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The Invention of “Rhythmic Music”
Jazz, Rock, and World Music in Danish Music

Education
Master’s Thesis by Jonas Müller
Copenhagen University Department of Arts and Cultural Studies

The Invention of “Rhythmic Music”
Jazz, Rock, and World Music in Danish Music Education
Master’s Thesis by Jonas Müller

Musicology
Copenhagen University Department of Arts and Cultural Studies
Academic Advisor: Annemette Kirkegaard
Submitted: December 2008
Front cover: “David” inspired statue with electric bass. Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen
Total number of characters: 193.029
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Table of Contents
Introduction 5
Method 9
PART 1 - WHAT IS “RHYTHMIC MUSIC”? 11
Rhythmic Music Theories and Narratives: Musical and Stylistic Definitions 13
Bernhard Christensen/ Astrid Gøssel: RHYTHM vs. Rhythm and the “Rhythmic- 13
Motoric Element”
Bent Haastrup: “Jazz, Rock and Latin” and Rhythmic Improvisational Music 17
Ole Matthiessen: Popular Music and “The African Drum Ensemble Concept” 19
Henrik Sveidahl: “Jazz, Rock, Pop, Electronica” and Dynamic Cultural Meetings 22
Towards a Rhythmic Music Definition: Agreements and Contradictions 24
Anti-Western Classical Attitude 24

Casualness and Informality 25
America-Centeredness 26
Rhythm and “Swing” 27
A Definition? 27
Disagreements 27
Chronology of Rhythmic Music’s Stylistic Developments 28
PART 2: RHYTHMIC MUSIC AS IDEA – 30
CRITICAL APPROACH
The Problems of Categorising; Simplified Definitions and Historiographies 32
Defining Rhythmic Music 33

Rhythmic Music’s Concept of Broadness 34
The African Heritage of Rhythmic Music 37
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America-Centeredness: The Exclusion of European Folk Music Traditions 42
America-Centeredness: The Exclusion of European Musical Theatre Traditions 46
The Politics of “Difference”: The Exclusion of Classical Music 48
The Concept of Swing 53

Improvisation 57
The European Legacy of Jazz 58
Racialist Misunderstandings; Myths of Black Rhythm and White Fantasies 62
Colonialist Projections on Black Rhythm and “Naturalness” 64

Black Face Minstrelsy and White Inventions of Black Naturalness 66
Black music: A White Construction? 68
Rhythmic Music’s “Ghetto-Romanticism” and Blacks’ Civil Rights 70
Conclusion 75
Bibliography 78
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Introduction
My acquaintance with Rhythmic Music began after I had finished high school and had decided to
pursue some kind of formal education in music performance. Being a pianist, I had been brought up
initially in the Western European classical tradition and had mastered that discipline to the extent
that I managed to place high in a prestigious classical piano youth contest held in Denmark. Soon
thereafter, attending an international school in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, I, through an American
music teacher, discovered other ways to play music – jazz, which offered an insight into a whole
new world of improvisation and ensemble performance. An entirely new territory, which I had not
known before, was there in front of me, ready to be explored. I still had a strong interest in
European classical music so when the time came to choose a formal education in music
performance I had two options to choose from. One was the Royal Conservatory of Music in
Copenhagen, which was a strictly classical conventional conservatory with little or no jazz-based
music. The other was the Rhythmic Conservatory, which offered jazz, rock and pop oriented music
performance with focus on ensemble playing and improvisation. It seemed to be a choice of one
extreme to the other, especially for someone with a foot in each camp, so to speak, but the choice
was made with the latter.
This was my first real acquaintance with rhythmic music and while the education
seemed beneficial and inspiring, I soon found the school’s idea of rhythmic music a bit narrow
minded, especially with their anti-classical attitude, which I soon discovered permeated the
philosophy of the place. I decided to see what the department of Musicology at the Copenhagen
University had to offer and was delighted to see a whole different variety of courses that did not
seem hampered by any prejudiced mentalities. Without even being enrolled, I audited courses such
as Palestrinian style counterpoint, twelve tone composition, courses on modern music and a course
on David Bowie. I then decided that the Rhythmic Conservatory could not offer the broad range of
inspirational sources that I needed for my music making so I decided to enrol the following year so
that I eventually ended up studying at two places simultaneously.
It was at the university I experienced my second encounter with rhythmic music. At a
piano evaluation exam I was asked to select a piano piece and perform it before the piano
coordinator at the time. I was going to play a piece by Billy Strayhorn entitled “Blood Count”, a
beautiful jazz ballad with sophisticated harmonies with an almost French impressionistic flavour.
Moreover, I had composed an introduction which was almost like a Ravel or Scriabin pastiche.
Before I began to play, the evaluators wanted to know whether this was a rhythmic or a classical
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piece. I really did not know how to answer, because I thought the piece was neither of them. It was
not classical because it was a piece belonging to the jazz tradition and it contained some elements of
improvisation and on-the-spot embellishments that are typically unheard of in classic music. On the
other hand, I didn’t think it was rhythmic music because it was too sophisticated, too serious, too
European and it didn’t really swing or make the listeners want to snap their fingers or yell out
“woo” or “yeah” or any other American talk-show like responses, which I always felt was common
in rhythmic music performance. However, my answer that I didn’t think it was either was not
acceptable, so I had to break down and choose the category “rhythmic music”. Since then,
numerous encounters similar to that experience have taken place, for example choosing between
“rhythmic” and “classical” chorus conducting at the university and being compelled to choose
whether to submit applications for work or study grants to the Danish Arts Council as either a
“rhythmic” or a “classical” artist.
My intention with this paper is to try to gain a deeper understanding of the term rhythmic music by
investigating its history and the way the term has been utilized and defined by various people in
various contexts at various times. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part investigates
what the term actually means and how it has been defined musically and stylistically. This is done
by presenting, in chronological order, selected rhythmic music narratives and pointing out what they
have in common and also how they contradict each other. The second part then critically examines
the narratives and points out the areas in the narratives where the argumentation is based on thin
evidence, is oversimplified, or simply – for whatever reason – loses sight of crucial aspects which,
when brought into consideration, could potentially shatter the argument of the narrative at its core.
This is done so that one has an opportunity to objectively look at a term like rhythmic music and
find out for oneself whether or not such a term has any validity and whether or not such a term
should even be used in the first place.
Part one, the presentation and discussion of the rhythmic music narratives, starts out in
its first chapter by presenting the main aspects of four selected rhythmic music narratives. Each
narrative provides us with information of how rhythmic music has been defined musically and
stylistically. These are the narratives of the pioneering music pedagogues, Bernhard Christensen
and Astrid Gøssel, who laid the foundation for rhythmic music discourse. The three other narratives
are those of Bent Haastrup, one of the first persons to teach rhythmic music at the Copenhagen
University and the first president of the Rhythmic Music Conservatory; Ole Matthiessen, who
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taught music history at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory; and Henrik Sveidahl, the current
president of the Rhythmic Music Conservatory. In the next chapter, I then attempt to analyze the
narratives in order to come up with a definition of rhythmic music based on what the narratives have
in common but also look at some aspects where they are in disagreement with each other. I then, at
the end of this chapter, map out a chronology of rhythmic music’s stylistic developments.
Part two looks at rhythmic music as idea and examines the validity and legitimacy of
those ideas extrapolated from the narratives presented in part one as well as from other relevant
sources. In a sequence of three chapters, the idea of rhythmic music and its etymology and meaning
are fundamentally questioned and criticised to the point where one may question whether the term
can be used in any meaningful way, unless for pure historic reference. The first chapter looks at the
problems one encounters when trying to categorize and define a term such as rhythmic music and
exposes the areas in rhythmic music discourse where their definitions are based on too thin evidence
or are oversimplified. The chapter looks at the problems related to rhythmic music discourse’s
avoidance of properly defining the term and consequently that it discusses the problems concerning
its all-inclusiveness or “broadness-concept”. The chapter then looks at rhythmic music discourse’s
way of plotting out rhythmic music’s antecedents, its way of trying to pinpoint specific African and
European influences, and points out the problems of such attempts and how oversimplification can
lead to an untrue and distorted picture of what is really at stake. I then continue in a similar vein and
discuss rhythmic music discourse’s America centred-ness and its exclusion of European non-
classical music. Rhythmic music discourse’s geographic limitation to the Americas, I argue, is an
oversimplification of something that is more complex, and brings attention to (black) American
music styles heavily indebted to, or at least sharing many similarities to not only various European
folk music, but also its musical theatre traditions, often avoided in rhythmic music discourse.
The next chapter looks specifically at the exclusion and deliberate distancing towards
Western classical music. As with the chapter before, the intention here is to expose rhythmic music
discourse’s tendency of oversimplification with the result that with such a view, there is a potential
to see matters in a false and distorted light. Here I look at three aspects; the concept of “swing”,
improvisation, and the European legacy of jazz, the first two being aspects where rhythmic music
discourse, in an oversimplified manner, has claimed to mark the differences between classical
music and rhythmic music. In discussing the concept of “swing”, I attempt to go deeper into some
of the aspects concerning swing and ask whether it is possible to also apply those aspects to the
world of classical music, a realm that is often criticised for lacking those elements. Here I expose
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rhythmic music discourse’s simplification in its self-avowed patent on the concept of swing by
arguing that it is possible for certain performers of classical music to also make a claim to this
concept under the right conditions.
In a similar vein, I discuss the concept of improvisation and how it is true that most
Western classical music performances lack improvisation, which marks out a tremendous difference
between the two worlds. However, by focusing on differences rather than similarities, the
similarities being, for example, past and present trends in classical music, where improvisation
actually is being practiced, rhythmic music discourse, in avoiding interest in this matter, once again
becomes oversimplified. Finally, with rhythmic music discourse’s focus on being different from
classical music, I, at the end of the chapter, draw attention to the European legacy of jazz, and point
to the problem of rhythmic music discourse failing to acknowledging jazz as a unique music culture
separate from other black American styles. In acknowledging jazz’s European legacy, we then turn
the focus around, so that we see the similarities rather than the differences and therefore gain a
clearer picture of what jazz and classical music actually represent.
The last chapter deals primarily with the earlier rhythmic music discourse, that of
Bernhard Christensen and Astrid Gøssel, and attempts to examine racial misunderstandings in their
otherwise progressive theories. The idea of “naturalness”, central to their discourse, is examined in
the light of colonialist white supremacist tendency of precisely using “naturalness” to stigmatise so
called “primitive” societies as backwards and therefore deny them social access to civil society. It
goes on to question the discourse’s seemingly uncritical statements that black American jazz
musicians were representatives of something “natural” or even unspoiled childish by bringing in the
aspect of the American minstrelsy legacy. Here I ask the question, which is not asked by rhythmic
music discourse, whether or not black American “naturalness” is in fact a white invention caused in
part by an almost century-long minstrelsy and “darkie”-legacy, a legacy enforcing negative racial
stereotypes of the same “naturalness” mentioned in rhythmic music discourse. I finally call attention
to another aspect of racial issues in America, the aspect of black people’s civil rights and their
struggle for acceptance into American society. Here, rhythmic music discourse’s “ghetto-
romanticism”, its idealisation of oppressed cultures secluded from white civil society, found both in
the earlier and later discourses, is pitted against the issue of black civil rights. I attempt to show that
when rhythmic music discourse does not take black civil rights and their struggle for equality into
account, it loses sight of certain crucial points and the discourse becomes simplified and one
dimensional.
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Method
An aspect of this paper is that I use myself as one of the primary sources. I utilize my extensive
experience as a professional musician and observer of music during residencies in Europe, East
Africa, and the United States. In that sense, I sometimes consider myself an “insider” in an
anthropological sense but am also able to be an “outsider” because in the last two or three years I
have seen myself withdraw from the competitive musician’s world and being more immersed in the
academic world. Therefore, for example, I am able to take an abstract and difficult subject such as
the concept of “swing”, which is a recurrent theme in this paper, and talk about it both from an
insider’s and outsider’s perspective. This duality of insider and outsider, I believe, is a great
advantage because often it seems that academics and musicians are either one or the other. The
academic is typically the “outsider”, who sees the subject matter with somewhat neutral and
objective eyes and is with his/her acquired theoretical tools and knowledge able to intelligently
reflect on the problems and issues concerning the subject. Since an academic is not immersed in the
music business, he/she can write from a fairly unbiased mind-set as opposed to the musician/artist
who, in the hard and competitive world of music, consciously or unconsciously seeks any
opportunity to strengthen his/her position in the world. That is at least something one must have in
mind when reading autobiographies, articles etc. written by musicians and artists. However, when
this self-promotion bias is taken into consideration, musicians often have insights that academics, in
their sometimes unpractical intellectualism, lack. Unlike academics, who study and write about
music, musicians and artists, who are creators of music, are music in a certain sense. It is not unlike
the difference between someone who studies Tibetan Buddhism and someone who actually
practices it: There are insights to be gained from both parties.
The other aspect about using myself as a primary source for this paper is that I was a
student at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, undoubtedly the central forum for
rhythmic music discourse dealt with in this paper. I have also, for a number of years, been
connected to the Department of Musicology at the Copenhagen University, both as an
undergraduate and currently as a graduate student and have had direct experiences with issues
concerning rhythmic music there. The experiences as a student in those institutions is therefore part
of my “field work” for this paper, although it probably would be considered informal field work.
Nonetheless, I have been able to obtain practical first-hand experience with rhythmic music and to
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follow the development of it during a five year period. (I attended the Rhythmic Music
Conservatory from 1996 to 2001 and studied at the university from 1997 to 98 and again from 2005
to the present)
The formal field work for this paper consists of various interviews, which I conducted
specifically for this assignment. Since the literature on rhythmic music is somewhat scant, I sought
out some of the key persons, who have been directly involved in developing and shaping rhythmic
music discourse and interviewed them in order to obtain relevant information. It was important with
the interviews to try to gain a varied perspective on rhythmic music within its own sphere and also
to chart out a broad chronology in order to trace the development of rhythmic music discourse
through time. Finally, but of great importance, I also sought out some persons outside the rhythmic
music circle, whom I knew would have a more sceptical view concerning the idea of rhythmic
music in order to get some different perspective on the subject matter.
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Part 1: What is “Rhythmic Music”?
The term rhythmic music is an exclusively Danish term with an exception of a Norwegian
adaptation of the term, due most likely to a close cultural and linguistic connection between
Denmark and Norway. Most importantly, it is a term that is associated primarily with music
education and therefore typically not used by professional musicians and the general music
industry.1 It is a term that was constructed with strong cultural-political intentions at a time when
the classical music establishment was a seemingly dominant and impenetrable entity in Danish
cultural life. Aside from the cultural-political aspect of the term, I have been interested in mapping
out what the term actually means in a strictly musical and stylistic sense. Foreigners, for whom the
term is unknown, coming to Denmark wanting to study music constantly grapple with this question
as do the institutions trying to explain to the foreigners what it actually means.2
Through interviews and research, I have tried to get an idea of what a definition of
rhythmic music could look like, but finding many inconsistencies and contradictions within the
number of people who have used the term in an institutional setting, I have quickly realized that any
attempt to find a definition is difficult. Instead, I have been interested in mapping out how different
people have used the term at different times and with what intensions. Although the term rhythmic
music is used widely throughout Denmark in various institutions, it is my impression that the term
has been most extensively utilized, defined, and developed at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in
Copenhagen, and that this place should be regarded as the term’s epicentre. That is why most of the
rhythmic music narratives, which I will present below, are linked to that institution.
