Ireland's Anti-Jazz Campaign

[Big Wheel]

http://www.theirishstory.com/2011/07/01/the-anti-jazz-campaign/

On New Year’s Day 1934 over three thousand people from South Leitrim and surrounding areas marched through Mohill to begin the Anti – Jazz campaign. The procession was accompanied by five bands and the demonstrators carried banners inscribed with slogans such as ‘Down with Jazz’ and ‘Out with Paganism.’[11] A meeting was then held in the Canon Donohoe Memorial Hall organised by Fr. Conefrey and Canon Masterson, the parish priest of Mohill.

Messages were read out from prominent personalities who had given their support to the campaign. Cardinal MacRory heartily wished the Co. Leitrim executive of the Gaelic League success in its campaign against all night jazz dancing which he described as ‘suggestive and demoralising.’[12] He referred to these dances as, ‘a fruitful source of scandal and of ruin, spiritual and temporal,’ and wondered, ‘to how many poor innocent young girls have they not been the occasion of irreparable disgrace and life-long sorrow.’ The cardinal hoped that the Gaelic League could create a strong public opinion against all night dancing...

...Canon Masterson, who chaired the meeting, told the assembled crowd that he considered jazz a menace to their very civilisation as well as their religion. He said that after the Treaty of Limerick all vestiges of national life were swept away apart from, ‘the Irish faith and the Irish music.’ He warned the audience that, ‘the man who would try to defile these two noble heritages was the worst from of traitor and the greatest enemy of the Irish nation.’[16]

Fr. Conefrey then got up to speak. He declared that jazz was a greater danger to the Irish people than drunkenness and landlordism and concerted action by church and state was required. He called on the government to circularise Garda barracks to forbid the organisation of jazz dances and to compel dance halls to shut at 11 pm. He also called for the training of young teachers in Irish music and dancing.

[A Lark Ascending]

All part of the general attempt to construct an Irish culture in the 1930s following the first step towards independence, one that was deeply conservative, drew the distance from England and the 'corruptions' of American culture.

My mother grew up in that era - hated the Irish culture forced on her, loved English and American films and music.

[BillF]

Ireland long continued as a priest-ridden culture, as was shown in this classic film documentary from 1967:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Road_to_Dublin_(film)

Edited July 12, 2011 by BillF

[Big Beat Steve]

This may miss the point of THIS topic in the stricter sense of the word, but judging from the blasting that jazz received elsewhere throughout Europe in the 20s and early 30s, Ireland may have "lagged a bit behind" (elsewhere some advances had been accomplished by that time) but not THAT much. Germany (pre-nazi, of course) is just one example, and Jim Godbolt's "Jazz In Britain 1910-1950" quotes a number of infamous English sources from that period as well. Hilarious today, but certainly less funny then.

And even countries where jazz had gotten an early foothold and had developed a thriving scene, e.g. Sweden, produced such nasty publications as "Jazzen Anfaller" ("Jazz Attacks") by one Erik Walles as late as 1946 which included "assertions" such as the following that were NOT meant to be merely folkloristic: "Jazz canot be understood without referring to important facts regarding its development. Jazz was created by negroes. Jazz was created by drunk negroes. Jazz was created by drunk negroes in brothels."

So - no, the above Irish example does not strike me as particularly backwoodsy.

although it really IS eerie to see the parallels between the Irish reference to teaching Irish dances instead of allowing people to dance to jazz and the situation in 30s (and especially Nazi) Germany where German folk and traditional dances of course were promoted as "clean" examples of dancing as opposed to the "lewdness" of dancing to jazz.

It took a lot of public opinion makers quite a long time to see the light when it came to popular culture (and things repeated themselves with rock music later on, as if Western civilization was about to collapse each time), and unless I am very much mistaken, even the U.S. had their share of inveterate numbskulls (in influential positions, mind you) in that respect too.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

Landlordism?

Is that like where that man takes your painfully gained 40 acres, leaves you with the mule, but then makes you pay him to stay on your land, him figuring that it was really his to begin with?

If that's what it's like, then to hell with landlordism!

[A Lark Ascending]

There were even stronger parallels in Ireland, BBS.

The Blueshirts where Ireland's version of all those fascist groups that popped up all over Europe. As in Spain they were endorsed by the Catholic Church as a bulwark against communism, modernity and everything else that threatened its power. Many went off to Spain to fight for Franco.

One of the things I liked about the film version of Angela's Ashes was the way it used mainly American or American derived music as the soundtrack rather than the expected whack-fol-the-diddle-o. Despite De Valera's attempts to foist an imaginary tradition on Ireland, most people (outside the fringes where a genuine culture had survived) seemed to look elsewhere. It took a later generation to make traditional Irish culture, shorn of state approval, exciting again.

Edited July 12, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

Please explain what "landlordism" is in this context. I've never heard such a word.

