Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131

www.elsevier.com/locate/poetic

Constructing the meaning of early jazz, 1917–1930

Scott Appelrouth*
California State University, Department of Sociology,
18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330-8318, USA

Abstract
This study examines the contention over jazz as it entered the cultural mainstream.
Analyzing national print media, I detail how the struggle to define the music was waged
through a discourse that underscored the music’s alleged impact on artistic standards.
While nearly all observers viewed jazz as subverting ‘‘legitimate’’ musical practices, there
was not a similar consensus regarding evaluations of these boundary transgressions. To
account for the divergent reactions, I argue we must be sensitive to the interaction between
the features or qualities of jazz, and institutional and normative shifts occurring within the
relevant fields. As I aim to demonstrate, the meanings assigned to jazz reflected not only
its musical and performance aspects, but also the impact of new sound technologies, and
the broader conflict over the changing meanings of leisure pursuits and the moral order
they affirmed.
# 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

While its current position in the pantheon of ‘‘high’’ art has been institutionally
secured through university degrees and Lincoln Center performances, reactions to
jazz during its formative stage demonstrate that the ‘‘respectability’’ attained by
the music was far from a foregone conclusion. Indeed, while jazz of the 1910s
and 1920s may today sound simplistic or even trite to some ears, the music
engendered sharply divided reactions as it gained a national audience. The contest
to define early jazz, however, involved far more than labeling it as ‘‘good’’ or
‘‘bad’’ music. Instead, with jazz’s growing popularity came efforts by ‘‘taste-
makers’’, cultural guardians, and moral entrepreneurs to define for the public
both the artistic and broader social significance of the music. Such efforts reflec-
ted the fact that early jazz did challenge prevailing musical conventions. Yet, the

* Tel.: +1-818-677-3292.
E-mail address: scott.appelrouth@csun.edu (S. Appelrouth).

0304-422X/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0304-422X(03)00019-6
118 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131

aesthetic challenge posed by jazz exceeded strictly musical concerns as advances in

aural technologies, the drive to create an ‘‘American’’ music, and the desire by
some to ‘‘cultivate’’ the tastes of the listening public grafted wider-ranging stakes
onto the contention.
In this article, I examine the nature of these challenges and their embeddedness in
the broader historical and institutional context. Such an approach builds on pre-
vious works that connect cultural expression and, more specifically, music to the
creation and maintenance of symbolic boundaries (e.g., Binder 1993; Bryson 1996;
Clawson 1999; DiMaggio, 1982; DeNora, 1991; Hennion, 1997; Leppert, 1993;
Santoro, 2002). Here, I highlight that while the elements of jazz and its early per-
formance are not inherently controversial, neither was their salience stitched out of
whole cloth. Instead, in calling attention to these elements, participants were seeking
to either preserve or subvert existing musical boundaries and their symbolic link to
patterns of social inclusion and exclusion.
In drawing on a boundary-charged discourse to articulate both the resistance to
and embracing of jazz, actors were not responding solely to the music’s innovative
qualities. The discourse also resonated with symbolic attempts to legitimate com-
peting world views that reinforced or challenged existing social and cultural dis-
tinctions. For the contours of ‘‘legitimate’’ musical taste were blurred not only by
jazz’s musical properties, but by broader changes in the social order—not the least
of which was the introduction of aural technologies that revolutionized how music
was experienced. Thus, in order to account for the discourses through which jazz
was defined we must be sensitive to the interaction between the features or qualities
of the music, and institutional and normative shifts occurring within the relevant
fields.
To this end, I incorporate into the analysis a brief outline of the musical properties
of jazz to demonstrate why the boundary-charged discourse resonated with the
music’s aesthetic features. To highlight the salient ‘‘transgressive’’ features of jazz
and its performance I compare the music to the aesthetic and performance proper-
ties conventionally associated with the ‘‘legitimate’’ classical tradition-the same
comparison often invoked by participants in the contention.1
I also discuss two technological revolutions that radically altered the field of music
and the listening experience: radios and phonographs. Here, my focus is on how the
mass consumption of these aural technologies institutionally transformed the nature
of listening. In particular, the previous boundaries regarding listening—when and
where music could be heard—were forever changed as the experience of music could

1
Thus, I do not compare jazz and its performance to other forms of popular music (country, blues,
and the music produced in Tin Pan Alley) that were entering or already established in the cultural
mainstream. Additionally, in focusing on jazz, I gloss over the developments taking place within classi-
cal music. And certainly, controversy existed within the classical music field itself as to whether or not
such developments (for instance, the incorporation of harmonic dissonances) were an assault on reigning
standards (see for example Dowd et al., 2002). Nevertheless, despite whatever artistic shifts were occur-
ring within this field, jazz clearly was not classical music. Thus, I am attempting to capture the aesthetic
features frequently invoked to classify the distinctions between the two musical forms.
 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131 119

be ‘‘disembodied’’ from its performance.2 Following this contextualization, I turn to

the analysis.