This part consists of two chapters. The first chapter is a presentation of four selected narratives and
the second extrapolates this information in an attempt to come up with a rhythmic music definition,
as far as that is possible. The selected narratives are, first, the narratives of the pioneering music
pedagogues, Bernhard Christensen and Astrid Gøssel who represent the beginning of rhythmic
music discourse. After that, I present the later rhythmic music narratives more connected with the
Rhythmic Music Conservatory represented by Bent Haastrup, the first president of the Rhythmic
Music Conservatory, Ole Matthiessen, the music history teacher at the Rhythmic Music
1
Interview with Karsten Simonsen March 28th 2008 and Olav Harsløf March 6th 2008
2
The current head of the Rhythmic Conservatory, Henrik Sveidahl, told me in an interview that trying to explain to
international students what Rhythmic Music is poses a constant challenge.
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Conservatory, and finally Henrik Sveidahl, the current president of the Rhythmic Music
Conservatory.
The second chapter takes the information from those narratives and sums up the ideas
they have in common, so that we get a sense of having some sort of definition of rhythmic music.
From the narratives, I deduce four main characteristics in rhythmic music discourse, an anti-
Western classical music attitude, a casualness or informality, a clear America-centrism, and a focus
on rhythm and “swing”. I also examine some points where the narratives disagree with each other
and therefore point out the difficulties in defining the term. Finally, in order to gain an overview of
rhythmic music discourse’s developments through time, I provide a map of how rhythmic music
discourse has defined itself stylistically, in chronological sequence, from its beginning in the 1930’s
till the present.
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Rhythmic Music Theories and Narratives: Musical and Stylistic Definitions
I have selected four different theories or narratives, which have been deliberately selected in order
to cover the entire life span of the idea of rhythmic music in chronological order from the 1930’s till
present. The first theory or narrative is what I perceive as the foundational rhythmic music narrative.
These are the theories of Bernhard Christensen and Astrid Gøssel, who were the pioneers of the
idea of rhythmic music and who laid the foundation for later rhythmic music discourse in the
institutional world starting in the 1970’s. Their theories appear in Danish cultural discourse in the
early 1930’s. The second narrative, Bent Haastrup, represents the early phase of the solidification of
rhythmic music as an official term and its entrance in the Copenhagen University curriculum as well
as serving as the foundation of the Rhythmic Music Conservatory. The third narrative, Ole
Matthiessen, provides us with a more concise and detailed definition and sees rhythmic music from
an historic and sociological perspective because of Matthiessen’s expertise as a music historian.
Henrik Sveidahl provides us with a fourth narrative, which is the most up to date but at the same
time gives us an idea of the chronological development of the term within the more than twenty
year life span of the Rhythmic Music Conservatory, of which Sveidahl has been a part of from the
beginning till now.
Bernhard Christensen/ Astrid Gøssel: RHYTHM vs. Rhythm and the “Rhythmic-Motoric Element”
Before the term rhythmic music was used as an official term in the cultural-political and
institutional world around the late 1960’s and 1970’s, the roots of the term started – it would seem
safe to assume – with the pioneering alternative music pedagogy of Bernhard Christensen and
Astrid Gøssel, which began in the 1930’s. Both Christensen and Gøssel were undoubtedly regarded
as important pioneers in the field of rhythmic music, especially within the Rhythmic Music
Conservatory circle many years later.3 In fact, Christensen’s music school in Rødovre during the
1950’s and 60’s was sometimes nicknamed “Bernhard’s Rhythmic Conservatory” by his students.4
Christensen and Gøssel were connected with the culture-radical milieu in the 1930’s, which also
consisted of Svend Møller Kristensen and author, architect, and critic Poul Henningsen. Seeing
3
See, for example, Moseholm, Erik (1996) p. 12; Hagen, Aage (1996) p. 69
4
Interview with Leif Falk in Lyhne, Erik (2004) p. 123
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American jazz and also “primitive”5 world cultures as a revitalising alternative to the all-dominating
stiff and rigid European classical music culture, Christensen and Gøssel began to design and
establish a music pedagogy specifically aimed at children, which distanced itself radically from
European classical music pedagogy. The music pedagogy’s main principles were based on the
philosophy that European classical music’s strictness, lack of rhythmic freedom and improvisation
were ill suited to the children’s supposedly “natural” rhythmic sense and natural urge to improvise.
The pedagogy sought to revive a holistic approach to body-muscular awareness as well as
revitalising the aspects of improvisation and spontaneous creativity, which, according to Gøssel and
Christensen, had both been suppressed in Western culture in the course of time. For Gøssel and
Christensen, it was important to aim their pedagogy at the children because they, unlike adults, had
not yet been exposed to the conformity of Western civilization.
Both Christensen and Gøssel had had formal Western music training and Christensen
had studied music at both the music conservatory and at the university in Copenhagen. Through his
studies at the university, Christensen had discovered “primitive music”, through the ethnographic
field work of E. M. Hornbostel and other “comparative musicologists”. At a time when 19th century
colonialist racist thought seemed still to be engrained in Western society, Christensen and Gøssel
seemed to want to reverse the mentality by offering an anti-evolutionist view contrary to that of the
seemingly dominating evolutionist white supremacy. To put it simply, evolutionist white supremacy
understands that white Western civilization is the finest achievement of mankind by virtue of its
complex and sophisticated design and “primitive cultures”, often specified as African tribal
societies, are inferior or at best a kind of indicator for how Western civilization started out before it
became ennobled and civilized – a sort of evolutionary “missing link”.6
Gøssel and Christensen had an antithetical view, arguing that Western civilization had
caused man to move away from human aesthetics that were universally more “natural”. In music,
these universally natural traits, which could be seen in many “primitive” non-western societies,
constituted, first of all, an integrated relationship between music and everyday life, but also more
importantly, a strong connection between music and the human body. These, according to
5
Due to its unfortunate racialist associations, and because there is no such thing as “primitive” people or cultures, this
term has been abandoned in post-colonial discourse. I use the term in quotation marks because Christensen and Gøssel,
belonging to an older generation, actually use that term.
6
See, for example, G. W. F. Hegel’s clearly evolutionist white supremacist attitude, typical of 19th century European
thought: “What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the
conditions of mere nature” (G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History (Dover: 1956) s. 99 cited in Taiwo, Olufemi
(1998) p. 10)
14
Christensen, were precisely the aesthetics that Western music, through its civilizing crusade, had
oppressed in its own society and culture. According to this view, Western classical music is seen as
an alienation and deviation from “natural” universal human aesthetics. The non-western musician’s
integrated body-muscular awareness, which Christensen calls the “rhythmic-motoric element”, is
what differentiates the “primitive” musician from the Western classical musician, with the result
that contrary to the Western mind-set, the “primitive” musician has a stronger sense of rhythm and
“swing”, a richer tone, and possesses a natural ability to improvise, all of which has disappeared in
Western culture due to the civilizing process.
This civilizing process and therefore the suppression of natural “primitive” aesthetics
has, according to Christensen, taken place, for example with the Christian church’s banning of
Europe’s surviving pagan rituals of ecstatic drumming and dancing during the Middle Ages, with
the European aristocracy’s clothing trends, such as corsets and dresses that limited free and natural
body movements, as well as with the increasingly mechanised industrial society’s lack of bodily
expression. Slightly echoing Max Weber’s observation about the Western world’s gradual
rationalisation process,7 Western music therefore, according to Christensen, has moved away from a
universal “naturalness” seen in many non-westernized societies. This has been done by evolving
from an exclusively oral improvisatory tradition integrated into everyday life to a literary,
mathematically metric, rationalised non-improvised art form, removed from everyday life as an
independent, non-integrated, stratified, and elitist art form.8
With the popularisation of black American jazz in the 1920’s and 1930’s, Christensen
and Gøssel spotted an art form that, in their view, revived or maintained those valuable natural
“primitive” aesthetics. Through interviewing black jazz musicians while passing through
Copenhagen on tour and later through visits to Harlem, New York, Christensen and Gøssel
discovered a radical difference between black and white jazz musicians. The black jazz musicians
had an unquestionable musical quality that the whites did not have in terms of rhythm, “swing”,
tone quality, and, in singers, a naturally integrated relationship between song and the spoken word.
As was common in the first half of the 20th century, this difference was explained racially.9
However, in an article appearing in the Danish magazine, H.O.T. from 1934, Gøssel argued that the
difference is cultural rather than racial. According to Gøssel, black American culture is more
physically and bodily oriented than white culture and this is why the black American musician uses
7
Weber, Max (1958)
8
Christensen, Bernhard (1983) Ch. 7, 8
9
A surprisingly late example of this racialism is seen in Rudi Blesh’s They All Played Ragtime. Blesh, Rudi (1960) p. 9
15
all the muscles in the body compared to whites, who tend to use isolated muscle groups. This black
culturally integrated physicality explains, according to Gøssel, the black American jazz musician’s
richer tone, in terms of colour, breath, and life. Black sonority is, to use Gøssel’s terminology,
rhythmic because the black American’s body, through his cultural upbringing, is rhythmic. This is
precisely the quality that whites, in their culture, have suppressed, due to an emphasis on
intellectual aesthetics rather than a “natural” bodily oriented aesthetic.10
Here, I believe, we see some of the first uses of the term rhythmic music in Danish cultural
discourse. Gøssel actually uses the exact term rhythmic music as a term that deliberately seeks to
stand as a contrast to Western classical music: “We can put two technical forms up against each
other: a swing-technique, which belongs to the black man and is closely related to rhythmic music,
and a modern classical technique.” (my italics) She goes on to define “swing-technique” (i.e.
rhythmic music) whose “dominating principle is the meticulous connection between breath and the
body’s muscle tension” (Da: “muskulaturens formspænding”)11 Bernhard Christensen, having
collaborated closely with Gøssel during this time, similarly uses the term rhythmic music to
describe music making whose leading principles are based on a natural relationship to the breath as
well as an integrated use of the body’s muscle movements. Christensen specifically uses the term
the rhythmic-motoric element or simply upper case “RHYTHM” as opposed to just lower case
“rhythm”. RHYTHM is different from rhythm from the fact that rhythm exists in Western classical
music. However, highly rhythmic music such as the music of Bach or Stravinsky is not, in
Christensen’s view, RHYTHMIC. This is because the conservatory-trained musician performing
this music lacks the rhythmic-motoric element and uses only isolated muscle groups instead of
integrating all the muscle groups in the body.12
Gøssel and Christensen’s use of rhythmic music is clearly not limited to a specific
style of music but a way of playing, of which its leading principles emphasize the relationship to the
human breath, a holistic body-muscular awareness, and a natural willingness towards spontaneous
creation and improvisation. These principles, according to Gøssel and Christensen, are true for all
non-western music traditions, black American jazz and blues, isolated European folk music
traditions and even some early Western classical music, which had a more extensive emphasis on
spontaneous creation as compared with later classical music. Therefore, seemingly unrelated
10
Gøssel, Astrid ”Teknik og tone i jazz” (H.O.T. 1934)
11
Gøssel, Astrid ”Har den danske jazzmusiker swing?” (H.O.T. 1935 p. 10)
12
Christensen, Bernhard (1982) Ch. 11
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performers such as black American jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie and traditional zurna
players from Macedonia are both considered rhythmic performers because they both share the
leading principles of Gøssel and Christensen’s notions of rhythmic music explained above.13
There is another thing worth mentioning about Christensen’s definition of rhythmic
music which is a trait that we will often see in later definitions as well. Having a clearly anti-
classical stance and rooted in his fascination with “primitive” culture’s integration of music and
everyday life, Christensen was clearly opposed to the attempts in the early 20th century to bring jazz
into the realms of “serious” music by bringing jazz into the concert hall. In an article entitled
“Cultivated Jazz?” from 1934, Christensen argues that Paul Whiteman’s symphonic jazz, an attempt
to “cultivate” and legitimize jazz, leads jazz onto the wrong path and eventually a dead end because
it constitutes a “going back” to European romantic ideals. Jazz is, according to Christensen, more
interesting in its pure “primitive” and unschooled form, such as that of Louis Armstrong, who
represents the true folk-musician, the musician of the people, who has learned his trade outside the
institutional sphere in an informal way.14 I would add to Christensen’s definition of rhythmic music
an element of informality, unschooled-ness and “folksy-ness”, which all are seen in sharp contrast
to the Western classical performance world.
Bent Haastrup: “Jazz, Rock, and Latin” and Rhythmic Improvisational Music
Now we will start to approach the time when rhythmic music becomes an official term in the Danish
culture scene and the time when the term enters the larger institutions for the first time. One of the
key persons behind those undertakings is Bent Haastrup. Haastrup, a jazz musician, writer, and
educator, was one of the first to teach rhythmic music at the Copenhagen University after the
curriculum reforms in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. He was also one of the leading figures in the
establishment of the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, and he and Finn Roar acted as
dual presidents for the school when it opened its doors in 1985. His rhythmic music narrative is
based on an interview I conducted with him.
Haastrup defines rhythmic music’s principle essences as rhythm, “swing”, and improvisation.
Improvisation, in Haastrup’s view, is such an important element in rhythmic music that Haastrup, at
13
See illustration in Christensen, Bernhard (1983) p. 148
14
Christensen, Bernhard ”Kultiveret jazz?” H.O.T. 1934 p. 7
17
an early stage, used the term rhythmic improvisational music (RIM). Stylistically, rhythmic music
covers a broad range of styles of which the styles jazz, rock, and Latin American music were the
main styles. In fact, rhythmic music, according to Haastrup, was a term designed to avoid constantly
reciting the long list of styles within rhythmic music and instead having one word representing all
the styles. Although rhythm, swing, and improvisation, the main criteria of rhythmic music, could
be said to exist in many music traditions, including certain Western classical music, the term, in
Haastrup’s view, is geographically oriented towards the Americas and draws primary attention to
the merging of the Negroid music culture and European art music. Jazz – probably the most striking
example of the merging of Negroid and European music and with its vitally rhythmic and
improvisatory element – is therefore the primary style that Haastrup refers to as rhythmic music but
the word is designed to also encompass Latin American music as well as rock. Although
geographically limited (Haastrup seems not to want to include, for example, Balkan folk music), the
term is very flexible stylistically and does not require a precise definition because, in Haastrup’s
words, “We all know what it is.”15
What is interesting is what, in Haastrup’s view, is not rhythmic music. Here we enter dangerous
territory in terms of trying to claim whether certain music “swings”, has rhythm or how it deals with
improvisation. The number one obvious non-rhythmic music is European classical music because,
in Haastrup’s view, it does not swing and it does not contain improvisation. Even rhythmically rich
music, such as the music of Bartok or Stravinsky, is not rhythmic music because it does not swing,
according to Haastrup. Most interesting is the fact that certain Negroid-European music in the
United States, the cultural area so important to rhythmic music, is not considered rhythmic music.