[Swinging Swede]

land·lord·ism noun \-ˌlȯr-ˌdi-zəm\

Definition of LANDLORDISM

: an economic system or practice by which ownership of land is vested in one who leases it to cultivators

First Known Use of LANDLORDISM

1844

[Big Wheel]

In this case there is a lot more context needed to really understand what landlordism was in the Irish sense, and how anti-landlordism was bound up with nationalism. http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Landlordism

Pretty much all ultranationalist rightwing movements in Europe had this kind of appeal as an animating force- the root idea of national self-determination is legitimate and even focused on justice for the powerless, like with anti-landlordism, even if things quickly go off the rails from there. Interesting how the American variety never seemed much concerned with the real justice bit in the first place...

[Morganized]

land·lord·ism noun \-ˌlȯr-ˌdi-zəm\

Definition of LANDLORDISM

: an economic system or practice by which ownership of land is vested in one who leases it to cultivators

First Known Use of LANDLORDISM

1844

Oh yea,......share-cropping....we get it!

[sonnymax]

"Jazz was created by negroes. Jazz was created by drunk negroes. Jazz was created by drunk negroes in brothels."

Hey now. That's what attracted me to jazz in the fist place!

[JSngry]

land·lord·ism noun \-ˌlȯr-ˌdi-zəm\

Definition of LANDLORDISM

: an economic system or practice by which ownership of land is vested in one who leases it to cultivators

First Known Use of LANDLORDISM

1844

Oh yea,......share-cropping....we get it!

Indeed.

[Shawn]

"Jazz was created by negroes. Jazz was created by drunk negroes. Jazz was created by drunk negroes in brothels."

Hey now. That's what attracted me to jazz in the fist place!

That sentence was almost surely written by a drunken Irishman in a brothel.

[Tom Storer]

Thanks for that link, Big Wheel. Puts things in perspective:

The first accurate survey, that of 1870, showed that 97% of all Irish land was managed in the interests of landlords who lived off the rents, but a little short of half of them were resident. In the years before the Famine between one-third and a half of all landlords were absentees.

The 1870 figures reveal that about 49% of landlords were usually absent, but that 36% merely lived away from their estates, elsewhere in Ireland. As a result, landlords employed the often detested land agents and sub-agents. These managed the estates, set the rents, and if necessary moved in the bailiffs and the police to evict tenants. Ireland’s landlords differed greatly in wealth and attitudes and their numbers changed over time. As elsewhere in ancien regime Europe, landlords were a small elite that derived enormous economic, social, and political authority from their virtual monopoly of landownership.

[Big Beat Steve]

I still fail to see the DIRECT connection between this form of European sharecropping and the hatred directed against jazz as being oh so "immoral". Especially since jazz and its main ingredient - "da blooz" - was not exactly an elite thing but came from those parts of society that SUFFERED from the U.S. version of "landlordism" (a term that I find relatively self-explanatory, BTW, but maybe only to Europeans ).

[Big Wheel]

I still fail to see the DIRECT connection between this form of European sharecropping and the hatred directed against jazz as being oh so "immoral". Especially since jazz and its main ingredient - "da blooz" - was not exactly an elite thing but came from those parts of society that SUFFERED from the U.S. version of "landlordism" (a term that I find relatively self-explanatory, BTW, but maybe only to Europeans ).

There isn't one - the priest who is railing against jazz is placing it alongside alcohol and landlordism as one of the great threats to the fledgling Irish nation. If you're a figure in the 1930s Irish far right, you can pick and choose any of these to get conservative-leaning people riled up. Making sense of it beyond that - well, since when has any far-right political movement had an internal logic that stood up to much scrutiny?

BTW, I'm not trying to make any larger political point in starting this thread - just thought it was an interesting anecdote worth sharing. FWIW, and the link in the first post hints at this, the "jazz" that was the subject of so much ire was almost certainly a very different beast than the music of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong (though Fr. Conefrey would have undoubtedly have disapproved of them too).

Edited July 13, 2011 by Big Wheel

[Big Beat Steve]

O.K., I did overlook THIS way of bringing in landlordism in the original source.

As for the kind of jazz that ultra-conservatives would have disapproved of, hard to say what was the current state of awareness in Irleand in c.1934.

At worst it could have been moderately "syncopated" dance band music, at best it could have been the efforts of Irish jazzmen to play their own brand of jazz (which, like the British variant, probably imitated the U.S. sources and had not yet found a real voice of its own, or would jazzed-up versions of "Irish washerwoman" have been considered as such? ) or, as you point out, teh visits of famous U.S. jazzmen (cf. the U.K. "Mainstream" press quotes to the Armstrong/Ellington tours of the early 30s in "Jazz in Britain 1910-1950").

Yet, upon re-reading the entire linked article, all these debates of 1934 do not strike me as THAT different from what happened in many ultra-conservative circles elsewhere in Europe in the 20s and 30s.

