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Jazz Needs a Melody!

by Murray N. Rothbard
by Murray N. Rothbard

First published in the Libertarian Forum, July 1973.

Newport Jazz Festival in New York 1973.

Classic jazz is magnificently Old Culture, an exciting blend of European melody and harmony with African rhythm, developed first in New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century. As such, it is as far from the mindless cacophony of modern acid rock as it is possible to get.

Classic jazz always featured a small band, with drums, bass, banjo, or piano providing the rhythmic framework (and the latter the melody as well), the comet or trumpet asserting the lead melody, the clarinet riding high above it and the trombone punching its way below. Classic jazz was creative improvisation around the lead melody, provided by the song being played. In classic jazz, risk, and challenge were high: for the challenge was for the musician to be creative and yet remain always within the framework of the written song, and also to blend in harmoniously with the other players. The danger is either to sink into non-creative banality on the one hand (as Chicago "Dixieland" jazz generally did to its New Orleans model), or, far worse, to abandon the melodic framework altogether and thereby get lost in musical solipsism and absurdity.

Big-band swing of the late 1930's tended to do both, losing the creativity of improvisation while getting lost in mindless riffs and solo showboating for its own sake (e.g. the endless drum solos of Krupa and Rich). Finally, at the end of World War II, jazz lost its melody and harmony, and even its rhythm, altogether, and degenerated into "bebop" and ultimately the nihilism of contemporary, or "modern" jazz.

Since great jazz requires great melodic songs at its base, the degeneration of jazz after World War II went hand in hand with the degeneration of the popular song, which finally descended into rock.

Without the great melodies, how could jazz remain anchored to a melodic framework and thereby avoid descent into the anti-melodic abyss?

Classic jazz, therefore, depended on playing the great tunes, either such marvelous hymns as "Closer Walk to Thee" as with the New Orleans bands, or the superb show tunes of Porter or Rodgers and Hart. Hence, the inspired plan of the 1973 Newport-in-New York Jazz Festival to put on "A Jazz Salute to American Song" (July 3) which forced the numerous participants to return, at least in part, to their melodic roots and play classic jazz once more.

The "Jazz Salute" program was, inevitably, a mixed bag. It began with an excellent Dixieland band, headed by the fine cornetist Jimmy McPartland, and ably seconded by Art Hodes on the piano and Vic Dickenson on trombone; playing Irving Berlin tunes, McPartland's band was particularly good in a rousing rendition of "Alexander's Ragtime Band."

They were followed by the great jazz pianist, Earl "Fatha" Hines, looking remarkably young as he played notable tunes by Fats Waller, headed by Hines' excellent jazz singing (of which there was alas too little at the concert) of Waller's famous "Honeysuckle Rose." Hines is not my favorite jazz pianist, since he plays not at all lyrically but in great blocks of sound, but he was extremely interesting nevertheless.

A special lagniappe was a duet played by Hines and the marvelously breathy tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet, of Eubie Blake's "Memories of You." (Blake, by the way, is a magnificent ragtime pianist and composer, still playing at the age of 90, and still far more powerful and forceful a ragtime and jazz pianist than several men one-third his age put together.)

Cole Porter was terribly slighted at the concert, first disparaged stupidly by the promoter (who accused Porter of lacking "sentiment" – read cornball banality), and then raced through a few of his lesser tunes by Teddi King, a poor singer, and perfunctory piano by Ellis Larkins.

Then came by far the worst set of the concert, in which the great Duke Ellington was butchered by the harsh screeching of R. Roland Kirk, who played the tenor sax, the monzella, and the clarinet simultaneously and badly; and by the tortured bellowing of Al Hibbler.

The evening was quickly set back on course, however, as the superb jazz pianist Barbara Carroll swung her way lightly and lyrically through such marvelous Harold Arlen tunes as "Come Rain or Come Shine," "As Long as I Live," and "Out of this World." She was well assisted by singer Sylvia Sims. (But where oh where was Lee Wiley, who even now with voice partly gone is far and away the best female jazz singer extant? For heartbreaking and magical jazz singing at its best, go back and listen to Lee Wiley's record, made twenty-odd years ago, singing Rodgers and Hart.) Miss Carroll is one of our finest jazz pianists, and it was good to see her return to the musical scene.

The famous jazz pianist Dave Brubeck then led his band through a rousing rendition of great songs by Jimmy Van Heusen, including "Someone in Love," "Rainy Day," and "It Could Happen to You." Except for a tendency to lose the melody at times, there was happily little trace of Brubeck's old modernism.

The Modern Jazz Quartet then played a set of Gershwin melodies. The MJQ was the best and most classical of early "bop" and "modern" jazz, and there they were constrained by the Gershwin melodic structure to play in their best manner of cool and sensuous elegance, a manner insured by the playing of the famous Milt Jackson on the vibes. It's too bad that the MJQ stuck to the corny Porgy and Bess, which is not really vintage Gershwin (where, for example, was the master's magnificent "But Not for Me"?) And they could well scrap their harshly percussive drummer.

A highly interesting set was the playing of the great Rodgers and Hart (in the days before Rodgers was corrupted by the banal, left-liberal sentimentality of Oscar Hammerstein), particularly two of the greatest pop songs and show tunes ever written, "My Romance" and "It Never Entered My Mind." The band was excellent, headed by the creamy tenor sax of Stan Getz; unfortunately, the singer was Mabel Mercer, who has enjoyed cult status in the fashionable New York supper clubs, but has literally no voice at all, and simply talks her lines. Still, Getz and the band made the playing worthwhile.

The final set was an excellent one, with the delightful Marian McPartland at the piano and Gerry Mulligan playing a sinuous and superb baritone sax, as they played Alec Wilder's "It's So Peaceful In the Country," "When We're Young," and "I'll be Around When He's Gone." All in all, an important reminder that jazz needs great melodies to make it viable.

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