Ragtime, being a chiefly composed music, and Negro spirituals, a sort of black American art music
made famous by classically trained black singers like Paul Robeson and Marion Anderson, are not,
in Haastrups’ view, rhythmic music because neither of them swing, nor do they contain
improvisation. Similarly, the Euro-American musical theatre traditions - Tin Pan Alley, vaudeville,
revue, cabaret, musical comedy, etc. are not rhythmic music for the same reasons, although they are
often foundations for jazz improvisation and only then do they become rhythmic music. Paul
Whiteman and his symphonic jazz is similarly not considered rhythmic music because it does not
15
Interview with Bent Haastrup March 3rd 2008
18
swing, and Haastrup emphasizes that by referring to the fact that Whiteman played only one day as
a jazz violinist before getting fired because “he couldn’t figure out how to play [jazz].”16
Because improvisation, according to Haastrup, is such a vital element in rhythmic
music, Haastrup is reluctant to include pop-music in rhythmic music discourse since pop-music with
its strict structure often completely lacks improvisation. Pop-music borrows elements from rhythmic
music but with its repetitiveness and lack of improvisation, it does not belong in the Rhythmic
Music Conservatory and there is no real need to have it there, anyway, because it lives its own life
and creates itself outside the institution, according to Haastrup. Haastrup draws a clear distinction
between pop and what he calls “serious rock-music”, probably analogous to what some American
radio stations typically call “Classic Rock”. The distinction is made, in Haastrup’s view, by the fact
that, contrary to pop, rock music does contain the principle elements of rhythmic music, namely
rhythm, swing, and improvisation, although when it comes to the latter, to a much lesser extent than
jazz, and by the fact that it has a certain quality. Haastrup mentions The Beatles as an example of
such “serious rock”.
Ole Matthiessen: Popular Music and the African Drum Ensemble Concept
Ole Matthiessen, a long time employee of the Danish Radio, provides unique information regarding
an attempt to define and delimit the term rhythmic music because he played a significant role
throughout the Rhythmic Music Conservatory’s existence as being responsible for teaching music
history. Since the 1970’s he has been a strong advocate for the term rhythmic music and has written
two books painstakingly mapping out the history of rhythmic music. Two important sources of this
work are “Rytmisk musik - historie, miljø og vilkår” from 1978 and “Trommernes rejse – Historien
om den rytmiske musik” from 2006. As with Haastrup, Matthiessen has a clear idea of what
rhythmic music is and most importantly what it is not. The time span between the two literary
sources is fairly large but while the 2006 source is much more detailed and expanded compared to
the previous one, the main line, for the most part, is the same.
Matthiessen’s rhythmic music historiography is immediately clear just from reading the table of
contents in the opening pages. In the 1978 source, rhythmic music’s history begins with the cultural
meeting of African and European music in the United States. I asked Matthiessen in an interview
16
19
where the history of rhythmic music begins and the answer was that it begins with the coming of the
first African slaves to the New World.17 Native American music cultures as well as the music of the
European settlers therefore do not seem to be a part of his rhythmic music narrative and Matthiessen
mentions in the 2006 source that the Native American influence is so small that it is of rather
insignificant interest. So the history begins in the 18th and 19th centuries with various hybrid-
cultures which Matthiessen, under the common title “Afro-American music” names “Afro-
Spanish”, “Afro-Portuguese”, “Afro-English”, “Afro-French” music and so on. From there the
rhythmic music stylistic chronology in the 1978 source is: jazz, Latin-American music, rhythm and
blues, American rock, English rock as well as some chapters co-authored by Karsten Vogel about
popular music related subjects such as “image”, the popular music industry, and recording
technology.18 The 2006 rhythmic music historiography is not that different except that it goes into
much more detail about each of the many “Afro-European” hybrids. The 2006 book seems
indirectly to equate “popular music” with rhythmic music and the book’s aim is to show that there is
a common thread in the very diverse styles within rhythmic music, which is why it seems to make
sense to have an all-encompassing word such as rhythmic music. In the introduction to his book,
Matthiessen writes:
Popular music in the Western world has in the past centuries been dominated by that which is imprecisely called
rhythmic music. [My italics] It has evolved from local environments and has become a world wide phenomenon
throughout the course of the 20th century. Rhythmic music has not developed out of nothing but has a history, which
through a fascinating journey, in some cases, can be traced back four or five centuries. Even though the genres within
rhythmic music are very different from each other, they nonetheless are closely related.19
The common thread in rhythmic music and what ties all the styles together, according to
Matthiessen, is the way in which the instruments play together, which has its roots in the West-
African drum ensembles. This way of playing together is unique for rhythmic music and does not,
according to Matthiessen, exist in for example European symphonic music. What is unique to
rhythmic music is its concept of having a rhythm section. These concepts, the ensemble playing and
the rhythm section are what ties together such diverse music as Aqua (a Danish pop-band), The
music heard in “Buena Vista Social Club”, Miles Davis, Brazilian samba, Jamaican reggae or jazz,
blues, gospel, hip-hop and rock’n’roll. To conclude: what the very different styles and music have
17
Interview with Ole Matthiessen April 5th 2008
18
Krog, Peter et. al. (1978)
19
Matthiessen, Ole (2006) p. 7
20
in common is first and foremost the African-derived rhythm section and ensemble-playing concept
and the fact that they are American styles developed as a result of the merging of African and
European culture.20
Matthiessen’s rhythmic music narrative does not seem very different from a typical
popular music narrative with its broadness and America-centrism and he does not hesitate to use the
term “popular music” as in the quote above. When I interviewed Matthiessen, he specifically
emphasized the importance of popular music and that it is rhythmic music’s nature to constantly
follow the new trends, a typical trait of popular music. Where, before, the Rhythmic Music
Conservatory, in its beginning, was reluctant to include pop music21 they now, in accordance with
Matthiessen’s view, welcome such commercially-oriented mainstream pop music as the music of
the Euro-Vision contest and the latest Danish TV-craze “X-Factor” (equivalent to “American
Idol”)22 Hence, popular music, whatever connotation that word has, is an important element in
Matthiessen’s historiography.
As with the chapter before, we can learn more about the concept of rhythmic music by what,
according to Matthiessen, is not rhythmic music. We have seen that Matthiessen’s main principles
behind rhythmic music are the supposedly African-derived ensemble playing, the rhythm section
concept, and the merging of African and European music on American soil, the exception being
English rock, which is included as rhythmic music. Within the limited area we could call “Afro-
European” cultural meetings in America, ragtime and Negro spirituals are included as rhythmic
music, which means that, contrary to Haastrup’s view, improvisation, in Matthiessen’s view, is not
a criteria for rhythmic music.23 European folk music is not rhythmic music because it is its own
unique tradition and does not, according to Matthiessen, use the African-derived rhythm section
concept and is not an Afro-European hybrid culture. Matthiessen, in both books, has also
deliberately left out the Anglo-American traditions such as folk, country and bluegrass music the
explanation being that these styles belong to a separate tradition and perhaps are too much related to
European folk music. Other examples of hybrid music, which do not make the cut, are the Euro-
American musical theatre tradition ranging from minstrelsy, vaudeville, revue, cabaret, and the
musical. These complex music traditions, which borrow and blend an incomprehensible amount of
20
Matthiessen, Ole (2006) p. 10-11
21
See the section on Bent Haastrup’s narrative
22
23
Matthiessen told me that if improvisation was a criterion, then most popular music would not be considered rhythmic
music. Interview with Ole Matthiessen April 5th 2008
21
musical elements and styles are, according to Matthiessen, not rhythmic music because they are
based on European popular music which, only in a superficial way, has borrowed from jazz.24
Henrik Sveidahl: “Jazz, Rock, Pop, Electronica” and Dynamic Cultural Meetings
Henrik Sveidahl was among the first students to enrol in the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in 1986.
Sveidahl after graduating had a career as a saxophone player and was for a while part of a very
successful Danish band called “Tangoorkesteret” (The Tango Orchestra) whose repertoire included
their own unique interpretations of Argentinian bandoneonist Astor Piazzola’s compositions as well
as their own. After having been employed as a teacher at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory for a
number of years, he became president of the school in 2005 and is, as I write this, still in that
position. Sveidahl, under his leadership at the school, has advocated for an additional suffix to the
term rhythmic music on the official school website: Rhythmic Contemporary Music stressing the
fact that rhythmic music is a constantly evolving dynamic music, always keeping up with the new
trends, hence the addition of the styles Pop, Hip-Hop, Electronica.25
In an interview I asked him how he would define rhythmic music to international students wanting
to apply for the school, who are – as most non-Danish speaking students – not familiar with the
term. According to Sveidahl, the core principle behind rhythmic music lies in what he calls
“dynamic cultural meetings.” In Sveidahl’s own words rhythmic music
...is a dynamic area; an area which develops out of cultural meetings. The basic principle is cultural meetings between
two cultures – the European and the African and as a result, something or other comes out of that. If one looks at many
of the leading genres and styles, they are often a result of such cultural meetings – people who have moved from one
place to another and met other people. Quite clearly it is the Latin-American music which comes closest. That music is
based on a unique European music culture, which then meets the African music culture and then out of that, something
or other comes out. Later in history a European kind of rock and roll emerges in the meeting between an Anglican folk
music and the blues, which again is a meeting between black music and something else. Cultural meetings are so
important to this music and this has a tremendous significance for my understanding of this music. For me it is quite
evident to see rhythmic music as a dynamic phenomenon which does not let itself limit itself.26
24
25
Rhythmic Music Conservatory home page http//:www.rmc.dk (accessed april 2008)
26
Interview with Henrik Sveidahl April 25th 2008
22
Sveidahl’s definition can be summed up in three main aspects: 1. Cultural meetings/exchanges; 2. It
is something which is dynamic and constantly evolving. Any attempt of historic preservation or
“revivalism” is not encouraged; 3. The cultural meetings are focused mainly on the Afro-European
New World cultural exchanges and therefore the African element is crucial. When I in the interview
suggested that in my view country and bluegrass music were prime examples of such cultural
meetings, he, unlike Matthiessen, agreed that they were indeed part of rhythmic music.
The importance of the African element in rhythmic music was, according to Sveidahl,
seen clearly by the fact that, for some reason, applicants from the Balkan countries either failed the
audition or generally did not seem to fit into what they were doing at the school. The fact that an
accordion player from Macedonia, who undoubtedly had outstanding qualifications, did not seem to
have what was expected at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory was therefore, according to Sveidahl,
used as a guideline in defining rhythmic music: rhythmic music has its roots in the Afro-European
New World music styles. Sveidahl then proposes that the Macedonian musician, with his
background in the rich music traditions of the Balkans, lacks the African element which is crucial to
rhythmic music and therefore finds himself alienated from the core principles of the school, which is
the reason why he fails the auditions.
It is worth mentioning that Sveidahl currently expresses an uncertainty about the
future of the term rhythmic music. Sveidahl with his long career as an employee of the Rhythmic
Music Conservatory and also as a student has experienced the dynamic evolution of the idea of
rhythmic music. Where in the past it might have made good sense to invent a term with the same
strength as the, at that time all-prevailing “classical music”, it might, according to Sveidahl, be a bit
outdated now that classical music has lost a bit of its steam. Sveidahl, in fact, wishes to abandon the
term rhythmic music in the future because 1) it is not internationally applicable; 2) it is too limited a
concept; and 3) it has had “wrong” associations such as a lack of seriousness, too much “jumping
around”, and often had too much of a social dimension.27
27
23
Towards a Rhythmic Music Definition: Agreements and Contradictions
I am in this chapter attempting to create a map of what rhythmic music is using information
provided by the four narratives from the previous chapter represented by a selected group of leading
persons who have had great influence on inventing and shaping the term rhythmic music during
various times. Here I will try to synthesize that information in order to see whether we can talk
about an actual common definition of rhythmic music but also investigate the contradictions and
disagreements that inevitably exist in an attempt to create such a definition. I will draw in additional
information relevant to the discussion as a supplement to the information from the four narratives.
Anti-Western Classical Attitude
Let us first look at the common principles that permeate the information from the key persons
above. The first that comes to mind, and which is clearly agreed upon by all persons, is that
rhythmic music deliberately seeks to distance itself from European classical music and its aesthetics.
The front cover of Christensen’s book “My Motive” shows a page from a symphonic score with an
unhappy child holding the vertical barlines of the score as if they were prison bars. Haastrup
concluded, after saying that “rhythmic music is a term encompassing all styles” that rhythmic music
is “music which is not classical music.”28 In a similar vein, Matthiessen uses European classical
music as an opposite polarity to rhythmic music and to clarify the differences between the two:
“There exists today in the Western world two different musical performance traditions...One is
called “serious” or “classical” and the other is called “rhythmic.””29 Matthiessen then goes on to
explain the differences between the two by analyzing different aspects of the two “traditions”.
Throughout my time as a student at the Rhythmic Conservatory I always felt an anti-classical
attitude in all aspects of the education. There were few or no instruments normally associated with
classical music such as oboes, strings, bassoons, classical percussion, and theory and arranging was
often limited to Sammy Nestico, Neal Hefti big band arrangement and perhaps David Liebman’s
jazz theory books. On numerous occasions I heard statements such as “symphony orchestras don’t
swing” and “classical musicians can’t improvise”, and so on.
28
29
24
Casualness and Informality
Another aspect which seems to have an overall agreement is that rhythmic music contains a clear
element of informality and casualness. This is probably related to the above mentioned distancing
towards European classical music, which often is seen as a “serious”, formal art form, which is in a
more negative light often also accused of being pompous, self-righteous, and “stuck up”. I made a
point before of showing that Bernhard Christensen saw jazz that wanted to go on a more “serious”
and formal path such as that of Paul Whiteman’s as going in the wrong direction, away from the
natural-ness and “folksy”-ness. Christensen also was against the way which ethnic music such as
West African drum ensembles were modified in order to be fitted into a European concert ideal.
When rhythmic music in the 1970’s was first introduced into the Copenhagen
University’s curriculum, there were no specialists within that area of music, who were consulted
with the result that the music examples representing rhythmic music were selected rather
haphazardly and were not really thought through. According to Danish Radio journalist Erik
Christensen, who sat in the student committee at the time, there was a rather informal attitude
surrounding this process in those days.30 Similar to Bernhard Christensen, Ole Matthiessen also sees
jazz striving to move into “serious music” territory such as George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”
and other “Third Stream” initiatives as a dead end because “why should jazz, which is already a
hybrid music be hybridized even more?”31 Throughout the existence of the Rhythmic Conservatory
there has always been an aura of informality and even a fear of any element of seriousness.
