couldn’t play it as easily. Thus those in Holland interested in jazz music could only hear it, through scarce records that came from overseas, and dance to it. Partly because of this jazz first became known as a new form of modern dance, and not as a form of music. This in turn could be considered as a prime reason why jazz in the beginning wasn’t considered to be of a very high musical, or indeed cultural standard.16 Most of all at the beginning of the 1920s the Dutch audience was confused with jazz. As a dance form they were able to define it in some terms, but musically nobody in Holland really seemed to be able to figure out what it was. Let alone what jazz music meant culturally.17
Jazz was an underground dance movement before Paul Whiteman came to town. Everything changed when he came to Scheveningen. This was the moment when jazz broke to the big audience, but also to the music critics that had largely ignored jazz music before that. In fact some big jazz names at the time, like for example jazz-clarinetist Sidney Bichet, had
14 Walter van de Leur, ‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanisme’: De Jazzwereld 1931‐1940.’ In: Rokus de Groot ea. e.d., Liber Plurium Vocum (Amsterdam 2012), 128. 15 Reid Badger, A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe (New York 2007), 287. 16 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek: De bestrijding van jazz en moderne amusementsmuziek in Duitsland en Nederland 1920‐1943 (The Hague 1999), 13. 17 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek, 324.
already performed that same year in Holland. Even though his concert received a big enthusiastic audience, there is almost no report to be found about this concert anywhere. This changed with Whiteman’s concert at the Kurhaus in Scheveningen. Perhaps, not coincidentally because Whiteman was white, gentle and acceptable to a wide audience.18
From the beginning however jazz brought into the country of Holland a very wide array of opinions on America and American culture. Certainly in these early years but also throughout the rest of the interbellum period, there was a line between jazz criticists and outright jazz lovers. However there were nuances between those critical of jazz. Some criticized jazz heavily for being strange morally corruptive eroticizing commercial American entertainment, with little or no value to European culture. Then there were those that took up a more moderate position. They didn’t take the entertainment music of Paul Whiteman as serious jazz, but they did see potential in the genre. This group critical of Paul Whiteman is very important as they would continue to develop their insight in jazz to a point where they are rightly opposed towards people who take jazz the way Paul Whiteman took it. There were jazz lovers and jazz haters, but also a lot of grey in between.
The Paul Whiteman concert is not only important because it established jazz in the public eye. It was also the moment that all Dutch misconceptions with jazz, and with American culture became apparent. After Whiteman’s performance Dutch media for the first time started asking the question, the famous question: what is this jazz thing? And also how did this jazz thing reflect its own country of origin, the United States? In an interview with the King of Jazz himself, the Dutch liberal newspaper De Telegraaf posed this question to him. ‘What is jazz, mr. Whiteman?’ Well, answered Whiteman: ‘Jazz started with the negroes. We started on basis of their work. Jazz is truly an American form of art. You can no longer say it is a negro form of art, the development of jazz is now totally American.’19 In other words, here is a white jazz performer already claiming the success of jazz music to the entirety of the American nation. Jazz to him was the proud example of the cultural development of America as a nation. Whiteman in this short interview then goes on to typify what jazz means to him and the music that he makes: ‘The larger meaning of jazz is to have a sense of humour. Every player is completely American in the fact that he maintains his own individuality of his instrument and also practices the almost forgotton art of improvisation.’20
18 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek, 19. 19 De Telegraaf, 23/06/1926. 20 Idem.
The writer of this article, Louise Marie George (L.M.G.) Arntzenius is in the light of this chapter an interesting figure. He stands in a line of Dutch music critics that receive jazz as a new phenomenon. He started out as a music critic before jazz was a cultural thing, so he regards it with both skepticism and intrigue. These early twentieth century Dutch music critics are notable for the fact that almost all of them are classically trained musicians, who as time progresses become more and more interested in the modern form of music that is jazz at that moment. With that growing interest they also start to become more and more intrigued with America as its country of origin, to such an extent that some of them move to America for a longer or even permanent time. Arntzenius is exemplary of this.
Before becoming a writer Arntzenius was a musician, who studied classical music at the conservatory of Utrecht. He played violin in the famous Concertgebouworkest, the orchestra of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and also worked as conductor for this orchestra. In other words, Arntzenius was a classically trained musician and writer. In a way he stands in a 1920s tradition of classically trained musicians that become interested in the musical foundations of jazz music. By doing so he was one of the first elite white intellectuals in Holland and maybe even Europe that became interested in the musical side of jazz and not so much the entertainment side of it.21 As he put it himself he was fan of the authentic jazz, not the hot dance music.22 He visited America a year after the concert by Paul Whiteman. In his report he expresses his fear that jazz, with all its potential was just a craze in The Netherlands. He compared it to the New York jazz scene and was weary of its international staying power: ‘In jazz Holland is a passing craze. When Whiteman came lots of the musicloving audience gave up on the music. Whiteman came, Whiteman went and after that it was done with jazz. Not in New York though.’ Whiteman killed jazz with his commercial attitude of entertainment, is what Arntzenius was saying here.23
Arntzenius can be classified as someone with a middle ground opinion on jazz. He neither adores nor dislikes it extremely, he’s mainly intrigued by it. Another such figure that goes through a similar yet different development is the music critic Paul Sanders. He also was a classically trained musician writing about music, encountering the phenomenon of jazz and at first (like Arntzenius) not being too sure of how to deal with it, again approaching it with both skepticism and intrigue. He was, though, from a totally different social background. Arntzenius was a liberal. Sanders was an outright socialist. He was born in 1891. He would
21 Pierre V.R. Key: Pierre Key’s musical who’s who: A biographical survey of contemporary musicians (New York 1931), 498‐9. 22 De Telegraaf, 23/06/1926. 23 De Telegraaf, 24/07/1927.