2. Jazz, performances, and new technologies

2.1. Properties of jazz

Jazz exemplified musical values (and thus social values as well) that in many ways
ran counter to those underscored in the recently consecrated European classical
music tradition. Many of the common features of early jazz performances that dif-
ferentiated it from classical music marked its indebtedness to African musical tradi-
tions (Collier, 1993; Roach, 1992; Ennis, 1992). First, as a performer’s medium,
much of jazz is based on ‘‘call-and-response’’ interplay. Second, the frequent use of
‘‘bent’’ notes (often referred to as ‘‘schmears’’ during the 1920s) produce a pitch
between the boundaries of two fixed notes and thus cannot be accurately transcribed
within the parameters of Western notation. Third, the ongoing innovation of instru-
mental and vocal tones accentuated the individuality and uniqueness of the perfor-
mer. Jazz musicians developed tonal styles that were not restricted to reproducing the
singular, ‘‘pure’’ tones that characterize the classical music approach to timbre. Instead,
taking their inspiration from African-based oral cultures, jazz musicians sought to
imitate the percussive variance of the human voice (Hennessey, 1994: 15–27; Ogren,
1989: 11–55; Peretti, 1992: 100–19). Fourth, the emphasis on improvisation nurtured
intimate communication between the players and with the audience members. Impro-
visation also removed, if only temporarily in some bands, the formal barrier created by
a reliance on notated scores and the control of the authoritative conductor.3
Finally, jazz pushed the boundaries of musical expression by amalgamating
musical elements from Africa, Europe, and America. Innovations in tone, pitch, and
rhythm were all developed on the harmonic framework and metrical system estab-
lished by European standards. Similarly, the instruments frequently used in jazz
bands (for example, piano, trumpet, clarinet, coronet, saxophone, double-bass, gui-
tar) were of European origin. The melodic basis of jazz also reveals its hybrid nat-
ure. Much of the melodic contour of jazz was an outgrowth of American folk music,
in particular the religious spirituals and secular work songs created by slaves in the
American south (Feather, 1960; Roach, 1992).
2
My emphasis, then, is not on the intra-institutional dynamics of the recording and broadcasting
industries. For instance, I do not describe the rise and decline of various companies, their marketing
decisions, or the musical and audiences niches they sought to capture; the battle for profits waged between
the recording and broadcasting industries; or the shifting popularity or ‘‘credibility’’ of various performers
or composers. Thus, my aim is not to outline the institutional dynamics that account for why jazz entered
the cultural mainstream when it did, but, rather, to analyze how the music was received given that it
entered when it did.
3
While the jazz orchestras led by Ellington, Henderson, Webb, and Whiteman, to name but a few, all
had their written arrangements and ‘‘conductors’’ they also prominently featured improvised solos.
Moreover, the ‘‘cutting contests’’ and competitiveness that existed between band leaders in hiring the best
‘‘hot’’ soloists speaks to the central role of improvisation even in ‘‘orchestrated’’ jazz.
120 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131

As I demonstrate below, however, jazz’s miscegenation of African and European

musical practices was not warmly embraced in all quarters. For some, the ‘‘mix-
ing’’ of jazz and classical elements defiled ‘‘sacred’’ texts and composers, while
subverting the latter’s ‘‘power to bestow distinction’’ and its capacity to enlighten
the ‘‘uninitiated’’ (Levine, 1988: 230). For those seeking to ‘‘rescue’’ Culture from
the exigencies of the market, the dissemination of jazz on a mass scale intensified
the ‘‘polluting’’ of a sublime aesthetic heritage and threatened to debase cultural
standards.

2.2. Phonographs and radios

The phonograph and radio played an important role in radically reshaping the
world of leisure and music’s position within it. With their mass production and dis-
tribution people could now listen and dance to different musics at times and in pla-
ces that previously offered little, if any, engagement with music. Indeed, the power
of sound took on new dimensions in the 1920s, as the revolution in aural technolo-
gies meant that more people were exposed to ‘‘more music of all kinds’’ than in the
whole of human history (Martin, 1995: 20). In fact, by 1921 Americans were
spending more money on purchasing records than any other form of recreation
(Leonard 1970: 91), while by 1926, 450 out of every 1000 homes had a phonograph
(Sanjek 1988:69).4 Ownership of phonographs and records, however, does not by
itself capture the size of potential listening audiences. Records were often played for
larger social gatherings both inside the home and, due to the portability of some
early phonographs, in parks and streets (Titon, 1977: 272, 273).
The growth of the radio industry was equally, if not more, astounding. Indeed, its
rapid development through the 1920s and early 1930s played a significant role in the
near collapse of the phonograph industry (Ogren, 1989: 101). By 1922, 3 million
radios were in use, while 1930 saw radios in some 40 percent of U.S. households
(Leonard, 1970: 92; Fischer, 1992: 22).5 The exploding demand for radio program-
ming is also captured in the licensing practices of the federal government. In 1921,
one year after the first broadcasting station was established (KDKA in Pittsburgh),
the Department of Commerce issued broadcasting licenses to 31 stations; in 1922,
that number skyrocketed as 576 licenses were granted (Sanjek, 1988: 75–77).
Moreover, the consolidation of network broadcasting, and with it the demise of
independently owned stations, did not begin in earnest until the end of the decade.
The local radio stations in the early 1920s were much more likely to broadcast
black American performers in comparison to the two major commercial networks
whose Jim Crow operational and programming policies would come to dominate

