For years, Americans have felt ashamed for not having been the first to admit the value of that music so special call, generic and comprehensive, jazz. Indeed, were the European intellectuals of the early decades of the twentieth century, especially English and French, who recognized its importance and aesthetic qualities.
not surprising, then, that this new music had greater acceptance in Europe than in the United States. In Berlin, between the twenties and thirties, there were plenty of bars and clubs, as well as famous cabarets, where you could hear jazz. The great Sidney Bechet, a pioneer of new music in New Orleans near Louis Armstrong among the first and second decade of the century, and first major saxophonist in jazz history, between 1929 and 1931 was precisely in the German capital, playing at night in the Wild-West-Bar in Berlin. Bechet remembered, years later, that at least six jazz bands took turns sharing the bill of the place, which gives a rough idea of \u200b\u200bthe intense jazz in the city.
is important to note that the European intellectual class jazz considered a genuine artistic expression, and at the same time, the masses began to enjoy the new rhythms and freer and revolutionary possibilities offered when dancing .
When it comes to jazz in the thirties, both in the U.S. and Europe, we mean both hitherto predominant styles: the music "hot" (Louis Armstrong, for example, and the followers of the schools in New Orleans and "Dixieland") and Swing, represented mostly by the big band era's most famous (Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman), clearly more commercial, with catchy melodies and easy to sing and, of course, more danceable.
"Swing" in the thirties, became synonymous with jazz, and was almost exclusively the music played in dance halls. Was music dancing youth, both in the U.S. and Europe, with a "license" such that no Nazi totalitarianism would be willing to allow.
Situation following the Nazi rise to power.
Hitler's National Socialism erected the idea of \u200b\u200ba "national community" or "village community" as a fundamental standard, after which they should align the whole German nation. No wonder, then, that once in power, this movement was characterized by a rapid process of elimination and coordination of all forces and political institutions, social and cultural rights. Consequently, to impose through the official ideology of terror, the Nazis used a complete monopoly of the management of all mass media such as newspapers, film and, fundamentally, the radio, reaching through them to all cultural and artistic expressions, including music.
Since ancient times, music had special significance for the Germans, tradition also ascribed to the Nazis, who sought to appropriate the legacy of the classical and romantic, and use it for personal gain. Clear that the simple and sick Nazi vision of what music could be considered valid for the formation of the "village community", differed irreconcilably with the true spirit of those movements.
In Germany itself, only years ago, was born atonal music, and classical composers were added the banners of Modernism: Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, among others, Kurt Weill, that even began to incorporate jazz elements to their works. However, after the rise of Hitler, always growing and productive German musical culture was totally paralyzed, everything that had even a touch of "modern" or innovative was manifestly contrary to the new ruling ideology, and should be eradicated. So atonal music was banned, stigmatized as a symbol of disorder shows, and anything else that does not conform to the rigid canons of classical and romantic.
If composers such and the name of Stravinsky, Hindemith, Schoenberg and Berg were banned, and many of them had to emigrate from Nazi Germany, it is difficult to imagine the fate of jazz in such conditions: black origin and sympathy that from the beginning had aroused among the Jews, made him an easy target of attack for cleaners and cultural purification of the Third Reich.
Several factors and elements that made the Jazz did not remain safe from dictators. First, the spirit's own style, which favored the development of individual potential of the musicians involved in its implementation (improvisation), and Above all, the air of rebellion and freedom that had characterized the jazz from its very genesis, by virtue of their musical background: originally, in its most rudimentary and basic, was the music of slaves or direct children of slaves South America, newly released in the late nineteenth century.
On the other hand, dictators Nazis saw the dance as a hobby really serious and problematic issue, both musically and socially, that should not be neglected. From the musical point of view, style, Swing was a fierce attack on the ideal of Aryan supremacy, from the moment he saw a dreadful mix of Jewish working with the vicious and wild colors of black music. In fact, jazz was called by the Nazis as "Black music" and could not tolerate that young people dancing to music that was considered so degrading and lacking any aesthetic value.