join this line later on in life as he became a member of the Dutch socialistic party SDAP. Apart from being a music and modern art reviewer for Het Volk he was (again like Arntzenius) also a classically trained musician. He did this from 1919 to 1940.24
Later, in 1935, he helped shape the modern music making business from a commercial perspective by co-founding the BUMA-organization which is responsible for paying artists whose music is aired on the radio (and later television). Though skeptical at first about jazz as an art form, during the 1930s he becomes one of the those Dutch writers who embrace jazz as a new but intellectually valuable form of music. So much so that when the Nazi’s invade The Netherlands in 1940 he joins the resistance to help German jazz artists who fled Germany. They were prosecuted by Hitler because they were believed to make ‘entartete kunst’, art which was deemed as a lower form of art. Sanders went out his way to protect and hide them. During the war he starts writing for the illegal resistance paper Het Parool and after the war he becomes a United States correspondent for that same newspaper. Settling in New York he reports about America until his retirement in 1962. After his retirement he stays in the area, living in the suburbs of New York City. He dies in North Tarrytown in 1986, aged 96 years.25 Looking at his life as a music critic, there is a trend that can be distinguished which as this chapter and indeed this thesis will continue to argue can be seen throughout The Netherlands of the 1930s. He is a music critic, professionally schooled as a classical musician, starting out in 1919 as a writer mostly writing about classical European music. Gradually he discovers jazz throughout his career. He starts to play it himself, and starts to develop an interest for it. He knows little to nothing about the United States. Jazz makes its introduction during the 1920s and he like many other Dutch music critics of its time become intrigued by this new phenomenon. Where he starts out writing about jazz as something exotic and the culture of the United States as a new unstable expression of art, he ends up defending jazz as an art form to a point where he is literally willing to put his life on the line for jazz musicians to survive the terror of the Nazi’s before and during World War II. He is the classically trained music critic, at first not sure what to make of jazz, what to make of the United States connected to that, but then embracing (like so many of his socialistic colleges) and finally defending it. This is the developing trend that runs like a red thread through 1930s Dutch culture, certainly as far as jazz and America are concerned.26
24 Paul Sanders, Autobiography, 76. 25 Idem, 78. 26 Idem, 26.
Knowing his background, sketched above, it is interesting now to look at his review on the Paul Whiteman concert of 1926. Whether this is his first live encounter with jazz music, and jazz artists is not entirely clear. What matters though is that to many of his readers this was probably their first encounter with jazz. Sanders writes an interesting review in which he already seems to make the connection between jazz, the United States as an up and coming world power and its spreading cultural influence on young Dutch youth looking for excitement and entertainment. He basically almost seems to make the argument that Paul Whiteman’s unmatched never seen before popularity in The Netherlands was due to the mere fact that he was American of origin. He describes how the majority of those attending the concert fell for the American bluff, illustrated in the major cartoonlike marketing campaign that had started months before the concert. He is critical of how Whiteman uses music as a form of entertainment (something which he considers ‘American to the extreme’). With almost a form of amazement he describes how one of the members of Whiteman’s Orchestra plays the trumpet and the tuba at the same time, how another one plays the violin like a clown and again a different one tries to play the melody of a song on a pump. ‘All these things’, Sanders writes, ‘combined with the overtly sexual atmosphere of the music can be seen as the expressions of a barbaric culture. That is America. That is the expression of a people, a young culture that doesn’t know how to contain its own vitality.’27
Sanders sees the performance of Whiteman as a symbol of the growing American cultural influence on Holland as a nation. He writes with a certain disdain about the commercial efforts of those around Whiteman to market his performances. He also writes with disdain about the entertainment side of jazz, something which many music critics at the time do. He is wary about the future of jazz, afraid that it is going to end up as worthless entertainment, bereft of any cultural value. At the same time, like Arntzenius earlier, he already seems to feel that there is potential in jazz music even in the way Whiteman and his orchestra represent it. Towards the end of his review he writes:
‘Despite all of this I feel this night has been of immense importance. We got to know the numerous untold possibilities that this orchestra in this composition potentially has. Jazz is all over the place. We hear music without value, music where in a preposterous way old classical Western melodies are reproduced and reformed. The composer of these melodies writes down what randomly comes to his mind. A touch of this melody, a patch of the other, all mixed together in one composition. The orchestra has only a couple of jazz-compositions in its repertoire written by better qualified composers, like for example George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Immediately, the performance of this song was already a lot more interesting. In all of a
sudden these clowns turned out to be really skillful musicians, especially the pianist who played a virtuous solo.’28
Sanders goes on to conclude:
‘Whiteman has taught us what jazz is at this moment. We must hope that the future will be different than what it is threatening to be right now. I am not afraid of myself falling for this entertainment trap, however I am afraid that young people of the future will. In this case jazz threatens to become nothing more than entertainment value.’29
In other words, Sanders here very much sees potential in jazz as an art form. He is only afraid that American commercialism will prevent the genre from fulfilling this genre. In the end he almost seems to give a warning to those young Dutch musicians inspired by jazz, to not fall for the trap of commercialism like Whiteman has. It seems like he senses there is more to jazz than just dance and entertainment, but doesn’t know exactly what yet. Even though he is critical, more critical than other reviewers of this particular concert, he is also a fan of jazz as it seems. A concerned fan, most of all. This is something that more Dutch jazz critics at the time seem to feel. This is probably because for many of them this is the first time that they encounter a jazz artist in person. Before that, jazz was first and foremost a form of dance, not a form of music. Most Dutch people at this time did not own the necessary equipment to play jazz-records and many of them didn’t know how to play it themselves at this time either because many classically trained musicians had trouble writing the syncopated rhythm of the music down. This only added to the exotic and strange value that jazz at this time had.30
Although Sanders is moderate in his criticism of jazz as a new musical genre he does put some emphasis on jazz being a sexual, barbaric, strange, exotic, negro form of dance and entertainment. Many music critics at the time used these terms even more to describe jazz. Most of them belonged to the religious social groups of The Netherlands. Not many of them seem to make a great notice of the fact that this erotic, barbaric, strange, exotic thing called jazz was in fact American in this time, left alone the fact that it was made there by a suppressed minority of African-Americans. The way jazz is depicted in mainly Catholic newspapers, it almost seems like the reviewers consider it something that is from another planet. Strange music, that goes completely against everything that was considered normal
28 Paul Sanders, Het Volksdagblad, 23/06/1926 29 Idem. 30 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek, 15‐17.
musically, made by strange looking people who evoke strange inner feelings. Although some outright jazz haters actually made the bold claim that jazz was just a fad that will pass over, at the start of the 1930s the anti-jazz efforts were still focused on going against the ever growing amount of hearts of the young and free that early jazz was conquering.
These hearts were exactly the thing those skeptical of jazz in 1926 were concerned about. These strange feelings of lust and joy that jazz seemed to be mostly about were so much an issue to them that even politicians started to get involved with this. Thanks to Paul Whiteman jazz became also apparent to the Dutch government, mostly made up in these years of conservatists that were not exactly thrilled by this new jazz thing.31 A few years later, in the year 1930, a government-commission was installed to investigate the issue of jazz, or modern dance music as they saw it. A year later this commission published its findings. Interestingly enough they seem to blame the adverse effects of jazz on two things, the influx of American culture in Europe after World War I and most importantly its origin: America. They argue jazz has such a profound effect on so many young people, because it is designed to be enjoyed by the masses. This because a modern culture, from which America has always been the prime example, is designed for the masses.32 Jazz, according to the commission report, is the ultimate example of American culture as a mass consumed superficial product. In the words of the commission:
‘Although the moral corruption of modern dance music has invaded our country from countries around us that were involved in the war (World War I), in its most fundamental way of expression it is indeed primarily American. […] The modern society, of which America is the prime example, is designed by mechanical and industrial labor division. It is this industrial division that causes the superficial contact between young people today, which in turn degrades their cultural desires to primitive instincts. In an incoherent mass like American society the coherency can only be found in primal instinctive spheres and this is in the end the essence of American culture. Whether one looks for this in American newspapers, in music or film. They’re all designed to please the superficial masses.’33
America to this commission was a morally corrupted mass, dedicated only to pleasure and excitement. America, above all, was a naïve young country where with primitive methods (like cries, yells and the raising of the ‘Stars and Stripes’), libertinism and nationalism were artificially made popular. Such old values as the family, the school and the church, which they considered ‘European’ meant little to nothing to the modern American in the 1930s. They also
31 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek, 31. 32 Idem, 29. 33 ‘Rapport inzake de kwestie van het dansvraagstuk’, 1930.
consider the American negro the heart of this cultural decay that came sweeping over the ocean, in their eyes. The report reads:
‘The negro in the United States lead the way in tone and rhythm because they possess the biggest instinctive life force. In their art they compensate their lack of a deeper understanding of life with a very infectious and instinctive joie du vivre. In order to take the listener down this level, these [African] rhythms are designed to evoke a certain lust. Those who in our country fall for this music lead a life of primitive stimuli and worship the new American influence on our old and respectable culture.’