4
In the years from 1914 to 1921, the purchasing of records quadrupled in America to more than 100
million units. Likewise, receipts from sales of phonographs increased nearly six-fold from $27.1 million in
1914 to $158.7 million in 1919 (Peretti, 1992: 152).
5
In 1922, radio sales generated $60 million in gross receipts. Annual sales more than doubled to $136
million the following year. Radio sales continued to increase throughout the decade; from 1925 to 1929,
annual sales again nearly doubled from $430 million to $842 million as nearly 5 million radio sets were
manufactured in the decade’s last year (Allen, 1931: 137).
 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131 121

the airwaves by the mid-1930s (Barlow, 1999: 25–27).6 Thus, radio offered another
aural medium for the diffusion of jazz. In addition to the broadcast of live studio
and remote performances beginning in the early 1920s, radio stations at times played
pre-recorded jazz as part of their programming. Together, these broadcasts were
crucial in promoting the growing popularity of—and contention over—jazz, allow-
ing a band to be heard by an audience in one night the size of which previously
would have taken months to reach.7
With the revolution in aural technology offering audiences more control than ever
before over what they listened to, the struggle to establish a hierarchy of musical
tastes took on a new dimension. For many the aesthetically ‘‘superior’’ ‘‘legitimate’’
arts were to be promulgated as a means for cultivating the nation’s artistic tastes
and, with it, a moral code that emphasized discipline and intellectual ‘‘detachment’’
(Moore, 1985). Aided by those within the country’s music elite who hailed radio as
‘‘the vehicle for a transformation of American aesthetics,’’ some saw in the new
media an opportunity to ‘‘elevate’’ the mass listener through the ‘‘uplift’’ of the
classics (Biocca, 1990: 5, emphasis in the original). For the classical composers and
cultural and moral gatekeepers committed to realizing such ‘‘millennial possibi-
lities,’’ jazz’s infiltration of the airwaves and private dining rooms posed an unwel-
comed threat. The immediate accessibility of jazz through radios and phonographs
compromised ambitions to cultivate the public’s taste in high-brow music.8

3. Data and methods

Exploring how jazz was defined for the general public, I address what jazz was to
the ears of those who commented on the music. To this end, I analyze publications
that spoke to audiences forming a pivotal segment of the emerging mass culture: the
urban middle-class. The primary data for this study are drawn from two sources:

6
Broadcasters’ decisions to play music performed by black Americans may have been motivated in
part by economic interests as well as the struggle to control programming content. For instance, to the
extent that black musicians’ works were not copyrighted (whether due to the industry’s discriminatory
practices or because the composition or song was not translated into written form), they were excluded
from membership in ASCAP. Denied the organization’s legal protection and advocacy, stations could
play ‘‘black music’’ and avoid paying royalty and licensing fees while simultaneously reducing their
dependence on ASCAP’s music catalogue.
7
Not all music that was passing for ‘‘jazz’’ on the airwaves would be considered as such today (Collier,
1993: 100). Indeed, the label ‘‘jazz’’ was often used as synonym for popular dance music of various types.
In addition to inaccurate labeling, the increasing consolidation and commercialization of the music
industry created a number of pressures that led to the standardization and ‘‘watering down’’ of jazz
(Garofalo, 1997: 28; Ogren, 1989: 104,108).
8
‘‘The concerns issuing from this front were not unwarranted. Contemporary surveys of music
programming revealed a wide gap in the amount of broadcast time devoted to popular and classical
music. ‘‘Syncopated’’ music was played four times more frequently than ‘‘serious and partway serious’’
music. The significance of the quantity of hours is intensified by the fact that stations aired educa-
tional programming and classical music during the daytime while reserving the evening hours, when
listening audiences were larger, for broadcasting popular music (see Merz, 1929. See also Leonard,
1970: 92, 93).
122 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131