Informality and casualness permeates through its publications and education. Peter Danstrup,
referring to the conservatory’s male-centeredness, writes in the article “Konservatorium” that:
It will only be when we move out to Holmen that we can throw parties where the distribution of sexes will become even
– with all those pretty female theatre and architect students within reach. It could even be that there are some hot guys at
those places so that our female students could get some action going on.32
I saw the informality and casualness many times when I was a student such as one time when
during a band coaching session the teacher pianist Carsten Dahl advised the drummer to think of the
function of the hi-hat as “one’s ass hole opening and closing”.33
30
Interview with Erik Christensen April 17th 2008
31
32
Danstrup, Peter (1996) p. 49
25
America-Centeredness
Another aspect of rhythmic music, which is also generally agreed upon, is its America-centeredness
as well as the importance of the supposedly African-derived “rhythmic feel” or “swing”,
spontaneity, and certain “sound ideals”, which was thought not to be present in strictly European
music. The definitions from the 1970’s and up (Haastrup, Matthiessen etc.) seem very clear about
rhythmic music’s geographic and cultural location, the Afro-European music of the Americas where
as Gøssel and Christensen’s ideas were more globally universal. Although Gøssel and Christensen
originally modelled their music pedagogy and musical awareness after black American jazz such as
that of Benny Carter and Louis Armstrong, they, unlike Haastrup, Matthiessen etc., viewed other
non-classical ethnic music from all over the globe as being rhythmic music. There was even room
for European folk music from rather isolated places such as the Faeroe Islands and Yugoslavia.
Generally speaking the voices surrounding the institutionalised world of rhythmic
music particularly at the Rhythmic Conservatory are almost all Afro-America-centric and are
usually reluctant to want to include any European music whether it be Western classical, European
musical theatre traditions such as cabaret, revue; light classical salon music (of which American
ragtime and jazz is tremendously indebted to), as well as its vast and diverse folk music traditions.
The same goes for other types of ethnic music such as Indian classical music, Middle Eastern
music, Chinese and Japanese classical music although it must be said that the Rhythmic
Conservatory in 1997 hosted a tremendously successful Eastern Music theme week with musicians
from the Balkans, the Middle East, and India. It must also be noted that in 1996, in connection with
the UNESCO conference, rhythmic music was stylistically defined as “Jazz, Rock and World
Music” which would, if the word “world music” is to be taken literally, include a vast amount of
non-classical music outside the America’s as well. The only non-American ethnic music, which is
truly on the agenda, is African music, which occupies a big part of the rhythm and body
coordination program at the conservatory. Although there, among the voices of the Rhythmic
Conservatory, seems to be a general consensus about the reluctance to accept any European music,
Karsten Simonsen, a Rhythmic Conservatory veteran told me that at “Den rytmiske aftenskole”
(The Rhythmic Evening School) an institution established some years prior to the opening of the
33
This incident could of course also be interpreted as that particular teacher having a sense of humour rather than the
Rhythmic Conservatory being a particularly casual institution.
26
Rhythmic Conservatory, they danced and performed Danish folk music, which signifies that
European music was not completely excluded from the discourse.34
Rhythm and “Swing”
Probably the most important common denominator in rhythmic music discourse is its idea of
rhythm and “swing”, something which rhythmic music discourse constantly uses to distance and
differentiate itself from Western classical music. Rhythm and “swing” are the main concepts of
Christensen and Gøssel’s discourse, a discourse wishing to revive rhythm and swing concepts long
lost in modern Western society’s rationalisation process. Swing is in this discourse explained by
drawing attention to a supposedly “natural” bodily and respiratory awareness. Haastrup emphasises
the importance of the concept of “swing” and excludes ragtime and the European-influenced Negro
spirituals from the discourse precisely because they lack that important concept. Matthiessen goes
into detail with how classical and rhythmic music differ in their approach to rhythm. Classical
music, according to Matthiessen, has a variable pulse and plays directly on the beat with the result
that it becomes rhythmically uninteresting and looses its swing unlike rhythmic music, which has a
steady pulse, plays around the beat and within microseconds stretches the time around the beat thus
generating exciting rhythmic tensions.35
A Definition?
If we were to make a dictionary entry based on the above information we could, in short, say that
rhythmic music is:
“An informal and casual music which is not Western classical music, originating in Afro-European
hybrid cultures found in North and South America which embodies strong rhythmic sensibilities.”
Disagreements
The big disagreements lie in the importance of improvisation and the inclusion of European
classically-oriented African-American music such as ragtime and Negro spirituals as well as the
34
Interview with Karsten Simonsen March 28th 2008
35
27
question of including pop-music in rhythmic music discourse. In Haastrup’s definition
improvisation is such an important part of rhythmic music that he at a time used the term Rhythmic
Improvisational Music, which was the reason why ragtime, Negro spirituals, and pop-music were
not considered rhythmic music due to the fact that improvisation does not seem to play a big role in
those styles. (As a side note, it is a bit puzzling that rock, which is included, often does not put
much weight into improvisation, although, arguably, to a larger extent than more commercial pop-
music.) Matthiessen disagrees with Haastrup that rhythmic music has to contain improvisation
because then much popular music would be excluded from the discourse.
Interestingly enough, in agreement with Haastrup many years earlier, Astrid Gøssel in
the 1930’s made a point of demonstrating the difference between jazz singer Ethel Waters and
classically-trained Marian Anderson who became famous for interpreting Negro spirituals as well as
the European classical repertoire. Although they were both African American singers, Ethel Waters’
singing style was rhythmic due to her culturally inherited “rhythmic-motoric” awareness and
therefore had a richer sound than Anderson’s polished European sound ideals. In Gøssel’s view, the
Negro spirituals, which with their sophisticated European classical arrangements are very European
oriented, are not considered rhythmic music in agreement with Haastrup many years later. However,
this is in disagreement with Matthiessen who includes ragtime and spirituals in the discourse.
Chronology of Rhythmic Music’s Stylistic Developments
If we look at the chronology of rhythmic music’s stylistic developments we see that American jazz
is always centre stage where popular music enters at a later stage. Looking at the roster of teachers
employed in the beginning years of the conservatory, it is clear that it was a predominantly jazz-
oriented school with occasional Latin American music, African music and some rock, funk, and
soul. This seems to have dramatically changed over time and in most recent years with Henrik
Sveidahl as the present president of the school, there seems to be much less jazz and much more
popular music – hence the heading, “Jazz, Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, Elektronica”. English/American
rock has always been present since the beginning of the actual institutionalisation side by side with
jazz.
Below is a concise overview of how rhythmic music has been defined stylistically
through time. I have included my own creation of what I think is Christensen and Gøssel’s stylistic
28
definition as a comparison to the official institutionalised definitions. Note that in 1996 “Latin [-
American] music is substituted with the immensly broader term “world music”. As I will use this
division later in the paper, I have purposely labelled the Christensen/Gøssel narratives the “early
rhythmic music discourse” and everything after 1975 the “later rhythmic music discourse”. This has
been done because there is not only a clear division in time but also some fundamental differences
between the two, although they are still directly or indirectly connected.
Early rhythmic music discourse:
Bernhard Christensen/ Astrid Gøssel 1930 - : African-American jazz (Duke Ellington, Louis
Armstrong, Benny Carter), traditional authentic ethnic music (African, Indian, Chinese, Faeroe
Islands, Yugoslavia, etc.), and pre-Renaissance Western classical music.
Later rhythmic music discourse:
Copenhagen University 1975: “Jazz, Beat [Rock], and related music”36

Rhythmic Music Conservatory 1986: “Jazz, Rock, and Latin”37
Rhythmic Music Conservatory 1996 (UNESCO conference): “Jazz, Rock, and World Music”38
Rhythmic Music Conservatory 2008: “Jazz, Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, Electronica”39
36
Copenhagen University Dep’t of Musicology Exam Curriculum (1975)
37
See Roar, Finn (1996)
38
See Traasdahl, Jan Ole (1996)
39
Rhythmic Conservatory’s homepage: www.rmc.dk (Accessed April 2008)
29
Part 2: Rhythmic Music as Idea - Critical Approach
In this section I will examine the ideas behind the term rhythmic music and pursue a
critical approach to how these ideas were created, argued, and put into motion. In a sequence of
three chapters, I will critically examine and discuss three main aspects of rhythmic music as idea
which, in my opinion, have not yet been critically examined and discussed.
The first chapter addresses the problem of categorizing a term and points at areas
where rhythmic music discourse in its definitions and historiographies tends to be simplified. I
begin by addressing the defining process itself and discuss some of the consequences of rhythmic
music discourse’s reluctance to concisely define the term rhythmic music. I then look at some of the
problems involved in rhythmic music discourse’s broadness-concept, its desire to encompass a vast
amount of genres and styles. This is discussed looking at other views claiming that such a broadness
potentially can dilute the individual styles and hence lose their integrity. Next, I criticise particularly
the later rhythmic music discourse for its oversimplified idea of what are African and what are
European roots in rhythmic music. Here I will attempt to bring attention to a much more complex
picture of the music than rhythmic music discourse depicts in its uncritically examined notions of an
African heritage in rhythmic music. Finally, I look at, particularly, the later rhythmic music
discourse and discuss issues in relation to its America-centeredness and its exclusion of European
non-classical music. Once again I try to paint a broader and more complex picture of American
music styles and how, for example, European folk music and musical theatre traditions, in much
disagreement with rhythmic music discourse, have been influencing that music.
The next chapter deals specifically with rhythmic music discourse’s deliberate
exclusion and distancing from Western classical music. This has been done by what I call the
politics of “difference”, and I, in this chapter, use Kofi Agawu’s model of criticising Western
academic discourse for focusing on “differences” rather than unity in the dichotomy of European
and African music. I re-examine the areas of where rhythmic music discourse claims to mark this
“difference” between rhythmic music and Western classical music. The first is the concept of
“swing”. Here I try to broaden the picture by going deeper into the concept and suggest that
rhythmic music does not necessarily have a patent on “swing” and that, in fact, classical music
could potentially lay a claim to the concept given the right circumstances. The same goes for
improvisation where we are dealing with the relationship between performer and creator. Here, I
broaden the picture by calling attention to certain areas in classical where the performer/creator
30
relationship is indeed more similar to jazz and rhythmic music styles. Finally, I draw attention to the
European legacy of jazz in order to draw attention to areas where classical and rhythmic music are
more similar than they are different, to try to soften rhythmic music discourse’s focus with
difference rather than unity.
The last chapter deals primarily with the earlier rhythmic music discourse and
examines the complex issues of race and race-relations deeply embedded in that discourse. Here,
Christensen and Gøssel’s idea of the “natural” and unspoiled, conceived within a heavily-charged
racial atmosphere, is examined in the light of a colonialist white supremacist view which employs
ideas of “naturalness” in its justification of social oppression. I then draw attention to an aspect not
dealt with in rhythmic music discourse, the aspect of white racial projections on black naturalness in
America’s minstrel and coon song legacy. Here, with the benefit of hindsight, I expose rhythmic
music discourse’s oversimplification and potential misunderstanding of a racial issue that is far
more complex than the discourse suggests. I go further and demonstrate some examples of how
there is a possibility that black music is actually, to a large extent, shaped and constructed on white
fantasies, of how white society wishes black culture to be. Accordingly, I remain extremely critical
to rhythmic music discourse’s claims of a supposedly unspoiled black naturalness. Finally I broaden
the picture a bit more by bringing into the discussion the aspect of blacks’ civil rights and their
struggle for acceptance into society. This aspect is not taken into consideration in either earlier or
later rhythmic music discourse’s “ghetto-romanticism” and my intention with bringing this
dimension into the discussion is once again to broaden the picture of what is at stake and to show
the complexity of the music, a complexity that rhythmic music discourse does not seem to
acknowledge.
The main motivation for writing this section is to expose the tremendous
oversimplification that much of rhythmic music discourse suffers from and to put attention to the
consequences of such a general simplification. I am hoping that by pointing out rhythmic music
discourse’s apparent lack of depth and thorough critical research, I can commence a process of
either strengthening the term by repairing the holes and gaps in its theoretical discourse or simply to
question the meaningfulness of using such a word in Danish music discourse unless for historic
reference.
31
The Problems of Categorising; Simplified Definitions and Historiographies
All musicians, artists, and institutions are at some point in time obligated to place themselves into a
categorized term. In the jazz world many of the leading figures were frustrated with labelling
themselves in the category “jazz” because doing so put them in a confined box with unwanted
associations. Duke Ellington would complain about such a categorization as would singer Nina
Simone, due to jazz’ negative racial connotations.40 However, we need words to communicate and
often times we need a recognizable name for the product we are communicating out into the public
sphere. This is crucial for institutions since they must label the product that is being offered up for
sale to their costumers: prospective students. With most traditional learning we know instantly from
reading the name what is being studied at this particular institution: medicine, law, or science and I
would even suggest that more creative subjects such as architecture, visual art, and film are pretty
straightforward and problem-free in their definitions. Most institutional study of music prior to the
1960’s would be fairly easily defined as well since most of that music, whether at the conservatories
or universities fell under the category “classical” music whose definitions and limitations I will
describe briefly below. The musical categories, jazz, rock, and popular music, are much more hazily
defined categories, probably due to their young age but it is my impression that they by now have a
fairly consistent definition with somewhat agreed upon canons.
As we have seen throughout history, categories, terms, names etc. are important in any
creation of a legitimate identity or brand, which seeks to have political power in terms of getting
funding and acceptance. In music we see terms such as “classical music”, “jazz”, “rock”, and
“world music”, all terms with some common identity and utilized for various intentions at various
times. Classical music is a broad term often associated with certain aesthetics and histories within
what we might call Western European art music. Christopher Small defines “classical music” as the
period within Western European art music between the years 1600 to 1910 excluding its early and
modern phase.41 While the term “classical music” encompasses many eras such as the Baroque,
Classical, and Romantic eras, it typically leaves out Medieval and early Renaissance music as well
as modern music such as that of the Second Viennese School or the Darmstadt School after World
40
See liner notes to Nina Simone: Verve Jazz Masters 17, Verve 1994. For Duke Ellington’s reaction to the word “jazz”
see Henthoff, Nat (1976) p. 30
41
Small, Christopher (1977) p. 61
32
War II or at its best, this music is considered to be on the fringes of “classical music”.42 “Classical
music” also typically has a set and rigid performance practice in which improvisation or any
spontaneous creation is virtually non-existent. In classical music there is therefore often a sharp
division between creator (the composer) and performer, (the musician). There is also typically a
clear distinction between performer and audience, the audience being a passive entity not
participating in the performance. Aside from a few exceptions such as church services and royal
ceremonies, classical music typically functions as art music with no particular functions to fill.
These aspects – improvisation and the relationship between creator and performer, and the non-
functionality are all aspects, which seemed to have existed to a much larger extent before 1600 and
to some degree revived in certain modern music after 1910. It must be added, however, that the
word “classical” music in the past has been much debated and that there really is no clear and
concise definition of the word other than when it is used to define a specific era, the era and styles
of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
What we see here is an example, described a bit simplified, of how a term such as
“classical music” gains strength by unifying many different styles and genres but limits itself by
excluding others. In the same manner I shall attempt to show the same consequences behind the
creation of the term rhythmic music.
Defining Rhythmic Music
Rhythmic music, a uniquely Danish term designed to find a common term for a vast number of non-
classical styles, is a very peculiar and also very problematic term, which to this day has not seen a
clear and consistent usable definition. In a publication connected with the Rhythmic Conservatory’s
20th anniversary in 2006, Henrik Sveidahl writes that, “I shall be the first to admit that [rhythmic
music] is not a very precise term, when one thinks about all the music in the world which contains a
rhythmic element, but it has now been solidified and has found its identity in a way that it makes
good sense to continue to use it.” He adds: “It is simply an un-rhythmic thought if anyone should
think that our music must be defined in a concrete and historically applied performance practice.”