In its conclusion the report is mostly concerned by the effects of jazz on Western European-civilization. In a rather heavy conclusion they argue that jazz could lead to another World War. ‘Those who try to evoke primal instinctive life in Europe, like the American ‘culture’ does, will make of Europe one big chunk of chaos where war and civil war are provoked by instinctively stirred up primal expressions.’34
The writers of the report seem to generally confuse Americanism and Americanization with urbanization and modernism. The superficial moral corruptive values they talk about are not American, not even African-American but more urban and modern. Jazz, certainly at this time was a predominantly urban and modern phenomenon made by urban youth for urban youth. It is here where the confusion lies, however the report itself is a very proper reflection of how the Dutch conservatist majority thought about America. A country with no moral values, focused on entertainment and quick excitement with no respect for old (Western-European) values. Most Dutch jazz haters often used one or more of these terms when describing the effects of jazz. This ignorance about American society had therefore a huge bearing on the reputation of jazz, and with that the reputation of American culture in The Netherlands. In so much it is exemplary of how the grand conservatist majority perceived America and its culture. Jazz was just one of the examples of the morally corruptive values of American society. For example like the report on jazz, there was also a report on the effect of the influx of 1930s Hollywood movies on Dutch society.35 The Dutch conservatist critique of jazz, however, wasn’t unique. Even in the home country of jazz, American conservatist (mostly in the South). Similar to the commission report on jazz, there was an American report on the perceived perversely negative effects of jazz on youth.36
34 ‘Rapport inzake de kwestie van het dansvraagstuk’ (1930). 35 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek, 23. 36 Reinhold Wagnleitner, ‘Jazz: the classical music of Globalization’ (Lecture, 2011).
Even more interesting than their conception of American society is their conception of American negroes. In this report the classic ‘sambo’ image is sketched of the American negro. The negro as a simple-minded, primitive symbol of instinctive lust and sex. Their culture being nothing more than a raw expression of these primitive emotions. This report was written in 1930 at the end of what is generally considered as culturally one of the most flourishing periods of African-American culture.37 This image of the primitive African-American sambo was precisely what the artists of the Harlem Renaissance, which produced great literary writers like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Nella Larsen among many others, had sought to oppose. In America they had established a cultural tradition which was of immense importance to development of early jazz as jazz artists like Louis Armstrong were generally considered to be part of this renaissance. However, as this report shows, this had not crossed over to Europe as much yet.38
The ignorance about trends within African-American culture, in turn let racism grow. Although in The Netherlands there weren’t any descendants from ex-slaves living in the home country, like in the United States, the closest thing the Dutch had were those coming from the colonies. Mainly the Surinamese and Indonesian communities, the two communities that embraced jazz at the turn of the century way before the ethnic whites in The Netherlands did, had to suffer. On basis of the heavy conclusions the commission made about jazz Willem De Vlugt, the governor of Amsterdam at the time, installed several laws to limit the influence and creative output of Surinam jazz artists performing in the city. He did this, mostly he argued, because of the profoundly sexually stimulating effect these black artists seemed to have on young and innocent white women.39
In conclusion of this chapter, it can be seen how Paul Whiteman’s initial concert in 1926 established the playing field, so to speak, for interbellum jazz criticism in The Netherlands. After that concert nationwide the country was split up in three groups, three groups with constantly shifting but clear boundaries. The haters, the lovers each on one side and the critical jazz followers in the middle. Each had their own opinion on jazz. But each also had their own opinion on America and how America (and also importantly its African-American minority) was related to this new cultural phenomenon that was jazz. We saw how the haters didn’t go a lot further than sketching stereotypical images of urban American society, where jazz was nothing more than a symbol of American commercialism and
37 Harvey G. Cohen, Duke Ellington’s America (Chicago 2010), 3 38 Cary D. Wintz, Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance (Houston 1988), 342. 39 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek, 21.
primitive lust for entertainment. In this simple image of the United States, the African-American for the these Dutch conservatist jazz haters was nothing more than a wild natural simple-minded entertainer meant to please the (white) audiences. They were scared of the strange sounds that jazz produced, because they feared it would affect the young Dutch youth so much to a point where they literally conclude that it could lead to another war. The other two groups the critical jazzfollowers and the outright jazz lovers had similar views but theirs were definitely a little bit more defined than those of the conservatist jazz haters. They still seemed to associate jazz with American commercialism a lot but also recognized the universal potential of the genre as a form of culture. With this realization of the potential of jazz, and that will show in the next chapter as well, also came a more broadening and detailed knowledge of African-American culture. As we saw in Arntzenius’ reflection on Negro influence, there is a growing interest in African-American culture among jazz lovers that would continue to grow in the years beyond.40
As said before these jazz haters were mostly of conservative catholic or protestant descent and only focused on the entertainment side of jazz. Their policy of scare and censorship of jazz and jazz musicians did however not work. Although there were many who agreed with the jazz haters, there were as well some youngere Dutch music critics who started to embrace jazz. These progressive thinkers, mostly of liberal or social-democratic descent, followed the trend that Sanders seemed to hint at the beginning with the concert of Paul Whiteman. Jazz for all its childhood illnesses had potential to be more than entertainment. Where in other parts of Europe like Germany and France jazz was already becoming more and more an accepted cultural form of music, in The Netherlands it took a little longer. The fight was taken up by a group of young Dutch enthusiasts, many of them not even reaching the age of twenty yet, that surprisingly not only felt affected by jazz but also felt the need to defend it on an intellectual level against its conservatist criticizers. These young Dutch jazz fans united themselves in De Jazzwereld, on which the next chapter will focus.41
40 Will C. Gilbert and C. Poustochkine, Jazzmuziek: Inleiding tot de Volksmuziek der Noord‐Amerikaansche Negers (The Hague 1939), 9‐12. 41 Walter van de Leur, ‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanisme’: De Jazzwereld 1931‐1940.’ In: Rokus de Groot ea. e.d., Liber Plurium Vocum (Amsterdam 2012), 128.