The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature and the New York Times Index. The
Readers’ Guide indexes both ‘‘middlebrow’’ and ‘‘highbrow’’ generalist publications
and specialist publications catering to a more specific readership.9 For its part, the
New York Times was/is the closest the United States has to a national newspaper, as
well as the only American newspaper for which a comprehensive historical index
exists. Articles listed under the ‘‘jazz’’ or ‘‘jazz music’’ heading in these two indexes
composed the sample population for my analysis.
The time period for which articles are sampled ranges from 1917 to 1930. These
end points were set because: (1) 1917 was the first year in which either the Readers’
Guide or the New York Times carried a ‘‘jazz’’ or ‘‘jazz music’’ heading or sub-
heading; and (2) by 1930 the frequency of articles from the two sources had drop-
ped precipitously. As for the drop in articles, several factors are likely to have
contributed. Here, I raise what arguably is the most salient: the music’s dis-
semination through records and radios bred familiarity. By the end of the decade
jazz was no longer a new or ‘‘bizarre’’ music; it had become commonplace. Not
surprisingly, then, the media discontinued their coverage in favor of other, more
recently developing, issues. Most pressing was the beginning of the Great Depres-
sion that captured the attention of both the media and the nation. Thus, while the
contention over the music may have continued in some quarters, it was no longer
‘‘newsworthy’’.
The sources produced a total sample population of 319 articles (190 in the New
York Times Index sampling frame + 129 in the Readers’ Guide).10 Next, the popu-
lation was sampled by selecting every other entry listed in the two indexes. While
this should have produced a total of 160 articles, 10 were either unobtainable or
listed erroneously in the indexes. Of the remaining 150 articles, 30 were omitted
from additional coding because they contained no reference or mention to the per-
sonal, social, or cultural impact of jazz. Articles in this category took various forms,
from reports on jazz bands attempting to set endurance records for most hours
played, to a report on Indiana becoming the country’s most prolific manufacturer of
jazz instruments.
Finally, I coded articles for the speaker’s view regarding the transgressive capacity
of jazz and his or her evaluation of the boundary transgression. For each, the
remarks were coded into a dichotomy: Cannot transgress/Can-does transgress the
boundary, and Favorable/Unfavorable evaluation of the boundary transgression, its
potential, or its absence. (Favorable evaluations regarded jazz’s breaching to be
‘‘unharmful’’ while unfavorable ones viewed them as harmful.) Table 1 depicts the
findings of this analysis.
We see that nearly 85% of the speakers viewed jazz as capable of, or actually
transgressing, artistic boundaries. Meanwhile, evaluations of the alleged transgres-
sions are decidedly split. Indeed, the absence of consensus with regard to the latter

9
See the Appendix for a complete list of magazines and journals referenced in the Readers’ Guide that
carried at least one article listed under the ‘‘jazz music’’ heading.
10
The peak years in which these articles appeared were 1924 (49 articles), 1925 (52 articles), 1926 (74
articles), and 1927 (38 articles). Conversely, in 1930 only five articles appeared between the two sources.
 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131 123

Table 1
Evaluations of artistic boundary transgressions

Can/does transgress Cannot transgress

Favorable 49.80% 84.10%

Unfavorable 50.20% 15.90%
Totals 100.00% 100.00%
N 725 131
Gamma=0.684** 84.60% 15.40%

**P <0.01.

marks the site of the symbolic struggle, the stakes of which, as we will see below,
extended far beyond strictly musical concerns.11

4. The framing of jazz

During the 1920s, the urban, mainstream print media provided a public forum for
defining the impact of jazz as it captured popular music’s center stage. Some of the
themes that framed the contention over the ‘‘new’’ music included: jazz’s impact on
contemporary musical styles in terms of the music’s instrumentation and rhythmic
properties (for instance, claims that jazz’s ‘‘mauling’’ and ‘‘twisting’’ of rhythms
debased both music and instruments); jazz’s ‘‘stealing’’ of melodic motifs written by
classical composers; the technical proficiency required to play the music; and the
music’s long-term contribution to musical practices.
As Table 1 depicted above, the consensus that emerged regarding jazz’s capacity
to transgress artistic boundaries was not matched in the evaluations of such trans-
gressions. Thus, these themes appeared in two basic forms. In one case, jazz’s chal-
lenge to the existing aesthetic order is cast as a positive force in the evolution of
music. In the other, jazz is framed as a threat to the sublimity of artistic standards.
Thus, it was establishing the meaning of jazz’s transgressions of artistic boundaries
that proved to be a symbolic site of contention.12
Turning first to favorable evaluations of jazz’s artistic transgressions we find the
music critic Carl Engel stating, ‘‘jazz is abandon’’. Engel further describes the music
as,
11
A secondary argument alleged that jazz was incapable of transgressing boundaries. This counter
argument, voiced more frequently by supporters, defined the music’s ‘‘ineffectualness’’ favorably. In other
words, jazz’s inability to subvert artistic standards was generally framed in positive terms. This is depicted
numerically in Table 1, column 2.
12
The absence of consensus regarding the effects of jazz’s transgression of artistic boundaries points to
the ongoing dynamics occurring within fields. For participants positioned within the field of music,
defining jazz also entailed a ‘‘personal’’ struggle for legitimacy as applauding or condemning the music
marked an attempt to subvert or conserve the hierarchies within the field of cultural production itself.
Depending on their position within the field of artistic production, artists are structurally inclined to
eschew or exploit popular forms of cultural expression (Bourdieu, 1993). This is a matter I take up more
fully in a separate project.
124 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131

Chaos in order,—orchestral technic [sic] of master craftsman,—music that is

recklessly fantastic, joyously grotesque. . . . A superb, incomparable creation,
inescapable yet elusive; something it is almost impossible to put in score upon a
page of paper.
For jazz finds its last and supreme glory in the skill for improvisation exhib-
ited by the performers. The deliberately scored jazz tunes are generally clumsy,
pedestrian. It is not for the plodding, routine orchestrator to foresee the unex-
pected, to plan the improbable (‘‘Jazz: A Musical Discussion,’’ Atlantic
Monthly, August 1922).

