JAZZ

Related Subjects: Conviviality, Dancing, Music, Merriment

1. I should say: "Hot music shall last forever." There'll probably be new names for it, that's all. There have been several names since I can remember way back to the good ol' days in New Orleans, Louisiana, when Hot Music was called 'rag­time music,' jazz-music,"gut-bucket music,' swing-music,' and now 'hot music.' So you see instead of dying out, it only gets new names.—LOUIS ARMSTRONG, Introduction to "Le Jazz Hot"
   

2. [Jazz] is a sickness that has come upon music . . . a rash upon the times . . more no important than was the polka to Bohemia, the waltz to Germany.—SIR THOMAS BEECHAM
   

3. There is no reason why you should renounce classical music; it is simply necessary that you learn to take along with classical music, an entirely different set of emotions, those belonging to jazz.—STEPHANE MAUGIN
   

4. It is often said that jazz is "sensual" music. This does not mean very much. As a matter of fact, all music is "sensual", if by this word you mean that it affects the senses. Certainly, hot music, by reason of the intonations used, does attack the senses of the listener more violently, perhaps, than other music.—HUGUES PANASSIk, Le Jazz Hot
   

5. Swing is "a gift"—either you have it deep within yourself, or you don't have it at all. If you can play with absolute correctness, you can hold a place in a good symphony orchestra; and you can attain this skill by study and hard work. But neither long study nor hard work will get you anywhere in jazz if you do not naturally know how to play with a swing. You can't learn swing.—HUGUES PANASSIk, Le Jazz Hot
   

6. The sources of swing music are unquestionably Negroid. It is that expression of sadness, of the melancholy of the soul of the oppressed Negro which gives swing music its intensely moving accent.—HUGUES PANASSIE, Le Jazz Hot
   

7. American music is not jazz, and jazz is not music.—PAUL ROSENFELD
   

8. Jazz will endure as long as people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.—SOUSA
   

9. We learned syncopation from three different teachers: the Indians, the Negroes, and our neighbors in Mexico. It had become firmly established before the Civil War. The dance craze of the last 25 years has simply exaggerated it.—VIRGIL THOMPSON
   

10. Jazz is not yet the thing said; it is the manner of saying it.—PAUL WHITEMAN