2. De Jazzwereld’s fight for jazz and America
Whenever a new art form comes to the public fore, more often than not it is greeted with both negative and positive opinions. As far as jazz in Holland is concerned, as can be seen in the previous chapter, this was no different. At the time when Paul Whiteman gave his concert in Scheveningen in the year 1926, the group of jazzopponents was probably bigger than the group of supporters. Or, if we have to believe popular Dutch media reporting about the concert at that time those who were supporting were for the biggest part simple-minded young folk looking for dance and entertainment, not art. Around the turn of the decade, going into the 1930s, this gradually started to change.
During the 1930s all the great names of jazz at that time visited The Netherlands. Still it is safe to say that one particular individual had more effect on the Dutch jazz scene than all of the others put together. His name was Duke Ellington. In terms of the development of jazz in The Netherlands one could say that although jazz was born in the early 1920s, with its first infantile showing in 1926 with the Paul Whiteman concert, jazz as a music genre came of age in 1933 when Duke came to town. This radically changed the Dutch perception of jazz and with that as this thesis will continue to argue also the perception of the United States and its culture. Jazz still has its haters, critics and lovers like in the period between 1926 and 1933, but the overall Dutch opinion and view on jazz and America seems to go through a radical change in this period.
The most prime example of this is De Jazzwereld, the first European magazine dedicated completely to jazz. In light of the many critics putting jazz down these often extremely young Dutch writers sought to defend their beloved genre. In doing so, they became fighters not only for jazz but for American culture altogether. In this chapter it will be revealed how De Jazzwereld viewed jazz, how they saw what they perceived to be ‘pure’ or ‘true’ jazz and how this in turn affected their and their growing audiences perception of the United States and its culture.42 At the end of this chapter it will thus become clear how De Jazzwereld unwittingly paved the way for cultural Americanization in The Netherlands during the 1930s, by defending Afro-American cultural expression. Also it will become clear how this defense of Afro-American cultural expression led to an increased interest of Dutch youth in American and even Afro-American culture. Jazz during the 1930s in Holland for the first time sparked an interest in the history of black Americans in the United States and also the United States in general.
42
Walter van de Leur, ‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanisme’: De Jazzwereld 1931‐1940.’ In: Rokus de Groot ea. e.d.,
In the limited historiography concerning jazz and Americanization in The Netherlands during the 1930s, one of the leading historians certainly on the subject of De Jazzwereld’s role in this is Walter van de Leur. In his article ‘Pure Jazz and Charlantry: A History of De Jazzwereld Magazine, 1931–1940’ he relates the Dutch position and opinion of jazz within the framework of pillarization. Pillarization is the historical process in The Netherlands where society became divided in different social groups known as social pillars. This division was pretty clear and hard-lined. In The Netherlands there were four social groups: the reformed protestants, the Catholics, the socialists and the liberals. What opinion a Dutchman at that time had in terms of political, educational, religious, social or cultural issues was more or less completely decided by which group they belonged to.43 So too, Van De Leur argues, in the issue of jazz as an emerging cultural phenomenon. The first two (religious) social groups were mostly against jazz, seeing it as morally corruptive and degenerating to young people’s idea of core values like the church and the family. The other two were mixed in their opinions but generally more positively inclined towards jazz, and also towards its land of origin. It should come therefore as no surprise that the most prominent fighters for jazz in The Netherlands came from these two groups.44
To what group did the founders and writers of De Jazzwereld belong then? Well they were part of a white liberal middle-class, that didn’t consider themselves to be part of any pillar. However their frame of mind can definitely be scaled in the category of the liberals, although a few among them considered themselves social-democrats as well. In what political climate was their new aspiring magazine born? Well, as was observed before in this thesis the mostly religiously driven authorities in The Netherlands at the time were pretty much against jazz or any form of modern entertainment. They looked up against the United States as a growing political and military power, mostly unaffected by World War I, but were suspicious of the growing cultural influence that the country had especially on young Dutch youth. Terms like: lewd, sinful, primitive, shameless, devilish, pornographic and eroticizing were used to describe this new ‘dance craze’. The Dutch authorities, as can be concluded from the previous chapter, were generally just very suspicious of the culture of the United States.45
The writers of De Jazzwereld definitely belonged to this group of Dutch youngsters, morally corrupted by American ideas of entertainment according to their government. They embraced jazz with increasing numbers. One only has to look at the founder of the magazine.
43 Erik Hans Bax, Cleavage in Dutch Society: Changing Patterns of Social and Economic Discrimination (Groningen 1995), 2. 44 Walter van de Leur, ‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanisme’, 129. 45 Kees Wouters, Ongewenschte Muziek, 13.