(My italics)43 Bent Haastrup, the first president of the Rhythmic Conservatory in a similar fashion
42
Before the student revolts in 1968 Western classical music in the Copenhagen University curriculum typically did not
go beyond Richard Wagner.
43
Sveidahl, Henrik (2006)
33
states that rhythmic music is a very flexible term “but we all know what it is.”44 The excuse for not
wanting to come up with a clear definition is that, in Sveidahl’s words, it “helps us to remain alive
and dynamic – because we put a focus on possibilities of change and thereby reject any solidly
defined norms for what rhythmic music should sound like.”45
While it is true that attempting to define any particular area of art can potentially take
the living vibrancy out of it, avoiding a concise definition can on the other hand threaten the
legitimacy of that area of art. This is precisely the concern that musicologist Samuel Floyd Jr.
expresses. In Floyd’s view the avoidance of defining musical styles and terms is an evasion of real
issues and may damage the integrity of the music involved:
Among musicians, it has been fashionable to make such statements as "Black music is feeling," "Jazz cannot be
defined," and others. Such imprecise and nonsensical statements are simply evasions of the issues involved. The
defining of such terms as jazz, blues, ragtime, spiritual, jubilee, gospel, funk, stomp, and others is immensely important
if we are to conduct research in those areas with any degree of precision, reliability, or validity-if we are to have the
world continue to recognize black music as emanating from black culture. The alternative is to watch the music
"disappear" as another casualty of the melting pot.46
Floyd’s statement should be seen as applied to an academic context where music is being studied
and researched rather than created and performed, but I think the statement could be applied to
more artistically-oriented contexts, such as at the Rhythmic Conservatory, as well.
In the rest of this chapter I shall attempt to clarify in depth the aspects of the term
rhythmic music, which in my opinion have been oversimplified and not really thoroughly critically
examined or properly questioned. This could have been a result of either not wanting to define the
term, as pointed out above or just a general lack of past scholarly research, which to my knowledge,
has yet to be conducted.
Rhythmic Music’s Concept of Broadness
However reluctant rhythmic music discourse has been in attempting a definition, there do exist set
concepts and definitions on what it is and what it is not, although, as we have previously seen, they
often contradict each other. The main problem in regards to finding a definition for rhythmic music
44
45
Sveidahl, Henrik (2006)
46
Floyd, Samuel Jr. (1981-82) p. 76
34
is its concept of broadness, its desire to encompass a vast amount of styles under one heading. We
see it in Bent Haastrup and Finn Roar’s “Jazz, Rock, and Latin” which is later expanded to “Jazz,
Rock, and World Music” (My italics) used in connection with a UNESCO conference in 1996. In
Matthiessen’s rhythmic music narrative he argues that all those styles, jazz, blues, gospel, hip-hop,
rock, pop, and Latin can be looked at as one tradition, rhythmic music. Matthiessen’s main
accomplishment in his rhythmic music narrative is to show a common link between primarily North
and South American music styles and how all these different styles share a common thread. In this
view, immensely different music forms such as Aqua (a Danish teenage pop-band), Buena Vista
Social Club (Afro-Cuban music), Miles Davis, Brazilian samba, Jamaican reggae or jazz, blues,
gospel, hip-hop, and rock’n’roll, as well as older styles such as Ragtime and Tango, are all closely
related and therefore labelled rhythmic music. This close relationship is, according to Matthiessen
based on the fact that they all have come to life as a result of the cultural meeting between music
from Africa and Europe but most importantly that the main aspect, the rhythmic aspect, is more or
less directly related to African music.47
While it is true that it is possible to see a connection between different genres of
music, such as Marshall Stearns claim that the dance traditions of West Africa, Trinidad, and
Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom is “one great tradition”48, Matthiessen’s attempt to tie all these genres
together is based on extremely thin evidence and is overly simplified. For when we look at other
views that contrast Matthiessen’s view, it is revealed that there are many unanswered questions and
loose ends in his rhythmic music narrative. One view that stands in glaring contrast to
Matthiessen’s, is Erik Wiedemann’s, which makes a clear distinction between jazz and other black
American music such as the blues, spirituals, gospel, and Latin-American styles claiming that,
although they have a certain relation to jazz, they are “independent traditions, which clearly
distinguish themselves from the jazz tradition.”49 Matthiessen and the rhythmic music discourse’s
general reluctance to see jazz as an independent art form is here seen in contrast to a generally
agreed upon jazz scholarship and jazz education practice, which acknowledges jazz as an
independent art form. This is what makes this particular brand of Danish music education so unique
and different from most other institutions.50 However, the broadness concept has the potential of
47
See Matthiessen, Ole (2006) p. 11-12
48
Stearns, Marshall (1994) p. 11
49
Wiedmann, Erik (1958) p. 10
50
The majority of schools specifically use the word ”jazz” either in their name or their curriculum or if they include
other styles, the individual styles are mentioned. (For example “Jazz Institute Berlin”, “Helsinki Pop & Jazz
Conservatory”, “Jazzschule Basel”, “Jazz & Rock Schule Freiburg” etc.)
35
pacifying and diluting each individual music style. When Scott Joplin, Miles Davis, Elvis Presley,
Cecil Taylor, and Aqua are placed within the same category, the essences of each of the individual
styles and artists are only superficially understood and likely will result in one having a distorted
and incomplete picture of what is really at stake. It is here that later rhythmic music discourse
differs from the earlier. It is important to note that Christensen and Gøssel’s discourse is not based
on style and tradition but a way of playing. Whereas later rhythmic music discourse attempts to
stylistically create a rhythmic music tradition, early rhythmic music discourse attempts to create a
discourse on a rhythmic way of playing music and leaves style and genre out of it. Contradicting the
later rhythmic music discourse’s broadness concept, Bernhard Christensen expresses deep concern
for music education trying to diversify itself by welcoming a broad array of styles because of the
danger of missing the essential aspects of the individual musical styles:
As the years went by it seemed that the resistance towards using jazz in music education in schools and teacher’s
colleges loosened up significantly. But there was little understanding of the essential aspects of jazz. It was assumed
that the music pedagogy was made more diverse and spacious by welcoming different music styles and directions, but
with the result that jazz became catalogued into a long line of labels: blues, folk and worker’s songs, political songs,
rock and pop songs, children songs, and what have you.51
Whereas later rhythmic music discourse, after Christensen and Gøssel, in its broadness and all-
inclusiveness does not seem to interest itself in separating the authentic from the inauthentic, the
serious from the non-serious, certain trends of jazz historiography are highly concerned with these
issues. With the rhythmic music discourse’s placement of jazz and ragtime together with rock and
pop music one misses jazz and ragtime’s extremely complex struggle to define themselves as an
autonomous “serious” music as opposed to commercial fads and popular trends. Rudi Blesh’s
ragtime and jazz history narratives, for example, make a very strong point of attempting to “weed
out” the true authentic essences of ragtime and jazz from the superficial commercially oriented
trends, which, to the untrained observer, often seems difficult to distinguish from. Blesh coined the
term “classic ragtime”, which sought to legitimize ragtime as a serious music on the level of
Schumann and Chopin and therefore excluded the commercially oriented white superficial
imitations of ragtime including what he referred to as “Tin Pan Alley Hacks”.52 Similarly, Blesh
used the term “classic jazz” to manifest a certain authenticity and to point out this music’s vital
essential aspects, again attempting to “weed out” the inauthentic: “A half-dozen kinds of music
51
Christensen, Bernhard (1983) p. 28-29
52
Blesh, Rudi (1960) p. 129 and 269
36
bearing no resemblances to jazz are accepted by the vast public, not only as jazz, but each as its
only form. The need of a serious book about authentic jazz is therefore imperative at this time.”
Blesh was therefore, as it seems to be generally agreed upon in jazz historiography, careful to claim
that the commercially successful white jazz music of Paul Whiteman and Jean Goldkette, often had
been misrepresented as authentic jazz by some, and was to be regarded as “pseudo-jazz”.53
Again, early rhythmic music discourse is here in opposition to the later discourse.
Bernhard Christensen was very careful to express the need for authenticity concerns. Christensen
writes: “...much of jazz’ primary value was lost in its popularisation through records and film; it
became that time’s pop-music. The word “swing” which in reality was a term describing a rhythmic
sensibility quickly became a fad. People talked about swing-style, swing-arrangements, swing-
dance ... in short: a superficial commercialism.”54 This struggle, often addressed in jazz
historiography in an attempt to legitimize its authenticity and therefore its status as a legitimate
music (or even “serious” music), seems to not interest late rhythmic music narratives, except for
Haastrup mentioning Paul Whiteman’s music not swinging. (See Haastrup’s narrative) The result is
that the various styles are treated rather superficially and the discourse fails to bring out the
essential aspects of the individual styles.
The African Heritage of Rhythmic Music
What is equally debatable is Matthiessen’s uncritical claim that rhythmic music, including jazz, has
a direct relation to Africa. Matthiessen bases his entire rhythmic music historiography on the fact
that the African cultural heritage, which many white American slave owners deliberately tried to
suppress, survived among the Americanized Africans. This view is usually in agreement with most
jazz and black American music history narratives, but the issue is much more complex than
Matthiessen suggests. Let us take a closer look at his rhythmic music model. Matthiessen claims
that,
Generally speaking, the rhythmic styles in America have been a result of a merging of music from Africa and
Europe....Harmony, melody, instruments, and form among other things have been obtained from Europe and from
Africa comes the rhythmic ensemble playing model itself, instruments, improvisation, melody, and sonority.
53
Blesh, Rudi (1953) p. ix
54
Christensen, Bernhard (1983) p. 13
37
He goes on to state that:
Some of the most important elements in rhythmic music are the ones connected to Africa. If one peels away melody and
harmony leaving the listener with the rhythm, a structure reveals itself, which is closely related to the African drum
ensembles, where instruments weave in and out in rhythmic patterns over a steady basic pulse. 55 (My italics)
Matthiessen actually makes the effort of plotting out precisely which element comes from where, in
a table divided into Western Europe, West-Africa, and the Islamic Northern African area referred to
as Maghreb:
WESTERN EUROPE WEST-AFRICA MAGHREB

Harmony Ensemble playing Modality
Melody Rhythmic sensibility Vocal practices
Rhythm Sonority Form
Form Instruments Melody
Instruments Melody (Rhythm)
Sonority Improvisation Instruments
Vocal practices Sonority56
While some of the observations, such as the one claiming that most instruments used by jazz
musicians are of European origin (leaving out the banjo of African origin), are self evident, other
observations are simply impossible to prove or are much more complex that Matthiessen suggests.
For example, it is true that much of jazz harmony, and harmony of other styles for that matter, are
strongly indebted to functional harmony essentially developed in Western Europe during the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance. But non-functional harmony, the collective harmony of multiple
instruments playing simultaneously, exists in many non-Western cultures including African
cultures. What Matthiessen fails to mention is, that functional harmony in rhythmic music was
probably inherited from Western Europe, but that harmony is not the sole property of Western
Europe. Furthermore, it is sometimes argued that even functional harmony exists in non-Western
monophonic music such as in Turkish Classical music. This was thoroughly discussed by the late
55
56
Matthiessen Ole (2006) p. 11
38
composer and master musician of Turkish Classical music Cinuçen Tanrıkorur, in a lecture at the
New England conservatory. In this lecture he pointed out how monophonic music often follows
chordal patterns and how although the notes are not played simultaneously, they still in their
succession after each other spell out chords and progressions.57
The table pointing to improvisation and spontaneity as an African phenomenon is
also a problematic simplification since we know that improvisation exists throughout the world in
many other cultures and even in Western classical music’s early history. In fact, jazz pianist Bill
Evans suggests that jazz improvisation is closely related to European classical practices of the 17th
and 18th centuries.58 This is in sharp contrast to the claim that jazz improvisation is of African
origin. The rhythm section concept, which we see in jazz ensembles formed with piano, bass, and
drums, and the claim that this is related to African drum ensembles is also debatable, given that the
bass is more a European concept than a traditional African one. Besides, any study of European
ensembles, whether they are Baroque era basso continuo, symphony orchestras or marching bands
would reveal that the idea of the rhythm section is as much European as it is African, if African at
all.
Furthermore, the uncritically examined issue that the African cultural heritage appears
in different contexts within rhythmic music rules out any possibility that jazz and other styles could,
in fact, have little or nothing to do with African music. Jazz drummer Art Blakey claimed in in
Down Beat Magazine, that “Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and
that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to
Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.”59 In a similar fashion it is a frequently
overlooked possibility that the similarities between West African and African-American music, as
suggested for example by the CD “Mali to Memphis”60 is just as much due to the influence going
the other way, that is, West African music having been influenced by American music as much as
the other way around.
Erik Wiedemann states that there is no solid evidence pointing to African traits in jazz
and that if there ever was, it had disappeared by the time the first jazz records were made. He states
further that “Jazz on every level, whether in its musical foundation, artistic function in
instrumentation and ways of playing, is completely different from African music and does not
57
Lecture demonstration by Cinuçen Tanrıkorur, New England Conservatory Boston MA 1994. Source: Cinuçen
Tanrikourur Archives
58
See the section The European legacy of Jazz in the chapter “The Politics of Difference”
59
Art Blakey Quoted in Wiedemann, Erik (1982) p. 22
60
”Mali to Memphis; An African-American Odyssey” Putumayo World Music 1999
39
contain one element, which could be thought to have originated from African music.” According to
Wiedemann, this view is supported by the fact that the further one goes back in jazz history,
towards its supposed “origins” the more stiff, square, and European it appears to be. He concludes:
“It is so self-evident that it should not be necessary to mention it further: Jazz was created by jazz
musicians and not American Negro slaves or their African ancestors. The frantic racially-romantic
search for the roots of jazz in a distant African past does, on the basis of jazz’ un-ambiguous
discourse about its development, not even contain any potential academic interest.”61
In general, Matthiessen’s idea of rhythm being an African phenomenon (from the
second statement cited above) excludes the possibility that Africa is not the only patent holder of
“rhythm” and in fact there is much “rhythm” in many other music traditions including European
music. Ghanaian musicologist Kofi Agawu even suggests that certain Western classical music have
as much rhythmic sophistication as traditional African music. He argues that “Indeed a determined
researcher could easily show that the sum of isolated experiments in rhythmic organization found in
so-called Western music produces a picture of far greater complexity than anything that Africans
have produced so far either singly or collectively.” He concludes that, “One could, in short, quite
easily invent “European rhythm”.62
This is not to deny African traits in American music, which a number of observers
argue have, in fact, survived through certain oral traditions such as the “Hambone Game”, a
rhythmic body-patting game common in black communities and other cultural traits closely
resembling similar African activities.63 The point I am trying to make is not to attempt to give any
clear answers to the question regarding the supposed African or European ancestry in rhythmic
music or that rhythm is an African phenomenon, but rather to emphasize the immense complexity
and, most importantly, the uncertainties of the subject. Narratives such as Matthiessen’s, which
have a tendency to miss this complexity and uncertainty, potentially deprive us of the possibility of
perceiving the vastly complex music history as an unfinished, unresolved and still evolving
phenomenon with many opposing views.