Not surprisingly, professional musicians who established their reputations playing

one form or another of jazz championed the music’s unique aesthetic contributions.
As in many other instances, the popular press’s frequent enlistment of the opinions
of Paul Whiteman lead us to examine the ‘‘King of Jazz’s’’ remarks. Here, White-
man argues that as a ‘‘low’’ music,

the spirit and sophistication of jazz are far more virile, colorful, striking and
significant than the sterile intellectual products in the more serious forms of
modern music. . . .
. . . I believe that jazz is the true folk music of America. Like the country it
reflects, it is crude, blatant, vulgar, at once barbarous and sophisticated. If you
see its real nature beneath a coating of sugar it is a bit cruel, sardonic and
poignant. . . . In our popular jazz music today we are evolving a racy, idiomatic,
flexible American language all our own (New York Times, March 13, 1927).

Often, the musically ‘‘revivifying’’ effects of jazz were endorsed only so far as they
‘‘advanced’’ the boundaries of scored, classical music. For instance, in an article
printed in The Outlook (January 14, 1925), the writer challenges classical composers
to incorporate jazz ‘‘effects’’ into their works, remarking, ‘‘the new tonal combina-
tions produced by jazz orchestras. . . open up a vista of striking new effects to the
symphonic writers who dare to step beyond the bounds of the classical orchestral
combinations.’’
Indeed, endorsements of the musical aspects of jazz were generally reserved for
what came to be labeled ‘‘symphonic’’ jazz. For supporters, this written, orche-
strated form of jazz was seen as injecting new ideas and techniques into ‘‘legitimate’’
music. Whereas the small jazz band based on collective improvisation was con-
sidered ‘‘crude’’, the jazz ‘‘orchestra’’, by taming the earlier ‘‘excesses’’, elevated jazz
to the status of serious art. Thus it was compositions written for and performed by
twenty to thirty piece orchestras, such as Whiteman’s, that lifted jazz out of its
degrading past. Even Carl Engel, while explicitly defining ‘‘good’’ jazz by its
improvisational features, lauded the work of Jerome Kern as its exemplar.13
13
Engel points to Kern’s The Magic Melody as a turning point in the development of American pop-
ular music and ‘‘good’’ jazz. Some of the works most often cited by contemporaries as models of sym-
phonic jazz include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Zez Confrey’s Kitten on the Keys, and Igor
Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps.
 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131 125

The transgression of ‘‘legitimate’’ musical conventions derived from the European

classical tradition was met with considerable opposition as well. As the following
discussion will reveal, for detractors ‘‘mixing’’ jazz and classical elements was viewed
as a pollution of sacred aesthetic standards. Far from a vitalizing force, these
examples illustrate the framing of jazz as a music that adversely effects, or is harmful
to, established artistic practices.
In an article entitled, ‘‘COMPOSER SEES JAZZ AS FEVERISH NOISE’’, the
New York Times (September 3, 1929) reported the views of Sir Hamilton Harty,
conductor of the Hallé Orchestra. In these remarks, Sir Hamilton indicates his dis-
gust over jazz’s alleged transgression of classical music conventions.

When future historians look upon the present epoch they will call it a machine
age of music. . . . They will see that in an age that considers itself musically
enlightened we permit gangs of jazz barbarians to debase and mutilate our his-
tory of classical music and listen with patience to impudent demands to justify
its filthy desecration.

Dr. Frank Damrosch, director of the Institute of Musical Art, offered a similar
assessment of the miscegenation of jazz and classical music:

Attempts have been made to ‘‘elevate’’ jazz by stealing phrases from the classi-
cal composers and vulgarizing them by the rhythms and devices used in jazz.
This is not only an outrage on beautiful music, but also a confession of poverty,
of inability to compose music of any value on the part of jazz writers (Etude,
August, 1924).

In another striking example, little doubt is left as to jazz’s impact on aesthetic

standards. We read that, far from offering composers and music enthusiasts a reju-
venating source of musical expression, jazz wrecks the very aesthetic order on which
‘‘true’’ music is based.
In its common manifestations jazz is riot, incoordination, incoherence. It helps to
destroy and to negative [sic] hard-won and proved aesthetic values, to make disorder
or discretion out of order and concretion. Thus, both in itself and in its larger rela-
tionships, it illustrates the principle of discretion or anti-concretion, and in so far as
it conforms to these specifications is false and evil, and is doomed to a short-lived
existence. It is out of kelter with the nature of things, with that aesthetic order
which. . . is basic to Being (‘‘Jazz—Debit and Credit,’’ The Musical Quarterly,
October, 1929).
These passages depict jazz as a music that ‘‘debases’’ and ‘‘vulgarizes’’ the artistic
standards on which ‘‘legitimate’’ music is built. Whether charged with ‘‘stealing’’ from
the classical composers or denigrated for its destruction of aesthetic values, jazz’s
transgressions of artistic boundaries are here defined as a threat not only to ‘‘art’’, but
to the basic aesthetic order on which ‘‘Being’’ itself is dependent. Jazz is ‘‘disorder’’,
and as such its breaching of artistic boundaries evokes a discursive frame rooted in
pollution metaphors. Positioned as a ‘‘low’’ music, jazz is defined in opposition to the
126 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131