The sixteen-year old Ronald ‘Red’ Debroy founded the magazine in 1931.46 He also happened to be a saxophone player. Like a lot of early writers of De Jazzwereld he was an aspiring jazz musician. This resulted into a lot of articles about the technical side of jazz, articles on how to play it yourself. These articles taught various tips and tricks for musicians aspiring to play jazz instruments. ‘Drummers, learn the new way to play your cymbals!’, an illustrating headline of a September 1931 issue of De Jazzwereld screams. ‘Future saxophone players, read carefully. How to play a vibrato and how to apply it properly’, reads a headline in the same issue. Get educated, get with the jazz program. That is the leading thought within many of these articles.47
Leading from this one can conclude that besides defending jazz, the efforts of De Jazzwereld certainly in their first few years of existence were mostly dedicated to promoting the genre. The attack is the best defense, they seem to unconsciously think. There is no point in defending a genre against its conservatist critics if nobody is willing to join and support you in this defense. So the first task of De Jazzwereld seemed to be more towards growing an audience of educated intelligent jazzplayers. Apart from the technical side of jazz, to which all of the early issues of De Jazzwereld had an entire section dedicated to, there was also the promotion of new jazz records. This formed the major part of the rest of these early issues. Almost exclusively these were American records that got promoted in the magazine. Constantly when speaking about these records there seems to be a feeling of personal inferiority to the magical musicians from across the Atlantic. 48
The writers and musicians of De Jazzwereld constantly seem to ask themselves whether they, or any other Dutch or European jazz artist, could ever reach the level of American musicians. Take for example this quote from a 1931 Jazzwereld edition. The article asks the reader whether he would dare to play for an imagined jury ‘consisting of the following world famous saxophonists: Frankie Trumbauer, Chester Hazlett, Merle Johnston, Rudy Widoeft and Adrian Rollini,’ and still be confident about his playing. ‘Would you have the right to think: ‘Whatever may be wrong, at least my vibrato is exactly what it should be?’
In this we can see an early reflection of something that would persist in the minds of jazz fans and musicians in The Netherlands throughout the years. America is the shining, almost mythical, example. We, as simple-minded, Dutch folk could never reach the intensity of playing like those American jazzmuscians could. Indeed, if you would talk to jazz
46 Walter van de Leur, ‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanisme’, 128. 47 Jazzwereld, september 1931 48 Idem.
musicians in Holland today many of them would agree with these writers of De Jazzwereld. To them America was and always will be the example to follow and even more so look up to.49 Also as far as that is concerned, without really mentioning this fact a lot the writers of De Jazzwereld acknowledge in their admiration of American jazz musicians the fact that jazz is a completely American music genre, of and by the American people. More importantly, in the light of the aim of this thesis, they acknowledge it is music by black Americans. De Jazzwereld’s stance on the role of the negro in the development and expansion of American culture will be reviewed later in this chapter.50
For now these quotes show that in the early years the focus was more on the interested music fan, looking to find out what jazz was all about and also how to play it. This would remain an integral part of De Jazzwereld throughout their history of existence. Increasingly however the articles in De Jazzwereld also started to turn towards the jazz critics. They lauded their ignorance, saying that it was foolish to equal such true jazz greats as Duke Ellington with clowns as Paul Whiteman. In a 1935 issue of De Jazzwereld appeared a critical reaction on an article published in the socialistic newspaper Het Volksdagblad. This newspaper had just started a new column devoted to jazz, but that did not please the writers of De Jazzwereld. This because it, in his view, equaled the great Duke Ellington to the English jazzperformer Jack Hylton, whom they saw as an inferior imitator of ‘Den Duke’. In the words of the writer of this critical reaction: ‘I cannot take this article seriously, when mister A. [writer of the Het Volksdagblad column] feels there is no difference between a show by Ellington and a show by Jack Hylton.’51
To combat this ignorance about jazz, already in 1932 De Jazzwereld published an official announcement answering the age-old question: what is jazz? And more importantly what is not. In the issue of June 1932 the following is stated with big grandeur: ‘The terms ‘jazz’ and ‘jazz-music’ will only be admitted in De Jazzwereld when it refers to music hitherto called ‘hot’ or ‘new style’. The editors reserve the right to alter the word ‘jazz’ whenever it is brought up in conflict with the aforementioned decision. The term ‘new style’ can be dropped altogether, while, for vocal music, the term ‘hot’ may be used. From our decision follows that outside the ‘Avant-Garde’ section, the word ‘jazz’ shall hardly ever be tolerated. It is better to refer to contemporary dance music.’ This was an attempt to separate dance music (which they perceived as a low form of entertainment) from true jazz. Or in other
