“CATCHING AS THE SMALLPOX”: SOCIAL DANCE AND JAZZ, 1917–1935
Review and Discussion Questions
1. How did changes in the music business affect American popular music during the 1920s?
2. What were the new technologies that changed the sound of popular music during the 1920s?
3. Where did jazz first develop?
4. What were the stylistic features found in early jazz?
5. What is ASCAP? When and why was it founded?
6. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, several fundamental changes took place in American social dancing, closely paralleling shifts in popular music. Describe these changes.
7. Who were Vernon and Irene Castle?
8. Describe the career of James Reese Europe.
9. What were the earliest jazz bands like?
10. Who were Sissle and Blake?
11. Dance bands in the 1920s tended to specialize in one of three main categories, “hot,” “sweet,” or “Latin.” Give an example of a band from each category.
12. What factors contributed to the tremendous impact of jazz on mainstream popular music?
13. Who billed himself as the “King of Jazz”? Why is this term deserved or not deserved?
Additional Thinking
1. Radio broadcasts of live concerts were a staple of network radio programming in the 1920s. Why do network radio stations no longer commonly play live concerts? With developments such as Internet radio and satellite radio, is this likely to change?
2. Social dancing, popular with many young people in the 1910s, was considered scandalous and provocatively sexual by some social authorities. Does this trend represent a perennial generational tension that continues into the present era? Is it likely that today's “scandalous” dancing will be considered tame to future generations? Why or why not?
3. Rudolph Valentino helped popularize the tango in the 1920s through his starring role in the film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Do feature films still have the power to influence popular music and dance styles? How so? Cite specific examples.
4. As an artist, James Reese Europe combined influences from classical music, military bands, and ragtime. In what way do musicians continue to combine influences from seemingly disparate sources? Do these efforts usually lead to new, compelling music or bland, “watered down” music lacking the distinctive voice of the original source material?
5. Starr and Waterman observe that “jazz's attraction as a symbol of sensuality, freedom, and fun does appear to have transcended the boundaries of region, ethnicity, and class” (p. 68). To what extent does popular music in the contemporary era transcend these boundaries, and to what extent does it reinforce these boundaries?
6. Paul Whiteman has been criticized for presenting a “watered down” version of jazz, yet the popularity of his band undoubtedly expanded the audience for highly syncopated jazz music. To what extent do artists like Whiteman draw attention and recognition away from “authentic” jazz artists, and to what extent do mainstream audiences require a “pop friendly” version of some musical styles in order to embrace it? Does this tension exist for other musical styles as well?