A Bag of Nuts
IT is safe to say that no critic, not even Matthew Arnold himself, ever tried 'to see the object as in itself it really is,' although he may help others to do so. The critic, as distinct from the scholar, goes into business to try to alter the art he is interested in, to make it easier for what he likes, and harder for what he dislikes, to be produced. This is as it should be, for it is always open to the reader to accept or reject the critic's pressure.
M. Andre Modeir exerts pressure in 'two related ways. He wants jazz, considered as music, to become more capable of interesting the serious musician, and, considered as mental pabulum, he wants it moved into the field of quasi-philosophical discussion. The first of these efforts he applies through his own example, emphasising rhythmic and harmonic nuance at the expense of the broad sensual effect, and constantly implying the superiority of the modernist musician (the adherent of be-bop or of `progressive' jazz) over both the earlier master and the postwar Dixieland revivalist. The latter figure, who is far and away the most typical of the European jazz scene, M. Modeir passes over in haughty silence. His second aim is conducted by the multiplication of hypothetical entities like `relaxation,' vital drive' and the `essence' of his title. This is not a profitable activity.
The reader equipped with a knowledge of serious music will find M. Modeir technically accurate and skilled in using a steam- hammer to crack a series of nuts. The chapter headed `The Influence of Jazz on European Music' is pervaded by the notion
that a serious composer cannot borrow from the jazz idiom unless he has studied the records of Joe 'King' Oliver. Ravel, Milhaud and Stravinsky are weighed in this balance and found wanting. Hindemith, Krenek, Walton, Lambert, Weill, Copland and Honegger (whose Concertino pour piano is surely in the 'cool' style?) are not even mentioned. Their indifference to Joe 'King' Oliver must have been truly obsessive.
MORTIMER PEPPER
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