Debate

In Manhattan, the American League of Professional Women held a music forum luncheon last week. Two guests of honor were given the same topic: "What shall we do about jazz?" They were Dr. John Roach Straton, fundamentalist Baptist, and Marguerite d'Alvarez, Peruvian contralto. Dr. Straton rose first, bit off his words, said loudly, severely:

"We ought to consign jazz to a hotter place than this earth. . . . It is bootleg music. Let us curb it; let us put it down; let us outlaw the thing! . . . The jazz hound is the musical bandit, running amuck. You can't purify a polecat. Let us try not to reform jazz, but to stamp it out--to kill it like a rattlesnake. Good music is one of the things that charm the soul in Heaven."

Drawled Mme. d'Alvarez pleasantly: "Jazz is my reason for living in New York City. I prefer to live in New York because here I can find the inspiration of good jazz music. New York is jazz incarnate. Its architecture, its business, its life--all sparkle to a syncopated measure. . . . An honest jazz tune is better than a sermon on prohibiting anything. . . . When I die I have only one request to make. I want music at my funeral, but no dirge or mournful laments. Play only one thing and let that number be George Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue.' To me it is truly great music, and certainly it is the music that best expresses us moderns."