artistic standards that allegedly form the basis of ‘‘true’’ music. Thus, its transgression
of ‘‘sacred’’ artistic boundaries symbolizes a ‘‘desecration’’ of the aesthetic values that
divide the cultured from the uncultured, the refined from the grotesque.
Certainly, the reactions of members of the music ‘‘establishment’’ to the growing
popularity of jazz could be interpreted as motivated primarily by instrumental concerns.
It follows that, in an effort to stave off this ‘‘threat’’, there would be an attempt to
influence public opinion as to the allegedly inferior quality of the music. None-
theless, in the popular press they often adopted a narrative theme similar to that
used by clerics and civic leaders. Sharing ideological concerns, both ‘‘fronts’’ (Leo-
nard, 1970) seized upon jazz as a boundary transgressive cultural practice whose
impact was not confined solely to aesthetics narrowly defined. Indeed, the effects of
jazz’s ‘‘filthy desecration’’ of ‘‘beautiful music’’ extended to ‘‘its larger relationships’’
so much so that it was ‘‘out of kelter with the nature of things,’’ the very foundation
of life itself.
To more fully understand the dynamics of this symbolic contention it is important to
locate it within key institutional and normative shifts that were taking place alongside
the diffusion of jazz. Perhaps most significant was the ongoing transformation of lei-
sure from an indulgence in ‘‘carnivalesque’’ activities to the emotionally restrained
pursuit of edification, moral improvement, and social standing. The ‘‘pacification’’ of
audiences had been underway for little more than 50 years, initiated by a series of
institutional changes and a dramatic alteration in the behavioral code governing
‘‘classical’’ music, theatrical, and operatic performances (DiMaggio 1982, 1992; Levine,
1988; McConachie, 1990). Certainly, jazz was not alone in challenging the recently
erected boundaries of ‘‘polite’’ public decorum within the field of leisure. From vau-
deville and nickelodeons, to the taxi-dance hall and ethnic-based forms of popular
entertainment, urban leisure pursuits were a contested terrain on which the struggle to
shape and control the nation’s morality was waged (Peiss, 1986; Rosenzweig, 1983).
Arguably, however, jazz cabarets and speakeasies occupied the spotlight in the
efforts to curb the ‘‘excesses’’ that allegedly characterized these popular working-
and middle-class forms of urban entertainment.14 Indeed, live performances of jazz
were subjected to ongoing censorship efforts. For instance, in 1927, under the
direction of a ‘‘jazz czar’’, the National Association of Orchestra Leaders estab-
lished a committee to investigate nightclubs and hotels in an attempt to stamp out
‘‘vulgar’’ dance music—‘‘the kind of jazz that tends to create indecent dancing’’.15
14
For an interesting contemporary account of the social conditions prevailing in the urban dance hall
see Paul Cressey’s (1932), The Taxi-Dance Hall: A Sociological Study in Commercialized Recreation and
City Life. Allied with the Progressive Movement, Cressey reports on the ‘‘demoralizing’’ effects that stem
from the public dance hall, tracing their development to the character of personal relationships produced
by the modern urban environment. See also Bowman and Lambin (1925). By 1928, as a result of the
efforts of organizations like New York City’s Committee of Fourteen and Chicago’s Illinois Vigilance
Association, 28 states had passed laws that regulated not only the licensing and physical condition of
dance halls, but also the types of dances that could be performed. Moreover, in an attempt to control
‘‘indecent’’ physical expressiveness, some 100 cities enacted legislation that established the boundaries of
acceptable bodily movements (Gardner, 1929).
15
Among the association’s members was Paul Whiteman, Vincent Lopez, Ben Bernie, B. A. Rolfe,
Ernie Golden, and Roger Kahn, son of the financier, Otto Kahn (see the New York Times, April 6, 1927).
 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131 127