From the social point of view, the issue was in turn two edges. On the one hand, while the Swing even in Europe had reached an amazing level of popularity, the great mass of young people who attended the dance halls and knew the choreography of the respective dances (fox-trot, jitterbugg, shimmies, charleston ), as well as the English lyrics of songs they heard belonged the middle and upper middle. The latter plane collided with the idea of \u200b\u200ba "community of people, completely controlled and uniform, which preferably should meet some folk musical expressions, which represent the" true German spirit. "
Finally, dancing was objectionable in that it constituted a dangerous means of "sexual depravity." The official report about a festival in Hamburg in February 1940 clearly illustrates :"... the dancers gave an ugly sight. None of the couples danced normally, there were only swing, and the worst. Sometimes with two boys dancing girl alone, in several other couples formed a circle embracing, jumping, clapping his hands, even rubbing the backs of their heads with each other ... When the band played a rumba, the dancers went into wild ecstasy. Everyone gathered around and sang the chorus in English. The band played numbers increasingly violent, none of the musicians was already seated, all moved on stage compulsively, like wild animals ...".
The King of Swing One of the events that are most concerned the Nazis in the field discussed here, was the rapid rise in success and popularity in the thirties had, first in the U.S. and then globally, Benny Goodman: was called the "King of Swing", and no one hit him in best sellers for over ten years.The "big problem" for the Nazis, with the new representative of the music I danced all the youth of the Western world, whose roots music came from black slaves, was none other than Jewish origin Goodman.
born in 1909 in a family of Jewish immigrants in Chicago, Benjamin David Goodman took his first music lessons in the synagogue in his neighborhood, and never hid his ascendancy over his career. As if this were not enough, the main arranger was a former black conductor (Fletcher Henderson, who brought Goodman to swing music "hot") and his gang of white musicians on equal terms, some of them Jews like him, and black musicians.
swing not only perverted the purity of youth Germanic, but its greatest exponent, who danced with abandon "wild" to the innocent boys, was an American Jew, who got along well with blacks. This music could not be accepted, and the worst, if he could not be ruled out entirely, its implementation should be strictly reglamentada.Así is how we find a series of extremely absurd regulations, but show how far worried about the Nazi authorities to dilute the very essence of that music, in their eyes, did nothing to pervert the future of the Reich, healthy and pure Aryan youth.
The following is an excerpt from an ordinance issued by the central body in charge of directing cultural activities in the Third Reich:
1. The pieces in fox-trot rhythm (or swing) may not exceed twenty percent of the repertoire of orchestras and bands for dancing;
2. In this type of code called jazz, should be preferred in larger scale compositions and lyrics that express the joy of living, rather than the depressing lyrics beans;
3. As the tempo, preference should be given to compositions on the slow light (So-called blues), and anyway, the rate should not exceed the category of "allegro", measured according to the Aryan sense for discipline and moderation. In no way such Negroid excesses in tempo (so-called jazz) or in solo performances (so-called breaks) be tolerated.
4. The so-called jazz compositions may contain up to ten percent of syncopation, the rest should be a movement natural legato investment devoid of hysterical rhythmic pattern of the music of the barbarian races and promoting dark instincts alien to the German people;
5. It is strictly forbidden the use of strange instruments in the spirit the German people, as well as the use of mutes which turn the noble sound of brass instruments in howling wind and Jews;
6. Also banned the drum solos that exceed half a meter in time of four quarters, except in stylized military marches;
7. Musicians are forbidden to make vocal improvisations (scat).
Despite these strict rules, jazz in 1937 still showed unexpected signs of resilience among German youth itself, to the point that the Nazi authorities decided to promote a diluted slightly syncopated form of music that was even by the way called "German Jazz."
Youth Organizations of Hitler saw to it that the dance halls in the swing was king, were gradually replaced by meetings and folk dances of clearly in line with the ideology of "national community" . The radio, so vital to the enormous popularity that jazz had in previous years, by express order of Josef Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, left entirely to transmit "the Judeo-Negroid music of American capitalism, so unpleasant to Germanic soul "(words of Goebbels).
Inevitably then, jazz was disappearing from public life, officer, passing, and the beginning of its history, underground, and one of the cultural symbols of resistance, especially in occupied France.
Source: http://www.fmh.org.ar/revista/17/eljazz.htm
For many, this piece of film Universal, 1941, "Hellzapoppin '" is one of the best dance scenes ever filmed.
"Hellzapoppin '" was originally a Broadway musical comedy hit that sign was 3 years (1939/1941) and was one of the three works presented in the '30s that exceeded 500 features a total of 1404 presentations.
The cast of the film is Shemp Howard, one of the famous "3 Stooges" and the cornetist dress which appears with the famous chef is a member of the orchestra of Duke Ellington, Rex Stewart.