A big contributor to this uncertainty factor is oral tradition and the complex nature of
oral traditions, which narratives such as Matthiessen’s do not take into consideration. One should
simply not listen to a jazz or blues recording and say, as Matthiessen’s narrative seems to suggest,
that because the sonority heard in that recording sounds like the sonority in a recording of a West-
61
Wiedemann, Erik (1958) p. 8-10
62
Agawu, Kofi (2003) p. 61
63
For example Kofsky, Frank (1970)
40
African drum ensemble, that therefore there is some link. When and if such conclusions are made,
one misses the complexity of what happens in oral tradition over time. What narratives such as
Matthiessen’s also miss is that we actually know very little about black American music before the
appearance of the first sound recordings in the beginning of the 20th century. In other words, there
exists a tremendous uncertainty as to how the rhythmic music styles were developed and which
elements they inherited simply because the evidence is so scarce and unreliable. There are little or
no indications of this uncertainty as well as the acknowledgment of the extreme difficulty of the
subject in his narrative.
It should be clear by now that a narrative such as Matthiessen’s which has
undoubtedly contributed to rhythmic music discourse, should be seen as a constructed myth with
little or no practical reality. Kofi Agawu states the following about ethnomusicology’s historic
distorted notions and fantasies of African rhythm: “African rhythm” in short, is an invention, a
construction, a fiction, a myth, ultimately a lie.”64 I suggest this statement could be applied to
rhythmic music discourse and its one-dimensional idea of “African rhythm” embedded in this idea
of rhythmic music. Jazz research, which in the past has had the tendency to buy into the same
oversimplified generalisations and myths that the rhythmic music discourse supports, has been
aware of these problems of oversimplifications. A statement in Gunther Schuller’s Early Jazz
makes this point clearly:
It is tempting to categorize this or that aspect of jazz as deriving exclusively from either the African or the European
tradition, and many a jazz historian has found such temptation irresistible. Jazz writing abounds with such
oversimplifications as that jazz rhythm came by way of Africa, while jazz harmonies are exclusively based on European
practices; and each new book perpetuates the old myths and inaccuracies. From writing based on well-meant
enthusiasm and amateur research, as much jazz criticism has been, more accurate analysis cannot be expected. But it
now is possible to look at the music seriously and to put jazz’ antecedents into much sharper focus. In the process the
African and European lineages will become somewhat entangled, as is inevitable in the study of a hybrid that evolved
through many stages of cross-fertilization over a period of more than a century.65
It is quite puzzling that the above quote, which correctly points to the need to move away from
scholarship such as Matthiessen’s to a more nuanced and serious scholarship, was written in 1968, a
time when the institutionalised rhythmic music discourse (what I refer to as later rhythmic music
discourse) in Denmark had not yet really begun. It is somewhat forgivable that Matthiessen’s 1978
64
Agawu, Kofi (2003) p. 61
65
Schuller, Gunther (1986) p. 4
41
rhythmic music historiography is deeply flawed by the oversimplification and the perpetuation of
old myths, but I find it problematic and disappointing that Matthiessen’s 2006 publication, almost
half a century after Schuller’s, continues to perpetuate the misleading myths and still presents the
material in an oversimplified manner.
America-Centeredness: The Exclusion of European Folk Music Traditions
Another area where rhythmic music discourse tends to be too simplistic, is in its America-
centeredness and its exclusion of European non-classical music. This is where rhythmic music’s
early narratives, those of Gøssel and Christensen fundamentally differ from the later narratives,
those centred on the milieu of the Rhyhmic Music Conservatory. We have seen earlier that
Christensen’s rhythmic music discourse not only included black American jazz and non-Western
traditional ethnic music but also traditional music within Europe, which had still maintained its
connectedness with the human body and breath, and which utilized improvisation and spontaneity.
This, in Christensen’s view, included traditional music from the Balkans and the Faeroe Islands.
This is in somewhat sharp contrast to the later narratives, which for the most part
exclude European folk music from the discourse. The general argument for the exclusion, seen in
Haastrup’s, Matthiessen’s, and Sveidahl’s narratives, is that rhythmic music is a result of the
meeting of European and African cultures, excluding European folk music because it lacks the
African element. For example, Matthiessen’s specific argument for why Scandinavian folk music is
not rhythmic music is that it does not utilize the African drum-ensemble concept, which, in his
view, is the basis of rhythm-section based music such as jazz, blues, and rock music.66 Sveidahl, as
noted earlier, used a similar argument in order to explain the unsuccessfulness of the students
coming from a Balkan musical background in their attempts to assimilate themselves in the
rhythmic music environment at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory. Coming from a Balkan music
background, these students, according to Sveidahl, lacked the African element, a crucial element of
rhythmic music.67
Sveidahl’s rhythmic music narrative focuses primarily on what he calls “dynamic
cultural meetings”, where people and cultures meet with the result that a new music through a sort
of syncretistic process emerges out of that. North and South America have in the last centuries been
66
Interview with Ole Matthiessen, Copenhagen April 5th 2008
67
See the Henrik Sveidahl narrative in part one
42
the most obvious stages for this process, and it is only logical that rhythmic music discourse chooses
the New World as its epicentre. However, Eastern Europe and the Balkans offer great examples of
“dynamic cultural meetings” and cultural syncretism in general. Concerning the African element, it
is probably true that some of the more pure European Balkan folk music forms, which had been
polished and “cleaned up” during the Communist era68, lack most forms of “African” elements and
are probably more resemblances of Western classical music. But could it not be a possibility that
certain forms of Balkan music have had direct or indirect African influences via the Middle East
and North Africa? And if there are no direct African influences, could it not be that Balkan folk
music shares some of the traits characteristic of African music; its free bodily expressions and its
spontaneity, which is so cherished in rhythmic music discourse? In Sveidahl’s words, the rich and
vibrant Romany music cultures in the Balkans and Eastern and Western Europe are perfect
examples of “dynamic cultural meetings” of “people who have moved from one place to another
and met other people”.69 In fact, it could be argued that there are so many similarities between
Romany music in Europe and African American music in America if we take a closer look at some
of the sociological circumstances of the way the music was created. Both Christensen and
Wiedemann propose that jazz came about the way it did because blacks in the United States were
denied access to civil society, and so the music was developed in isolation from any westernized
rationality and schooling. Jazz was therefore, in Wiedemann’s words, “...created as a new way of
playing an already existing repertoire.”70
This idea of a nation of people playing existing repertoire in a new way, could be
applied to Romany culture as well; a nation of people living in social isolation from civilized
society, whether by choice or necessity, playing the repertoire of the music of the country they
happen to reside in. Although much more culturally inaccessible than black American music,
Romany music enters jazz historiography with Belgian born Romany guitarist Django Reinhardt.
With Reinhardt, one of the most celebrated guitarists in the jazz canon, we have the opportunity to
look at jazz beyond the limitations of the “Afro-European” cultural meeting concept in rhythmic
music discourse and explore the possibility of looking at European folk music traditions as an
important element in jazz, which later rhythmic discourse seems to not be aware of.
68
For example the Bulgarian state run folk music ensembles, which were established during the communist era often
characterized by tight arrangements and little or no improvisation.
69
See Sveidahl’s narrative part one
70
43
Another European musical culture, which is not mentioned in rhythmic music
discourse but fits well with Sveidahl’s “dynamic cultural meetings” concept, and in a sense, also
has sociological similarities to black American jazz, is the Jewish music of Eastern Europe, the so
called Klezmer music. As with jazz and Romany music, this was a music developed and performed
in a somewhat social isolation from mainstream society. One could also argue that with Klezmer
music, having been relocated to a large extent to the United States during the 20th century, there is a
possibility that it had a profound impact on American jazz. Although difficult and perhaps even
pointless to pinpoint any direct influences, Jewish Klezmer music seems to appear in many indirect
forms throughout ragtime and jazz history. The minor’ish B-sections of both Scott Joplin’s
Magnetic Rag as well as the New Orleans jazz classic High Society Rag have been commented as
having been influenced by Jewish music.71 A more direct and very beautiful example of how
Eastern European and Klezmer music made it into New Orleans jazz is the instrumental number
Palesteena recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1920. The melodic material in the piece
consists of very obvious Eastern European and, as the title suggests, even Middle Eastern scales
such as the augmented fourth minor scale and the major dominant scale with the characteristic
augmented second step resembling the Turkish Hicaz scale (also referred to as Spanish Phrygian).72
It is also worth exploring the possibility of how some of the greatest Jewish-American jazz
clarinettists, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Mezz Mezzrow may have brought an indirect
Jewish musical contribution to jazz.73
While on the subject of European folk music, it is also worth exploring the possibility
of how North Western European folk music, particularly that of the British Isles, has influenced
rhythmic music, not just jazz but also blues and rock. Ragtime, being tremendously influential to
jazz, owes much of its musical material not only to European light classical music but to the music
performed at the blackface minstrel shows during the 19th century. The bulk of the musical material
from those shows was Irish and Scottish dance tunes and there is a possibility that much of that
material found its way into ragtime and early jazz. For example, observers have claimed, that the
opening strain to Tom Turpin’s Harlem Rag contain such elements.74 (See below)
71
For the Jewish influence on Magnetic Rag see Edward A. Berlin, King of Ragtime; Scott Joplin and his Era (1996)
72
Original Dixieland Jass Band w. Benny Krueger: “Palesteena” recorded on Victor 1920, New York
73
One of Benny Goodman’s debut recordings “Clarinetitis” (Vocalion 1928) seems to, at certain, places have a distinct
Klezmer flavour
74
Tom Turpin Harlem Rag (1897) Robert De Young and Co. St. Louis, MO
44
Excerpt from right hand staff of opening strain of Tom Turpin’s Harlem Rag
Let us also not forget that New Orleans, the accredited birthplace and epicentre for early jazz, had a
very large Irish population with an undoubtedly strong living tradition of the music from their
native lands and that a vast bulk of early jazz’ audience were in fact in the Irish communities.75
Furthermore it has often been a neglected possibility that pentatonic melodic material seen in jazz
and very commonly in blues music, is just as much derived from British Isles and Celtic musical
cultures rather than from African traditions.
The original Southern American Mississippi delta blues music has often been
observed as having a direct lineage to West African music, pointing to the similarity between blues’
storytelling narrative nature and the West African Griot traditions of similar nature, as well as the
sonority of the voice and instrumental techniques, the antiphonic call and response, and the
pentatonic melodic nature. But rhythmic music discourse and the way it downplays European folk
traditions as a possible element of rhythmic music overlooks the possibility that delta blues could be
just as much indebted to British Isles folk music traditions as West African traditions. As mentioned
above, pentatonic material exists just as much in Celtic music of the British Isles, and Africa is not a
patent holder of call and response and antiphony. Call and response and pentatonic scales are
universal phenomena’s and are very common in British Isles folk music.
Rhythmic music discourse’s lack of acknowledgement regarding the traditions of
European folk music and its possible influence on rhythmic music is in sharp contrast to a
fascinating narrative sometimes referred to as American Roots Music. American Roots Music’s
narrative is based on the rural Southern United States working class experience, which includes
black, white, and Native American music. In this narrative it seems to be acknowledged that black
and white musicians, all though officially separated by racial segregation, had contact with each
other and influenced each other. Let us also not forget, that in early black communities during and
after slavery, there were fiddlers and musicians performing music based on British Isles folk
75
See for example Warren “Baby” Dodd’s anecdote about performing for the Irish community in New Orleans.
Hentoff, Nat et. al (1975) p. 26
45
traditions.76 In this narrative we have a possibility of viewing the often separated black and white
Southern rural music as a more integrated unity, so that on the black side Robert Johnson, Leadbelly
and Blind Lemon Jeffersson have a closer connection to white country and folk personalities such
as Jimmy Rogers, Hank Williams Sr., and Woody Guthrie, than often assumed. This narrative
therefore conflicts with Matthiessen’s view that white American folk, country, and bluegrass are
excluded or are situated on the far outskirts of rhythmic music. By denying this narrative,
Matthiessen also misses the fact that country and bluegrass in its early stages had strong black
influences and were in fact just as much a type of “black music” before whites gradually took patent
on it as it is today. In fact, one of the first stars to appear at the “Grand Old Opry”, the main forum
for Southern country music, was black harmonica player Deford Baily. It is also a bit puzzling that
Matthiessen excludes country music in rhythmic music discourse but that English and American
rock, heavily indebted to country music, plays an important role in the discourse.
America-Centeredness: The Exclusion of European Musical Theatre Traditions
A more obvious non-classical European influence on American jazz, which is almost completely
neglected in rhythmic music discourse, is the European-derived musical theatre tradition, including
cabaret, revue, vaudeville, and later the musical. Jazz and ragtime historiography has had a
tradition, as mentioned before, of “weeding out” the white commercial musical theatre traditions
such as that of Tin Pan Alley77, so it is understandable that rhythmic music discourse follows suit as
well. Haastrup claims that the music of Tin Pan Alley, the AABA two-beat feel European derived
music does not swing78 and Matthiessen claims that the musical theatre traditions, exemplified
above, are more to be understood as forms of European popular music with little or no connection
to the African derived rhythm section concept79 and therefore they do not classify as rhythmic
music. However, when these traditions are surgically removed from the discourse, as seems to be
the case in rhythmic music narratives, an extremely important element in understanding the
development of jazz and its complex relationship towards art on the one hand, and entertainment on
the other, is missing.
76
Black American harmonika player Deford Bailey’s grandparents had been plantations fiddlers. Also, one of the main
characters in Alex Haley’s epic narrative, Roots, is a black plantation fiddler.
77
See the section Rhythmic Music’s Broadness Concept in this chapter.
78
Interview with Bent Haastrup Copenhagen March 3rd 2008
79
Interview with Ole Matthiessen Copenhagen April 5th 2008
46
Most pre-bebop jazz instrumentalists as well as vocalists received their foundational
education in musical comedy traditions such as minstrelsy, vaudeville, and cabaret. It would
therefore be, in my opinion, not too far fetched to view singers such as Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters,
Josephine Baker, and even Billie Holiday as not only jazz and blues singers, as they often are, but
also as revue, vaudeville, and cabaret singers. To label them as just blues and jazz singers is to
simplify their capability of mastering the musical comedy traditions as well, so there exists a
possibility of viewing them as not entirely different from European musical comedy singers such as
French Édith Piaf, German Lotte Lenya, or even Danish Oswald Helmuth or Poul Reichardt. For the
most part, this idea is downplayed or absent in rhythmic music discourse. It should also be noted
that the above mentioned European artists would undoubtedly fit rhythmic music discourse’s criteria
being that they had “swing” and were great improvisers as well.