The significance of this challenge was tied to ongoing efforts to construct and
reinforce the boundaries that divided and protected the high arts from popular cul-
tural expressions (DiMaggio 1982; Levine 1988). While the former now required a
‘‘distanced’’ discipline and attitude of reverence to comprehend, the ‘‘ease’’ with
which popular music is consumed did not require a detached stance to enjoy. With
its accentuated rhythms, emphasis on improvisation, and ability to inspire physically
expressive behaviors on the part of both the musicians and the audience, jazz was
often cast as a ‘‘simple’’, lowbrow music that appealed to the pleasures of the body
not the mind. As such, it subverted the recently created behavioral and emotional
standards demanded by ‘‘respectable’’ musical pursuits (Peretti, 1992: 100–119;
Ogren, 1989; cf. Erenberg, 1981: 113–145). And herein lies a central aspect of the
broader implications of the contention over jazz: With aesthetic standards symboli-
cally upholding behavioral and moral codes, jazz was more than a ‘‘vulgar’’ music.
Its penetration into the cultural mainstream also carried a transgression of the
boundaries that defined a ‘‘civilized’’ social order. Thus, in jeopardizing the artistic
standards on which classical music is based, jazz symbolized an ‘‘attack on a mor-
ality’’, a world view that legitimated both the superiority of a distinct cultural aes-
thetic and the privileged position of those who embodied it (Becker, 1974: 773).
As a result, jazz, as a commodity, was subject to yet another attack. For some
cultural elites, commodification necessarily led to an ‘‘undisciplined’’, and therefore
base, enjoyment of the arts (Gans, 1974). As an outgrowth of commercialism, jazz
was a ‘‘debased’’, if not ‘‘dangerous’’, form of entertainment. Here, we find con-
temporary opponents of jazz such as the music critic Ernest Newman declaring that
‘‘jazz is not an art, but an industry; the whirring of a standardized machine endlessly
turning out a standardized article.’’16 As ‘‘standardized’’ products catering to the
audience’s (uncultured) tastes, the popular arts are viewed as incapable of realizing
the sublime aesthetic vision of unique, individual artists. Instead, their intent is to
appeal to a mass market by creating and/or satisfying consumer demand. With sur-
vival dependent on profitability, the ensuing necessity to capture a broad audience
becomes a marker for the alleged vulgar appeal of the popular arts. Conversely, with
the reinvention of the patronage system in the form of elite, non-profit cultural
institutions, high culture was insulated from the fluctuating demands of the emer-
ging mass market (DiMaggio, 1982, 1992).
Moreover, with the introduction of new sound technologies, jazz’s alleged sub-
version of musical standards—and with them, the newly constructed boundaries
separating high art and popular culture—was further intensified. Not only was jazz
being performed for live audiences, at times despite the restrictions of city ordi-
nances, in the ‘‘marginal’’ settings of urban nightclubs and cabarets. To the dismay
of some and the delight of others, the accessibility and immediacy of musical
experience made possible by the mass consumption of phonographs and radios
compounded the impact and ‘‘dangers’’ allegedly inherent in the music. Defined by
supporters and detractors alike as ‘‘reckless’’ and ‘‘grotesque’’, concerns over the
social and cultural implications of the aural innovations resonated all the more

16
‘‘ACCURSED JAZZ—AN ENGLISH VIEW,’’ Literary Digest, October 2, 1926.
128 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131

forcefully with jazz. The music’s invasion of the private home via these powerful, yet
uncharted and largely unregulated, sound technologies left newly formed cultural
boundaries and the broader social distinctions they reaffirmed all the more vulner-
able to both the threat and promise of jazz’s purportedly subversive effects.

5. Conclusion

Work within the sociology of the arts often sidesteps the issue of aesthetics (Hen-
nion, 1997; Zolberg, 1990). However, in doing so, an important aspect of the
meanings invested in cultural objects and practices is left unexamined. In this study I
attempted to underscore the relevant musical features of jazz while arguing that the
meanings assigned to these features are not fixed or inherent in the music. Early jazz
was both applauded and condemned for its alleged challenge to ‘‘legitimate’’ musical
practices. But while the reactions to the music may appear exaggerated in hindsight,
it is this very quality of the discourse that calls out for explanation. In particular, it
allows us to recognize that the contention spurred by the penetration of jazz into the
cultural mainstream was not a response to a completely ‘‘innocent’’ form of cultural
expression. Instead, reactions voiced real tensions stemming from the internal
properties of jazz and their link to aural innovations and normative shifts taking
place within the world of leisure.
For instance, while orchestral concerts in the first half of the nineteenth-century
often featured ‘‘mixed’’ musical programs that offered their audiences both classical
selections and contemporary, popular works, by the turn of century this practice
was condemned (Levine, 1988). In turn, ‘‘stealing phrases’’ from classical composers
became an indictable crime as well as a contribution to musical innovation. Simi-
larly, when debating the impact of jazz, supporters and critics alike often pointed to
the music’s improvisational and rhythmic features while defining them in opposi-
tional relation to the properties that were said to characterize classical music. In
turn, assigning either positive or negative value to these elements was not a simple
reflection of jazz’s inherent aesthetic merit or purely a matter of musical debate.
Rather, it marked a ‘‘political’’ conflict waged on a new battleground that sprang
from the recently institutionalized distinction between the high arts and the popular
or ‘‘low’’ arts.
In the case of early jazz, its subversion of musical boundaries was amplified by the
introduction of sound technologies that revolutionized the listening experience. Pho-
nograph and radios afforded individuals unprecedented control over what they heard
and when they heard it. Of course, not only was the consumption of music radically
altered. The new aural were also powerful media for the diffusion of musical styles. In
one night’s performance, a band or orchestra could broadcast to an audience whose
size would have taken months to reach prior to the spread of radio.
The ready availability of mechanical means of sound reproduction coincided with
a broader struggle over the meaning of leisure. Thus, at the same time jazz was
gaining a national audience, leisure pursuits that embraced physical and emotion-
ally-expressive displays were in some quarters defined as a demoralizing danger. For
 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131 129