49 Jazzwereld, December 1935 50 Idem. 51 Idem.
words: separate the music of Duke Ellington from the music of people like Jack Hylton. Again it is striking how the division that they make between pure jazz and fake jazz is often parallel to whether or not the artist is black and American.52
Slowly and gradually De Jazzwereld began to change in its articles. Not only the technical side was highlighted, more and more the writers started to look to the cultural side of the new music. One man who had a lot to do with this change was Duke Ellington. Ellington is rightfully seen by many jazz historians as one of the first true jazz musicians. That is to say, jazz musicians the way they are viewed today. The true jazz musician is one that puts music in favor of entertainment. Even though Holland had already made acquaintance with the technical virtuosity of Louis Armstrong, Ellington to many jazz fans at the time was something else. The cream of the jazz crop, with challenging compositions over which he and his fellow band members improvised heavily. De Jazzwereld saw in Ellington the prime example of the artistic potential of jazz music.53
After jazz-music grew in popularity at the beginning of the 1930s, De Jazzwereld radicalized even further in their effort to defend and promote its beloved genre. With the growing of the jazz-audience in Europe, division among jazz fans became more and more apparent. The issue of what was really jazz and what was really not stayed the main issue for these young Dutch jazz lovers. From 1933 their fight for true American jazz went international with the establishment of the Nederlandse Hot Club (NHC). Many of the writers of De Jazzwereld were also part of this club. Therefore they decided their biggest example, Duke Ellington, should became honorary chairman to the NHC (without Duke seemingly knowing a lot about this).54
The NHC followed an international trend of European intellectual youth defending jazz. The Frenchman Hugues Pannasie, as a founder of the Hot Club de France in 1928, is the most famous in this regard. He is generally perceived as one of the first intellectual jazz critic, and certainly the most famous of his time. He was the leader of a young student movement in France that embraced jazz and defended it against its critics. With his Hot Club de France he set a trend of intellectual elitist defense of jazz in Europe, perceiving jazz not as a form of entertainment but predominantly as a form of art. In a broad sense the efforts of De Jazzwereld and later the NHC can be seen as standing in line of this effort by Hugues Panassié and his followers. Panassié’s Le Jazz Hot, released in 1934, was seen then as the
52 Jazzwereld, June 1932 53 Jazzwereld, August 1933 54 Jazzwereld, December 1935
definitive work on the question of what jazz meant, not only in a musical sense but even more so in a cultural sense.55 The Dutch jazzcritics of De Jazzwereld tried to mimic this research into the cultural phenomenon of jazz, but also oppose Panassié at times.56
Instead of uniting with their European jazz-allies there in fact was a lot of argument among the European jazz clubs. Even though the NHC was initially based on similar efforts of the French intellectual leader Hugues Panassié of the Hot Club de France, the members of the NHC (as well as the writers of De Jazzwereld) actually often argued with the ideas of Panassié. Panassié was seen as too romantic, overtly focusing on American jazz and not encouraging jazz in Europe. Even though the writers of De Jazzwereld also worshiped those jazzsymbols in America, like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong they in fact took upon themselves more than any other European jazz fangroup to educate their followers. So that one day the young Dutch jazz musicians would make music that would at least come close to the compositions of Duke and the solo’s of Louis.57
As far as the issue of race is concerned the Dutch defenders of jazz in De Jazzwereld hold up a very conflicting position. Even though they admire black American jazz artists like Duke Ellington and (to a lesser extent) Louis Armstrong, they also express some ideas that can be classified as racist. They make the argument that jazz music can only be made by blacks because they have the natural feel for it. They were born to make music, and entertain the audience. The white man, according to De Jazzwereld’s articles, wasn’t meant for that. Jazz, true jazz, should thus be made exclusively by black artists as far as they are concerned. Throughout the existence of the magazine, the racial views of De Jazzwereld remain this conflicting. At once there is interest for the black American jazz musicians. Certainly towards the end of the 1930s the writers of De Jazzwereld take up this interest and actually research the cultural history of black Americans. It is mostly again the ever returning symbol of true jazz, Duke Ellington, that seems to spark this interest.58
This deepened interest in racial history of jazz also seems to be founded in the fact that by the end of the 1930s jazz is an accepted musical genre. The writers of De Jazzwereld therefore didn’t have to fight the fight to keep jazz alive and popular, because it already was. There were by this time many jazz musicians and jazz fans. What then happened was a division among jazz fans, nationally and internationally. What could be accepted as jazz and what could not? The answer of De Jazzwereld was that true jazz, was jazz from the jungle.
55 William A. Shack, Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz story between the Great Wars (Berkeley, CA 2001), xv. 56 Walter van de Leur, ‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanisme’, 132. 57 Idem., 129. 58 Jazzwereld, 12/1935
Sometimes it swinged, sometimes it was slow and romantic but it was true to the jungle rhythm as they called it.59
In an attempt to finally settle this argument two main writers of De Jazzwereld, Will C. Gilbert and C. Poustochkine, wrote a book in 1939 that established the definition of what was jazz to many Dutch jazz followers after that time. The book called simply ‘Jazzmuziek’ was in fact once again an answer to Hugues Panassié, who seems to be both an example and an adversary to the writers. In the introduction to the book they mention him briefly, when they basically say that he doesn’t know anything about the jazz from a musicological standpoint. That he is a ‘layman’ as far as jazz is concerned. Even though ‘he expresses great enthusiasm for jazz, he doesn’t seem to know too much about it.’ The authors go on to make the argument that their book is unique because it attempts to describe both the history of jazz and the technical musicological side of how to make it.60
In doing so they provide a very potent observation of the history of jazz, and provide a compact but for their time certainly very detailed and observant history of the African-American as a race. Just looking at the subtitle of the book, let’s the reader know about the mindset of these authors: Jazzmuziek: Inleiding tot de Volksmuziek der Noord-Amerikaansche Negers. Translated this reads: Jazz music: an introduction to the folk music of the North-American Negroes. In other words, jazz to the authors of this book is folk music made by black Americans. This signals the importance the authors give to the origins of jazz music, which lay in the African-American community. Again they display this main characteristic of many Dutch writers about jazz at this point when they at once worship the American negro, but sound somewhat racist in their worship. Still their history of jazz is very accurate, certainly for the time in which this book was published. At the beginning of the book they acknowledge for example that jazz is in its roots an African form of music, and not necessarily American: ‘The authentic jazz, to which this short study is dedicated, is music of those North-American negroes that descend from African tribes. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, two figures from the race that produced jazz, do they give us the definition of what is their music? Yes and sometimes no! The question is answered by the history of jazz, therein lies the answer to what is jazz and what is not. That’s why this book will describe the
59 Walter van de Leur, ‘Zuivere Jazz’ and ‘Charlatanisme’, 133. 60 Will C. Gilbert and C. Poustochkine, Jazzmuziek, inleiding tot de volksmuziek der noord‐amerikaansche negers (The Hague 1939), 10.
