On Jazz

The question of what is meant by "jazz" seems to mock the clear-cut definitive answer. Just as the historical origins of the form arc disappearing into the fog of the recent past, so its range is disappearing within its ambivalent use at the present moment. For the purpose of providing a crude orientation, one could concede that it is that type of dance music--whether it be used in an unmediated or slightly stylized form-that has existed since the war and is distinguished from what preceded it by its decidedly modern character, a quality which itself, however, is sorely in need of analysis. This modernity is perhaps characterized most strikingly by those resistances-differing considerably according to region-which are encountered in jazz and polarized along the lines of either its quality of mechanical soulnessness or a licentious decadence. Musically, this "modernity" refers primarily to sound and rhythm, without fundamentally breaking the harmonic-melodic convention of traditional dance music. Syncopation is its rhythmic principle. It occurs in a variety of modifications, in addition to its elemental form (as the "cakewalk' , "jazz's precursor, uses it), modifications which remain constantly permeated by this elemental form. 'I he most commonly used modifications are the displacement of basic rhythm through deletions (the Charleston) or slurring (ragtime); "false" rhythm, more or less a treatment of a common time as a result of three & three & two eighth-notes, with the accent always on the first note of the group which stands out as a "false" beat (Scheintakt' front the principal rhythm; finally, the "break*,"a cadence which is similar to an improvisation, mostly at the end of the middle part two measures before the repetition of the principal part Of the refrain. In all of these syncopations, which occasionally in virtuoso pieces yield an extraordinary complexity, the fundamental beat is rigorously maintained; it is marked