moral and cultural entrepreneurs aligned with the ‘‘elite’’ project of uplifting and
edifying the masses, leisure was to be an additional arena for instilling the personal
vigilance and intellectual detachment necessary for understanding works in the
recently established high arts. With the legitimacy of the boundaries dividing high
from popular art dependent on, and symbolically reinforced through, the demeanor
demanded of performers and audiences, the ‘‘abandon’’ that purportedly character-
ized jazz and its performance proved to be a site of controversy. Lauded by some
observers, such musical transgressions were seen by others as ‘‘violations’’ leading to
destructive consequences.
My narrow aim has been to analyze the discourse that framed the meaning of
early jazz while remaining sensitive both to aesthetic and non-aesthetic factors
that formed the backdrop for the music’s contentious reception. More generally,
however, I have attempted to further our understanding of the construction of
the ‘‘meaning of cultural objects.’’ The process through which such objects are
endowed with public meaning is exceptionally complex and multilayered.
Responses to music, and cultural expressions in general, are indeed a ‘‘reflec-
tion’’ of its content-but only in part. A song’s lyrics, accentuation of rhythm,
use of harmony and melody can and do shape audiences’ reactions-reactions
based, in part, on explicit or implicit comparisons made within and across
musical genres. However, accounting for internal, aesthetic features can carry us
only so far in our efforts to examine the meanings invested in music. Who is
performing the music and where it is played also affect audience reactions. Such
‘‘external’’ factors play a determinative role in the listening experience by shap-
ing the composition of the audience as well as by sanctioning particular types of
behaviors.
Moreover, while the medium might not be the entire message, it nevertheless can
profoundly affect reactions to music. The mediators through which music is experi-
enced can determine its authenticity (Hennion, 1997) as well as its potential for
canonization. Equally important, it can spark public accolade and outcry. As I
argued above, the conflict surrounding early jazz was due in no small measure to its
mass dissemination through phonographs and radio. These innovations revolutio-
nized the experience of, and possibilities for music. In doing so, they heightened the
significance of music as a terrain on which the struggle to legitimate competing
world views would be waged.
In a comparative vein, the conflict over rap during the late 1980s and early 1990s
should be understood not only as a product of its ‘‘harmful’’ lyrics (Binder, 1993),
but also as a result of the music industry’s then-newly adopted use of videos as a
primary means for marketing. Then and now, rap videos repeatedly depict young
black males as angry, criminal, and oversexed. This portrayal of black males has a
long-standing history in American culture. During the period of rap’s entrance into
the musical mainstream, videos were not the only arena that exploited this imagery.
Indeed, George Bush’s successful bid for the presidency in 1988 was based on an
overtly racist campaign that linked the nation’s rising crime rate to dangerous,
uncontrollable black males. Again, the arguments over rap’s alleged harmfulness
were embedded in, and shaped by, broader social and political dynamics.
130 S. Appelrouth / Poetics 31 (2003) 117–131

In the end, no matter the genre, or whether its diffusion is met with a controversial
reception or unanimous approval, the meaning of music is understood best as a mix
of the song and the setting. The task is to identify and analyze the multiple factors
that lend musical practices their unique power to move audiences and ignite public
contention.

Acknowledgements

I thank the anonymous reviewers of Poetics for their helpful comments on drafts
of the paper. I also am grateful to Chris Bonastia, Edward W. Lehman, Richard
Maisel, Dennis H. Wrong, and Michael Young for their efforts on this project. I
thank Stella Theodoulou, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at
CSUN, for funding during the final stages of preparing this paper.

Appendix. Primary sources: magazines and journals

The following is a list of magazines and journals indexed by the Readers’ Guide to
Periodical Literature with at least one article listed under the ‘‘Jazz music’’ heading:
American Magazine, American Mercury, Atlantic Monthly, Arts & Decoration,
Bookman, Colliers, Current Opinion, Dial, Etude, Forum, Golden Book, Indepen-
dent, Ladies Home Journal, Literary Digest, Living Age, Harper’s, Musical Quar-
terly, Musician, Nation, New Republic, North American, Outlook, Overland,
Pictorial Review, Playground, Popular Mechanic, Radio Broadcast, Review of
Reviews, Saturday Evening Post, Saturday Review of Literature, Scribner’s Maga-
zine, Sunset, Survey.

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Scott Appelrouth is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Northridge. His
main interests are in cultural sociology with a particular focus on discourse and the construction of
symbolic boundaries. He is currently co-editing a 3 volume series on classical and contemporary socio-
logical theory to be published by Sage/Pine Forge.