Occasional Jazz Conjectures

Years ago, jazz was dance music — into the bebop period, contrary to what many historians would have you believe — even after the demise of the big bands it still remained in the public’s consciousness as a form of social music. So what killed the dancing? As many will tell you, the economic realities of maintaining a big band became onerous and difficult following the postwar boom. And through my paranoid lens I’d say it can be directly blamed on: a) singers and b) the rise of the suburbs and c) the vulgar greed and meddling of big business and government.
Here’s what happened in a nutshell: It’s 1941, the US is at war. Radio stations and broadcast companies didn’t want to pay licensing fees to ASCAP, so ASCAP pulled music off the air, BMI was subsequently founded. After losing upwards of 1/2 million dollars, ASCAP accepted half the fees owed. At the same period the head of the musicians union instituted a recording ban preventing musicians from releasing albums for airplay. In come the singers — Dick Haymes, Sinatra, etc. –and since they weren’t allowed in the union anyway (since they weren’t considered musicians) they blossomed as a result of opportunism and shoo-be-doo happenstance.
Tempos changed. Things got slower to accommodate the crooning and the Karo syrup of the string arrangements and bands played faster to cater to the frenzy of hard-blowing Flying Home vehicles. Suffice to say the beat became obscured by ego. Couple that with the 20% entertainment tax levied during wartime and all the young fellows overseas. . .and you’ve got empty ballrooms and some sad, broke musicians. Band buses jacked up on the shoulder of Route 66.
Okay. War’s over. The men are home and Mr. Leavitt dreams up the perfect encapsulation of a tidy whitey, middleclass American dream: Levittown is born and for the first time since the great migrations northward, cities have been upstaged by (what Pete Seeger tunefully sang about) “little boxes.” Nail in the coffin to nightlife and a restless America — we’ve saved the world and now we’ll all go home to our little plot of heaven with all the modern conveniences. . .away from the noise and prattle of our youth and the sin of syncopation. Donna Reed don’t jitterbug or lindy no more.
Go out this weekend to some gin joint with a band and four square feet of rug — grab your “lavender-waisted girl,” request “Cheek to Cheek” and commandeer the floor. . .ballrooms need not be make-believe any longer