development of jazz from its origins in the jungle of Africa to the modern swing music of today.’61
Gilbert and Poustochkine made the argument that African music as it started in the continent of Africa is primitive and a lower form of culture. They acknowledged that jazz has its roots in Africa, but make the claim that African music itself didn’t become culturally valuable until it started to be influenced by white classical music when African music arrived through the slave trade in the United States. In the first chapter they almost thanked slavery for making it possible for jazz to exist in the fist place. Apart from the fact that the authors went by the fact that those African slaves who brought their music over from Africa never did so willingly, they also seemed to make the argument that its culture couldn’t have gone without their white oppressor. They described the conception of their beloved jazz as a process of the raw primitive lower form of jungle music that gets civilized by Christian music of the white oppressor in America.62
Gilbert and Poustochkine claimed that even at an early stage before jazz truly became jazz, negroes had an innate sense for rhythm and dance. But they lacked a sense of melody and composition (aspects of sophisticated civilized western music, according to the authors). Fortunately the Christian white colonizers taught them this by means of the church, where negroes were taught spirituals. Singing these biblical texts in spiritual music defined the music and indeed the culture of the black race in the music. But these spirituals remained primitive, a simplified version of European (classical) music. In the words of the authors:
‘What did the negro bring from Africa? A strongly developed rhythmic feeling and a heavy dynamic. Upon arriving in America the first thing he encountered was the metrical psalms of the white protestant communities. Even though inspired by these psalms in the spirituals, their own version of Christian music, there is not a lot that reminds of dignified European culture. In the singing of their own spirituals they display a very naïve primitive way of making music and melody. They were and still are not capable of making the same defined melodies of Western civilized music.’63
This is in many ways can be seen as a colonial mindset to the development of African-American music on the North-African-American continent. Therefore it would be easy to dismiss this passage as racist. But it can also be seen as an accurate historical description of how jazz is ultimately the fine product of cultural exchange between western Christian melodies and
61 Gilbert and Poustochkine, Jazzmuziek, 17. 62 Gilbert and Poustochkine, Jazzmuziek, 18‐19. 63 Idem, 24.
African rhythms. Even though this is a simplified approach to jazz history (the argument could be made that jazz had a lot more influences than those), it is accurate and in fact very observant for the time that this book was written.
The book also describes how spirituals from the colonial time developed into other African-American music styles, most importantly the blues. The simple musical and lyrical framework of the blues is to the authors again a sign of the simplicity of African-American culture and the people that represent it. While describing blues and some examples Gilbert and Poustochkine emphasized the fact that so many blues artists are, according to them, poor, simple, ordinary and naïve. To make this understandable for their readers, they compare it to folk music of natives living in the Dutch Indonesian colonies. They make the argument that the blues compares very much to Indonesian folk music. For their motivation to make music, they cite slavery. ‘The only salvation negroes could find in that time was to look for piety in their music.’64 They concluded their chapter on blues with the following striking quote: ‘The fact that blues could develop into jazz at the turn of the [twentieth] century has much to do with the continuing civilization and the Western orientation of the negro race.’ In other words, as said before the white man is responsible for the fact that the black American man is finally making music that is acceptable and at least on terms with Western civilization.65
However they did see blues as the original negro music, and other forms as dumb. They blamed the fact that jazz wasn’t accepted by a broad white audience on the fact that blues hadn’t developed into sophisticated music, jazz, yet. The white musicians who first took over jazz when it came to Europe around World War I, they argue, thus learned to play jazz at an infantile stage. Jazz wasn’t fully developed yet when they learned it. That is why, according to Gilbert and Poustochkine, early white jazz musicians like Jack Hylton and Ray Ventura were wrongly educated by what they call the Paul Whiteman-school. They explain how this changed during the end of the 1920s when in Chicago black and white musicians started influencing each other. Remarkably the black American jazz musician always stayed ahead of their white counterparts.66
Jazz according to Gilbert and Poustochkine is black from origin but positively influenced by white culture. Without the influence of European culture jazz would never have made it beyond the primitive naïve spiritual stage. But the true jazz still comes from the black African-American artists. They are the ones that still set the tone. Interestingly enough there is
64 Gilbert and Poustochkine, Jazzmuziek, 31‐33. 65 Idem, 48. 66 Idem, 52.