[Big Wheel]

At worst it could have been moderately "syncopated" dance band music, at best it could have been the efforts of Irish jazzmen to play their own brand of jazz

Probably both of these, everything in between, and also a bunch of stuff completely off our map as "jazz."

Virtually all modern dancing in Ireland at the time was referred to as jazz.

In addition to this, the "jazz fever" that gripped Europe in the 1920s was also partly driven by European classical composers' distillations of African-American music of all types. My understanding is that to a lot of people at the time, the stuff composed by the likes of Satie and Milhaud during this period wasn't just jazz influenced, but itself was jazz.

(Side note: a musicologist friend studying 20th century German opera recently played Boris Blacher's 1953 piece "Abstrakte Oper Nr. 1" for me because she couldn't understand why all the musicological literature on it goes on and on about all the jazz influence in it. I listened to it - it's basically a typical atonal 20th century classical piece, except it has an occasional klezmer-ish clarinet solo and emphasizes the brass section somewhat. So these kinds of goofy misunderstandings are by no means limited to 1920s Europeans. )

Edited July 13, 2011 by Big Wheel

[Swinging Swede]

This thread makes me think of Louis Armstrong's "And I was born in Ireland, ha ha!" (on Irish Black Bottom with his Hot Five).

[A Lark Ascending]

In addition to this, the "jazz fever" that gripped Europe in the 1920s was also partly driven by European classical composers' distillations of African-American music of all types. My understanding is that to a lot of people at the time, the stuff composed by the likes of Satie and Milhaud during this period wasn't just jazz influenced, but itself was jazz.

Very few people would have heard Satie or Milhaud. Many, many more would have heard Louis Armstrong. The classical take on jazz is a quite separate thing.

I suspect most Europeans would have heard a 'light' jazz - 'light music' or dance music with jazz inflections. Much like now.

And, like now, there was a substantial minority who were aware that there was much more.

[Big Wheel]

Didn't mean that Les Six and so forth were directly heard by most of Europe. More that they played an outsize role in influencing elite opinions on what constituted "jazz," which then trickled down to everyone else, further muddling everything. I could be convinced otherwise on this though.

Edited July 13, 2011 by Big Wheel

[Big Beat Steve]

I don't know about Ireland, but from what I have read about what went on in 20s and 30s Continental Europe, the jazz-tinged "classical" or "serious" compositions (e.g. Ernst Krenek in Germany/France) were only a tiny minority of what could possibly have been lumped in under "jazz" by the non-discerning public and scribes (that went on to lambast jazz as being oh so vulgar and the downfall of society and its youth anyway). The majority of what was there really was "syncopated" dance music with a more or less evolved content of real jazz - a bit like what passed as jazz among 20s U.S. dance orchestras just because of the presence of a 12 or 16-bar hot solo in an otherwise staid orchestra.

But since the boundaries to those bands, recordings or live appearances where the jazz content was higher were rather foggy, in the end you never know whether this or that public figure who publicly put down jazz had not actually been listening to some "real" jazz or swing.

Depends on what your ears are attuned to (see below):

(Translation:)

"Modern dance music" (aka "swing") as seen ...

... by Swedish parliament representative who saw jazz music "fit only for hottentots but not for Swedish youth"...

... by normal people.

[A Lark Ascending]

Didn't mean that Les Six and so forth were directly heard by most of Europe. More that they played an outsize role in influencing elite opinions on what constituted "jazz," which then trickled down to everyone else, further muddling everything. I could be convinced otherwise on this though.

Oh, I'm sure they gave a distorted impression of 'jazz' to classical buffs. If the only 'jazz' you'd heard was 'Johnny Spielt Auf' you'd have a very strange idea of it. But maybe no more strange than the impression some classical buffs might have of rock if all they'd heard was Bernstein's 'Mass' or one of Tippett's things with rock bits in.

I seem to recall someone here posting some anti-jazz articles from the States in the 20s, again suggesting its corrupting influence. All part of that same reaction you get when new strains of popular music drawing influences from outside 'decent society' appear - rock'n roll, punk, rap etc.

Edited July 13, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[A Lark Ascending]

The majority of what was there really was "syncopated" dance music with a more or less evolved content of real jazz

I think you are right here. Certainly true of Britain.

I have a photo of my Irish grandfather playing in the 'Athlone Jazz Devils' in the 1920s. I can't imagine he was playing anything closer.

[Big Beat Steve]

I seem to recall someone here posting some anti-jazz articles from the States in the 20s, again suggesting its corrupting influence. All part of that same reaction you get when new strains of popular music drawing influences from outside 'decent society' appear - rock'n roll, punk, rap etc.

Can't find the source right now (and am too lazy to do a search on my bookshelf) but I remember distinctly that U.S. press comments on the allegedly corrupting influence of Benny Goodman in the mid-30s youth in the U.S. very closely foreshadowed the comments made about Elvis and his impact on his teenage audience some 20 years later. Same vocabulary, same accusations, same pseudo-arguments.

History repeats itself, particularly in this field.