By downplaying the importance of the musical theatre traditions, we also tend to miss
crucial aspects of the work of many pre-bebop jazz musicians such as ragtime and jazz pianists
Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion Smith”, and Fats Waller. All these artists
contributed greatly to American musical theatre, and there is reason to believe that if their skin
colour had not put restrictions on the success of their musicals - Blake’s Shuffle Along, Johnson’s
Runnin’ Wild, and Waller’s Hot Chocolates - that those musicals would potentially have made it in
the Broadway musical canon, along side musicals composed by white artists, such as Showboat,
Kiss Me Kate, etc. My point is to expose the limitations of rhythmic music discourse, one example
being the case of James P. Johnson, who was not only a jazz, blues, and stride pianist but also a
composer of musicals, opera, and symphonic music, in which half of this artistic work is virtually
non-existing in a rhythmic music discourse. This results in the whole scope of Johnson’s artistry
being lost and distorted due to the limitations of the term rhythmic music, as it is also, as should be
mentioned, equally limited and distorted by the word “jazz”.
47
The Politics of “Difference”: The Exclusion of Classical Music
Starting from Bernhard Christensen and Astrid Gøssel in the 1930’s and continuing until now,
Rhythmic music was from the very beginning created as an antidote towards “classical” music.
Originally, the idea of rhythmic music was to create an alternative way of looking at music and
musical education from the all-dominating world of Western classical music. It was quickly
observed that rhythmic and classical music were incompatible entities. Gøssel took great effort in
her 1935 article “Does the Danish Jazz Musician Have Swing?” to carefully describe the
tremendous differences between the black man’s “swing-technique” and the European classical
“Breithaupt-technique” and she concluded that “bridging the gap between these two techniques is
unthinkable.”80 This early part of rhythmic music discourse and its distancing from Western
classical music should be looked at in the context of its time, a time when European classical music
culture was the accepted legitimate music. This was a time when non-Western music as well as
black American music was unquestionably considered “primitive” compared to the “advanced”
music of the great European composers, a mindset carried on from 19th century colonialist racist
legacy. It was therefore very important for Christensen and Gøssel, in their attempt of creating a
music pedagogic reform, to distance themselves radically from the all-dominating Western classical
music.
By the time later rhythmic music discourse appears, in connection with the curriculum
reforms at the Copenhagen University and the establishment of the Rhythmic Music Conservatory,
the musical political climate remained heavily marked by the dominating classical music culture,
though by this time, black American music as well as non-Western world music had gained much
more widespread acceptance and recognition compared to the 1930’s, when Christensen and Gøssel
developed the early rhythmic music discourse. During the late 1960’s and 1970’s the term rhythmic
music was used for cultural and political reasons, such as creating a brand name and an identity,
which, at the time, was necessary in order to establish some legitimate grounds for state funding and
public acceptance in general. Since “classical” music at this time was still the dominating cultural
institution, which was eligible for receiving state funding and had wide public acceptance, there was
an acute need for the acceptance and recognition of their art, among the rhythmic people (i.e. jazz,
rock, and popular music people). One of the organizations created in those days was DJBFA
established in 1973, whose acronym stands for Danish Jazz, Beat (Rock), and Folk Music Artists
80
Gøssel, Astrid (1935) p. 12
48
(Danske jazz, beat og folkemusik autorer). In its title is a list of musical styles and genres, which are
all represented by this particular organization. The term rhythmic music was a convenient way of
summing up all the styles into one word and to establish a brand name with the same strength as
“classical” music. In fact, rhythmic music was used in cultural and political situations in the exact
same way that the word “classical” music was used. Aage Hagen, a Rhythmic Conservatory veteran
and the president of the Council of Rhythmic Music Education in Denmark, writes:
In the late 1970’s when there were still no subsidies for rhythmic music at all, a group of policy makers decided to build
a string of net organisations. Every time there was an organisation for classical music, they simply copied it and put the
word “rhythmic” in the name. There was a certain credibility to all these new organisations, and as it turned out they
gradually got a part of the state subsidies.81
Rhythmic music was a term which sought to create an equal legitimacy to “classical” music and
therefore also a word used in direct opposition to classical music. Karsten Simonsen, who was
active in the institutionalisation of rhythmic music in those days, stated that the term was used as a
convenient counter-term to classical music.82 Henrik Sveidahl stated that in the early days of the
Rhythmic Conservatory there was classical music, and rhythmic music was the other, meaning
everything else.83 Outsider perceptions of the term seem to agree: Graig Earle an international
student of the Rhythmic Conservatory from Canada told me in an interview that his perception of
the term rhythmic music, before and after applying to the school was that it was “everything except
classical music” and added “but you can’t call it the ‘Conservatory for Everything Except Western
Classical Music’. That’s kind of what it is, I think.”84
There are also reasons to think that the creation of the term is accredited to the
“classical camp” itself. Olav Harsløf, the second president of the Rhythmic Conservatory stated that
rhythmic music was used by the classical establishment as a derogatory word with negative
associations to what they would refer to as “pedagogic music”. At the time of the establishment of
the Rhythmic Conservatory, it was in their interest, according to Harsløf, that it be called the
Rhythmic Music Conservatory because then any student interested in studying classical music knew
that that place was not the place to be.85
81
Hagen, Aage (1996) p. 69
82
Interview with Karsten Simonsen March 28th 2008
83
84
Interview with Graig Earle May 25th 2008
85
Interview with Olav Harsløf March 6th 2008
49
Generally speaking, the common theme behind the development of the term rhythmic
music therefore was based on how different it was from the classical genre. During the preparation
phase of the establishment of the Rhythmic Conservatory the differences between classical and
rhythmic technique were continually highlighted. One example out of the many can be found in a
report to the Danish Music Council from 1981 stating about rhythmic choir that “it differs from
traditional choir conducting in many ways: For example, traditional beat patterns are seldom used,
teaching by rote is a wide spread phenomenon, and sonority is often completely different from what
one is used to. Similarly, working with the choir’s sense of pulse is important, especially in
connection with instrumental accompaniment.”86 While the idea of rhythmic music prided itself on
being a very broad term welcoming many different musical styles it was always, from the very
beginning, reluctant to include any classical music. As a result, any music students studying at the
Rhythmic Music Conservatory wishing to acquire knowledge about Western classical music
history, theory, composition, and performance technique, would for the most part have to acquire
that knowledge outside the rhythmic music institutions. To the non-Danish reader it should be noted
that this “difference” and separateness is what constitutes the basic structure of music institutions in
Denmark. Students of music performance are generally forced to choose between either a
“classical” or a rhythmic oriented curriculum whether it is at a conservatory, university or public
music school. It is not uncommon that young students in the public music school system are
encouraged to “pick sides” at a very early stage in their musical development.
Also in literature has this supposed “difference” been implicitly emphasized by both
“classical” histories and jazz and rhythmic music narratives: Kenneth McLeish in “A Listeners
Guide to Classical Music” defines classical music as “music, which is neither popular music nor
jazz.”87 and “Politiken’s Introduction to Classical Music” goes into detail with how behavioural
patterns in a classical concert situation are different from jazz and popular music:
There is a great difference as to how one behaves when listening to different kinds of music. At a jazz concert the
audience applauds after each major solo and at a pop or rock concert they, in addition to applauding after solos, dance
and jump in front of the stage. But at a classical concert there must be absolute silence from beginning to end. The
audience will fidget anxiously when some poor individual who doesn’t know the rules enthusiastically applauds
between movements. But this will only amount to a couple of claps – the atmosphere will make it clear: you just don’t
do that sort of thing.88
86
Haastrup, Bent (1981) p. 13
87
McLeish, Kenneth et. al. (1994) p. 250
88
Andreasen, Mogens Wenzel et. al (1994) p. 8
50
Jazz histories similarly emphasize this difference. Nat Hentoff emphasizes jazz’ unique aspects, that
in jazz there is a sense of unpredictability with no safety net quite unlike the “classical guys”89 and
in a publication about jazz used for music educational purposes in Denmark, Steen Nielsen writes
about jazz and classical music’s fundamental differences:
In a recording of a Mozart symphony the point of departure is undoubtedly the written score. That guarantees, if
respected, that all recorded versions of that symphony are in all essential matters identical; nobody would be debating
which symphony is on the recording. In jazz recordings, and all other improvisatory music for that matter, the situation
is completely different. Strictly speaking, the main plan is nothing else than a registering of the musician’s perception of
that particular music at that particular time.90
Gunther Schuller, who (ironically) was a leading figure in uniting the classical and jazz world,
writes in “Early Jazz” that the concept of “swing” is entirely different within the two worlds and
which is initially what separates the two from each other:
[Swing is] a condition that pertains when both the verticality and horizontality of a given musical moment are
represented in perfect equivalence and oneness. These two qualities are present in all great jazz; they are attributes, on
the other hand, that do not necessarily exist in great “classical” music.”91
One of the strongest advocates for “difference” is found in Ole Matthiessen’s rhythmic music
narrative. Here, classical music and rhythmic music are put before each other as two fundamentally
different entities. Matthiessen uses the analogy of team sports to describe the differences between
what he calls the two biggest ensemble playing traditions, “serious” or “classical” music and
rhythmic music. He explains that classical and rhythmic music are:
...unclear and vague terms, which have given occasion to many pointless debates. Nonetheless, they contain grains of
truth – and in fact are really about differences on the same level. The serious [classical] is more based on a tradition,
which for a long time has been associated with art music while the rhythmic [my italics] is based on an important
element in the ensemble playing, i.e. how the instruments work together. There are tremendous differences in their
cultural backgrounds....What separates the different team sports (e.g. football and handball) is the rules. That is also
89
Hentoff, Nat (1976) p. 25
90
Nielsen, Steen (1971) p. 1
91
Schuller, Gunther (1968) p. 7
51
applied in the world of music. The most important difference between the two different traditions is the more or less set
rules for the ensemble playing.92
Matthiessen then goes on to list all the obvious aspects of how, in his view, rhythmic and classical
music differ from each other, such as in how the ensembles play together, the pulse of the music,
the use of antiphony or call and response, improvisation, sonority, function, and so on.
What lies behind this focus on difference rather than sameness? I would here like to echo Kofi
Agawu’s concern that such an “ideology of difference” is potentially problematic. For when there is
more of a focus on difference rather than a focus on unity, as is often the case with Danish music
education, then any possibilities of similarity and union seem to be consciously or unconsciously
downplayed leaving us with an oversimplified and distorted idea of what classical and rhythmic
music is, and therefore maintaining the untrue fictions and myths surrounding these genres. In his
article, “The Invention of African Rhythm”, Agawu observes that throughout the history of African
music research there has been a tendency to focus on how African and European music differ rather
than how they are similar. This leaves us with a simplified and distorted perception of what is
actually happening. This idea, which undoubtedly has found its way into rhythmic music discourse,
especially Matthiessen’s, often says that African music’s main asset is its highly developed
rhythmic quality, which Western music often lacks. The focus on African rhythm is, according to
Agawu, so engrained in many Western discourses that the danger, in my interpretation of Agawu’s
point, is that we exclude certain types of Western music which have a highly developed rhythmic
quality and in reverse, we forget that some African music is not rhythmically sophisticated and
indeed follows metrically divisive patterns just like Western music.93
I would argue that the same simplification and distortion likewise takes place in
rhythmic music discourse and that the deliberate separation of classical and rhythmic music focuses
on their differences rather than the traits they actually have in common. This is not to claim that
they are the same thing, because that would also downplay their unique individual qualities, but this
perception and the perpetuation of this discourse has a negative effect, limiting the way in which we
understand these genres..
92
93
Agawu, Kofi (2003)
52
It is true that classical and rhythmic performance technique theoretically are so different that it
would be pointless to combine them, especially when we think of the issues of sonority,
improvisation, and the rhythmic “feeling” or “swing”, which since the 19th century have been
virtually extinct in classical music. At least in an educational institution it would make sense to
separate the two techniques, although it must be mentioned that there do exist plenty of performers
who have successfully combined the two. Some examples of these artists are Wynton Marsalis,
Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Leonard Bernstein, Gunther Schuller, and André Previn. Let us first
look at some of the aspects in which the discourse of classical and rhythmic music separates these
two genres. Those arguments in favor of the separation are: improvisation, rhythmic “swing”,
sonority, oral tradition, and functionality. According to some observers, these are all aspects which
at one time in Western music did indeed exist but are said to have disappeared with time. With an
increased focus on the written score, its increased lack of functionality for the advantage of being a
strictly listener’s art music, and its gradual suppression of rhythmic qualities such as pulse and
“swing”, classical music evolved more and more into a rationalised music different from most other
music.94 Accordingly, in order to see any similarities between the two forms of music, one has to go
back in Western music’s earlier history to retrieve these “lost” qualities.
The Concept of Swing
Classical music, as it is often stated in rhythmic music discourse, does not swing.95 This is an
aspect, which, in this discourse differentiates classical music from rhythmic music. In order to
investigate this we must take a closer look at the word “swing” and what lies behind it. The word
“swing” undoubtedly has its origins in jazz and is especially associated with Louis Armstrong and
Duke Ellington. We see it in Duke Ellington’s song title “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That
Swing” and it is a word frequently used in the jazz world, especially during the so called Swing Era
of the 1930’s. In fact, it should be noted that the word “swing” is as much a style or genre as it is a
concept. Musicians are usually reluctant to try to define it because it must be understood on an
intuitive level. This is exemplified perfectly by Armstrong in his famous quote “if you don’t feel it
you don’t know what it is.”96 Bernhard Christensen and Astrid Gøssel attempted to create
94
See for example Small, Christopher (1977), Christensen, Bernard (1983), and also Weber, Max (1958)
95
See interview with Bent Haastrup Copenhagen March 3rd 2008. Matthiessen argues that classical musicians do not
swing because they as a rule play on the beat and that the pulse is variable compared to the steady pulse of rhythmic
music inherited from the African drum ensembles. Matthiessen, Ole (2006) p. 17
96
Louis Armstrong quoted in Schuller, Gunther (1968) p. 6
53
definitions of swing, pointing to the strong relations between swing and body-muscular awareness
and natural respiratory activity which they claimed to be different in classical technique. Gøssel in
her article “Teknik og tone i jazz” relates black jazz’ rhythmic “swing” sensibility to the fact that
the African-American jazz musician in his performance utilises an integrated use of all the muscles
in the body making a comparison with the way a nightingale in its song shakes and quivers with its
whole body.97
This is contradicted by jazz drummer Jo Jones: “Swinging has to do with what could
be called ‘projection,’ but I mean musically. It has nothing to do with visual projection. Once
people get confused by the visual physical experience that they see in an individual’s playing they
say he’s swinging. But he may not be.” Some of Jones’ concepts of swing, which he describes very
elegantly in a nuanced but down to earth fashion, have to do with breathing naturally with his
audience, and playing with “feeling” using the analogy of “the difference between receiving a
genuine handshake or a fishy one.” Could these aspects not be applied to classical music or any
music in general? Jones critiques classical music on this point claiming that its approach to music is
too rational and “scientific” because “the [classical] musician plays the music set before him.”
However, he goes on to state that “There are people in the classical field, of course, who are open-
minded enough to cover the whole realm of music and who do have enough flexibility to
understand and diversify their approach for different programmes.”98 Unlike typical rhythmic music
discourse, Jones allows the possibility that classical music can contain the concept of swing,
otherwise typically restricted to non-classical music.
