{"id":8866,"date":"2024-10-23T21:48:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T02:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=8866"},"modified":"2024-10-23T21:50:57","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T02:50:57","slug":"old-man-jazz-praise-or-shade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2024\/10\/23\/old-man-jazz-praise-or-shade\/","title":{"rendered":"“Old Man Jazz” — Praise or Shade?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cOld Man Jazz : An Eccentric Fox-Trot Song\u201d<\/a> written by Gene Quaw hasn\u2019t seen many performances in recent years, and there\u2019s good reason why the<\/span> first recording that comes up is from 1920<\/span><\/a>. Melodic and rhythmic lines in the opening of the tune veils the main character, Old Man Jazz, in mystery, and the associations and implications of the lyrics throughout the song create a tension between appreciation for Old Man Jazz and the negative aspects to his character.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The song by Quaw seems to be riddled with messaging that \u201cOld Man Jazz\u201d is strange, in an unknowable, enchanting way. Firstly, the subtitle \u201cAn Eccentric Fox Trot\u201d tells us that this is a dance, however, it\u2019s not a typical or conventional dance. The opening introduces our main character, Old Man Jazz, who seemingly \u201carrives in town\u201d and brings about a performance that causes the townspeople, or presumably dancers, to dance. It\u2019s stated that the people like to dance, as expressed by the lyrics :\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c Old Man Jazz,<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe music\u2019s great<\/span>\r\n\r\nOld Man Jazz,<\/span>\r\n\r\nDon\u2019t hesitate,<\/span>\r\n\r\nEv\u2019ry body likes to do the RazzmaTazz\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
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Even going further as to mention that the townspeople are sad when he leaves :\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cOld man Jazz has gone away from town<\/span>\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s why ev\u2019rybody wears a frown\u201d<\/span><\/pre>\n
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It\u2019s clear that this Old Man Jazz has a skill that few others have, an ability to perform jazz, blues, and rag that inspires the people to dance, \u201cshiveree and shake the shimmie\u201d, and \u201csway like \u2018U\u2019 boats\u201d. However, as much as it seems the people enjoy the music that \u201cOld Man Jazz\u201d brings, it\u2019s questionable as to how the music and lyrics paint his character and music. Paralleled to the praise and encouragement for Old Man Jazz, he has a \u201creputation\u201d that is assumed and isn\u2019t further explained apart from no one caring about his reputation, implying that Old Man Jazz and\/or his band have a negative reputation. Moreover, Old Man Jazz is, later in the song, assumed to have left the town with \u201cMister Booze\u201d, which likely isn\u2019t another character, but an implication that Old Man Jazz left to drink alcohol. The lyrics additionally describe the music Old Man Jazz performs as \u201cwicked\u201d and as \u201cfunny blue notes\u201d, pointedly othering the music despite people\u2019s positive reception. These negative implications to Old Man Jazz alongside the praise for this character creates a dichotomy within the music and affects our perception of the music and the character. Should we dance and sing along? Should we feel uneasy? This tension is much like the tension we\u2019ve discussed in class surrounding Black people and Black people\u2019s music throughout history \u2013 enslaved people, in books, theater, song and other forms of entertainment, were painted as dangerous, impulsive, or unintelligent but simultaneously were cunning, clever, and skillful; Black spirituals were applauded when they were adopted to be commercialized and suit White audiences and concert performances, but needed to be rationalized as to how Black people and Black culture could have ever come up with this incomparable music that became renowned.<\/span><\/p>\n
Whether or not Gene Quaw intended to create this dichotomy within his music is not made clear; regardless, whoever \u201cOld Man Jazz\u201d may be, the music outwardly associates\u00a0 jazz, blues, and rag, all significant parts of African American culture and music, with eccentricism and problematic attributes.<\/span><\/p>\n
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For more listening :<\/p>\n
“Old Man Jazz” performed by The Elliotts provided by EMGColonel\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n
An actually recent performance of “Old Man Jazz”<\/a><\/p>\n
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\u201cOld Man Jazz : An Eccentric Fox-Trot Song\u201d written by Gene Quaw hasn\u2019t seen many performances in recent years, and there\u2019s good reason why the first recording that comes up is from 1920. Melodic and rhythmic lines in the opening … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1563],"tags":[1633,1632,885],"class_list":["post-8866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-24-mus-345b","tag-gene-quaw","tag-old-man-jazz","tag-sheet-music-consortium"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-2j0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8868,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866\/revisions\/8868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}