Tonal Hootch

"Minstrels First Exponents of Jazz, Says John Sousa"

[There has been “a lot of loose talk about jazz,” said Lieut. Comdr. John Philip Sousa, the “march king.” Jazz can be good or bad, it comes out of the minstrel tradition: “jazzbo,” “jazz it up” meant “pepping up” according to the leader of the famous “Estimable Eighty.” The word came out of the vaudeville stage just before the war, but since then jazz has entered a dark period according to Souza:]

“It entered the cocaine or ‘dope’ period; it became a factor in that line of activity which Joseph Hergesheimer in his recent novel of ‘Cytherea,’ calls ‘the rising tide of gin and orange juice.’

May I describe ‘jazz,’ in that connection, as ‘tonal hootch’?

Or, perhaps, as the substitute for real music beloved of apes, morons, half wits, ga-ga boys, koo-koo girls, deficients, cake-eaters, professional pacifists, goofs, saps and persons who should be put away for mental loitering on the highway of life?

“Thus, a good racy Americanism is made vile by association with the lower orders of what is sometimes called life. But we have jazz of the symphony hall as well as jazz of the night dive.”

[“Minstrels First Exponents of Jazz, Says John Sousa,” Washington Post, March 2, 1924 p.4.]