In my own experience, as a professional musician, I have come across this aspect of
swing countless of times. However, unlike other jazz musicians, of whom the term plays a vital
significance but seem reluctant to want to define it given its intuitive value, I myself have tended to
avoid trying to intellectually and rationally define the word. With a term like swing, we enter
territory where any intellectual scientific rationality applied to the term seems like an oxy-moron
because everything the term stands for is the exact opposite. My own definition of swing has to do
with a union on various levels, which is what you get when all intellectual mind activity ceases. In
rare moments when I felt that I participated in a musical setting that “swung” one has the feeling of
entering a state of complete easiness free of any notions of time and burden. I believe this is an
aspect also recognized in Eastern traditions such as yoga (which means union), Tai Chi, etc. This is
exactly why swing is so difficult to define using Western terminology and intellectual analytical
97
98
Jo Jones quoted in Shapiro Nat et. al. (1955) p. 359-360
54
thought, because that is precisely, often times, what must be absent in order for anything - whether
music, conversation, or relationships - to swing. But this should be applied to the creation and
performance of all music, including classical music.
In rhythmic music discourse we are told that even highly rhythmic music such as that
of Stravinsky and Bartok does not swing and is therefore not rhythmic music.99 Already here we are
facing an often neglected question: Can we talk about a composition swinging or a performance
swinging? Does a written composition only swing when it is performed, put to life by live
musicians? In accordance with the statements about swing above, I would argue that a composition
can swing in that it has been created in a higher state of unity. I would argue that much classical
music “swings” but is often performed so that it does not swing. I am here to a certain extent
agreeing with Christensen’s and Gøssel’s theories that many classical performers do not utilize the
concept of swing due to their often rationalised stiffness, what Christensen calls “the conservatory
style”. In these cases the concept of swing is strongly related to the use of the body, something
which Gøssel and Christensen pointed out was missing or suppressed in classical music culture. I
would in those cases agree with Haastrup that the music of Bartok and Stravinsky does not swing
when performed by musicians who lack a true understanding of swing; who often, in my
experience, have not internalized a particular body-related rhythmic feeling for the music. But what
if the music were performed by musicians understanding that sensibility? Are there not examples of
performers, ensembles, composers, and conductors who play or create music with “feel” and
“swing”?
Ray Pitts an American-born big-band composer and jazz flautist residing in Denmark
told me in an interview that the idea of rhythmic music and its claim that classical music does not
swing is absurd. According to Pitts “the whole history of music is full of people that swing whether
they are Baroque, Classical, or Romantic – they swing, they roar!” He also mentioned that certain
conductors, such as Leonard Bernstein, could bring out the soul and swing of certain music. An
example of this, according to Pitts, is Bernstein’s version of Shostakovich’ 5th symphony.100 Other
famous classical interpreters, it could be argued, could bring out the soul and swing in classical
music, for example, Pablo Casals playing Bach, Glenn Gould playing Haydn or Vladimir Horowitz
playing Mozart. When Haastrup then makes a claim that performances of the music of Bartok and
Stravinsky does not swing, there is a grain of truth to it, because it is often performed by performers
having alienated themselves from any notions of “swing”. However, it is a problematic statement
99
See interview with Bent Haastrup Copenhagen March 3rd 2008
100
Interview with Ray Pitts March 13th 2008
55
because it rules out the possibility that, as Ray Pitts mentions, certain classical music and its
interpreters indeed do “swing”.
Another example of how the generalising and oversimplification of rhythmic music
discourse leaves out the possibility that classical music can swing, is seen in Ole Matthiessen 2006
rhythmic music narrative. His concept of swing is based on the idea of a steady pulse and how beats
and accents fall on and around the pulse creating rhythmic tensions and “swing”. The worst thing
that can happen, according to Matthiessen, is when the music is played directly on the beat, or in
Matthiessen’s exact words, “If everybody plays directly on the beat, it is experienced as
rhythmically unexciting. The music loses its swing.” This is exactly, according to Matthiessen, what
classical musicians do and why this music differs from rhythmic music and why it does not swing:
“Within the European classical music tradition, where they to a larger extent work with a variable
pulse, it is mostly common to play on the beat and follow the conductor’s tempo indications so that
the music does not fall apart.”101
It should be obvious that the classical music Matthiessen is referring to is the music of
the Romantic period, where, generally speaking, the sophisticated harmonic explorations famous for
that period have, to a large extent, over-shadowed rhythmic focus. For example, in Wagner’s
famous prelude to his opera Tristan und Isolde, there is not talk of much “swing” in that sense, and
it would do a terrible disservice to this highly emotional and supremely delicately crafted prelude if
it “swung” in a rhythmic music sense. However, Matthiessen fails to bring attention to classical
music, whose performances actually follow Matthiessen’s “swing concept” model of stretching the
beat over a steady pulse with exciting rhythmic accents and off beats. In some cases these could be
considered far more rhythmically interesting than many performances of rhythmic music. In
reference, I can mention a recording of J. S. Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in D minor (BWV 1052)
performed by the outstanding Danish harpsichordist Lars Ulrich Mortensen where he stretches and
plays with the beat around a steady pulse, far from playing stiff and square “on the beat”. This
recording simply, to put it in informal rhythmic music lingo, “swings its ass off”.102
101
102
J. S. Bach Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1052 in D minor, Lars Ulrich Mortensen and Concerto Copenhagen, Classic
Produktion (2003)
56
Improvisation
We could engage in this same discussion regarding improvisation, the other main criteria for
rhythmic music and jazz’ most celebrated contribution to modern music. Improvisation and the idea
of the performer being the creator as opposed to just the composer, is often the biggest factor that
distinguishes jazz and rhythmic music from classical music. To the best of my knowledge, this is an
aspect currently not taught at classically oriented conservatories and it is generally not associated at
all with classical music in its glorification of its masterpieces and the immortalizing of its
composers. Also, in traditional musicology there has been a focus on the end result, or finished
product – the “work”, rather than the actual processes of which improvisation has played a big
role.103 Improvisation is a process taking place in the moment, moving through time, and there is
therefore not really talk of a finished “work”. Because improvisation has only really been
documented since the introduction of sound recording, improvisation in Western music is difficult
to grasp and it must have been only convenient to focus on the permanent sources such as the
written scores.
Improvisation, however, has played a tremendous role in Western classical music not
just in its early phase but also in the Romantic era, with a vibrant virtuoso culture spearheaded by
improvisational geniuses such as Franz Liszt and Niccolò Paganinni. Liszt’s artistry is a perfect
opportunity to look at certain similarities between jazz and rhythmic music and classical music. All
though it is problematic to make the comparison, Liszt’s performances, his theatrical appearance,
his ability to move his audience, his female followers, and the aura of “Lisztmania” following his
concerts, could be interpreted as being similar in nature to what we now typically see in popular
music. It is also a great opportunity to look at the startling similarities between European Romantic
era virtuoso culture and the black American virtuoso piano traditions from the 1930’s and 40’s
spearheaded by Fats Waller and Art Tatum.
Improvisation and spontaneous creation re-appeared in classical music in its modern
eras with for example John Cage’s concept of “in-determinacy” and Karl Heinz Stockhausen’s
intuitive music. Although quite different from jazz improvisation, it is a field where performers
from a classical and jazz background potentially can meet. This is something that I myself
experienced at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College in California.
103
See Nettl, Bruno (1998)
57
When we talk about improvisation we are dealing with the aspect of authorship and
the fine line between the creator and the performer of music. In jazz we are often not concerned
with the composer of the piece because it is the performer who inevitably has created what we come
to hear. In jazz, we are more interested in who performs, and to a large extent improvises over the
composition, than who has composed the piece. Therefore, Jimmy van Heusen being the composer
of the popular song “Darn that Dream”, is not as important as the artist who performs it, whether it
be Ahmad Jamal, Miles Davis, or Coleman Hawkins. This relationship is different in Western
classical music, correctly observed in rhythmic music discourse. Here, the performer increasingly
throughout its history has become less and less the creator of the music in favour of the all
dominating composer, what Max Weber has referred to as Western music’s rationalisation
process.104 But, again, the deliberate focus on this difference, which unarguably exists, rules out the
possibility that some trends within Western classical music have attempted to reclaim a more equal
relationship between creator and performer. One could mention trends in early music ensembles
attempting to reclaim improvisation, which was common in the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and
a tradition among French organ players of whom improvisation plays a vital part.105 The works of
the highly individualistic pianist Glenn Gould as well as composer and virtuoso pianist Frederic
Rzewski are examples of performers of Western classical music, of whom it could be said that they,
to a certain extent, have reclaimed a more equal creator/performer relationship.
The European Legacy of Jazz
When institutions such as the Rhythmic Music Conservatory deliberately exclude classical music,
as I myself experienced as a student in their curriculum, in its teachings of music theory, history, or
performance, it is in such contradiction to what we see throughout jazz history and other rhythmic
music styles and this deserves some investigation. It is probably true that many styles within
rhythmic music such as blues, rock and roll, funk, soul hip-hop, etc. are naturally very remote from
classical music, although one should not deny the possibility of seeing similarities. This is not the
case with jazz, which in many aspects closely resembles Western music. We here encounter the
problem with rhythmic music, that it decides to not consider jazz as a fundamentally different music
compared to the other styles, as argued by Wiedemann in the previous chapter. There seems to be a
general consensus in jazz scholarship that jazz is a unique product of the merging of Western
104
Weber, Max (1958)
105
See Bailey, Derek (1992) part two.
58
European music and some form of direct or indirect African or non-European musical
sensitivities.106 Therefore, Western European music has, from the very beginning of jazz history and
especially its predecessor, ragtime, played a tremendously significant role. For example, the line
between Western classical music and rhythmic music is extremely thin in classic ragtime (which is
also the reason it is a debated style in rhythmic music discourse) and can be illustrated with the
following example from Scott Joplin’s “School of Ragtime”
Scott Joplin, “School of Ragtime” (1908) Exercise No. 1
The top staff shows the musical material without the syncopations to indicate the difference
between what could be ordinary European music and the distinct Afro-American syncopated
ragtime represented on the main staff. If, as Matthiessen suggests, ragtime belongs within the realm
of rhythmic music then the difference between rhythmic and classical, as illustrated with the
example above, is virtually nonexistent. In fact, classic ragtime has often entered the territory of
Western classical music sometimes appearing in classical music editions and occasionally
appearing on programs in concert halls such as Joshua Rifkin’s performance of the music of Scott
Joplin in London’s Royal Albert Hall in the 1970’s. With the emergence of jazz in New Orleans the
differences become much more distinct because we begin to witness a performance style, which
increasingly emphasised improvisation, rhythmic “swing” feeling, sound effects such as “growls”
and vibratos, and an entirely different way of phrasing melodic material, never before heard in
Western European music. It is all these sensibilities that, in jazz historiography, often are said to
have been derived directly or indirectly from African sensibilities.
106
Blesh, Rudi (1953), Schuller, Gunther (1968), Wiedemann, Erik (1982), Matthiessen, Ole (2006)
59
However, Western music, particularly the lighter classical music or the salon music
such as the marches, polkas, mazurkas, quadrilles, and waltzes, made up the bulk of the material
that early jazz was based on. In fact, early jazz could be described as European music played with
“Africanized” feeling or in Erik Wiedemann’s words, “Jazz was created as a new way of playing an
already existing repertoire.”107 Pianist Jelly Roll Morton demonstrated this very brilliantly in the
Library of Congress Recordings recorded by Alan Lomax in his transformation of European light
classical quadrille material into the famous jazz tune “Tiger Rag”.108 Early jazz musicians were
often capable of playing both strictly European music and jazz. New Orleans drummer Warren
“Baby” Dodds explained that “in those days we used to play all kinds of numbers...We used to take
waltzes and change them into four-four time. And High Society we always played as a straight
march. Now they play it as a jazz number.”109 Baby Dodds also recalled that on jobs with his
brother, the clarinettist Johnny Dodds, they played classical pieces from Faust and Hungarian
Rhapsody in addition to playing dance music. Aside from an obvious Western influence and
capability, Baby Dodds’ non-Western influence is also extremely important. This is described by
Rudi Blesh: “...his maternal great-grandfather played ‘African drums’ in New Orleans...’He talked
on them,’ Baby says, and then demonstrates the drum code as it was traditionally preserved in his
family.”110
The example of Baby Dodds’ musicianship and the importance in it of the equally
Western as well as non-Western or African influences, is unarguably the main essence behind jazz
at all times. Pianist, composer, and music theorist George Russel, who had a tremendous influence
on many modern jazz musicians, including Bill Evans, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, like Dodds
just decades later, epitomizes the essence of jazz with his combination of rationalist Western and
“irrational” non-Western values. His famous Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization is
directly based on Western musical theory but differs greatly from traditional academic theory in
that, as noted by Monson, it contains religious, spiritual, and intuitive aspects often associated with
the non-Western world. We see in Russel’s work a combination of “mastery of the rationalist tools
of music theory” and “soulful, emotional, and spiritual transcendence.”111
The importance that Western classical music plays in jazz is often up for debate
because it varies tremendously according to the social backgrounds of the players. The lower
107
108
Jelly Roll Morton The Complete Library of Congress Recordings With Alan Lomax 1930-38
109
Hentoff, Nat (1975) p. 24
110
Rudi Blesh quoted in Hentoff, Nat (1975) p. 38-39
111
Monson, Ingrid (1998) p. 156
60
working class performers would play a more raw “gut bucket” style jazz having little or nothing to
do with Western classical music in comparison with the performers coming from a higher social
class such as Jelly Roll Morton, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington, who had had classical
training and were heavily influenced by Western classical music. But no matter to what degree
Western music has had an influence on jazz, it is safe to say that jazz could not have developed the
way it did without Western music. Pianist Bill Evans even goes so far as to suggest that jazz could
be seen as a sort of revival of the pre-Romantic European classical music eras where improvisation
and spontaneous creation was common. If jazz is seen as a process rather than a specific style, then
according to Evans, “you might say that Chopin or Bach or Mozart or whoever improvised music -
that is, was able to make music of the moment - was in a sense playing jazz, and we leave style out
of it and that’s the way I feel about it in an absolute sense.”112 Modern jazz’ concept of improvising
on chord changes has similarly sometimes been compared with the figured bass from the Baroque
era. That is not to claim that jazz “picked up” what classical music left behind earlier and therefore
making a direct comparison with classical, but in acknowledging the aspects which jazz and
classical music have in common, we get a clearer picture of both musical forms.
To ignore the Western musical influence of jazz as well as to ignore the non-Western
influence is to completely misunderstand the essence of this very unique music. Western music has
played such a fundamental part of all great jazz from Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie
Parker, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor etc. that to deny its presence in music education is absurd and
highly problematic. Being a jazz pianist myself, I feel that I owe much of my ability to comprehend
and perform this music to my extensive classical training and acquired theoretic and historic
knowledge of Western music, knowledge that was not available at the Rhythmic Conservatory.
In this regard it could be argued that the deeper essence in jazz as I have described
above are avoided in the creation of a rhythmic music discourse with its understandable but highly
problematic anti-Western music standpoint. We must, however, remember that rhythmic music also
consists of other styles with perhaps a lesser degree of Western music influence. But the result is
that the part of the jazz tradition, which seems to lean towards Western ideals such as the music of
Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and
Anthony Braxton seems overwhelmingly out of place in a rhythmic music setting, with its often
casual, informal and non-serious atmosphere.
112
Bill Evans in The Universal Mind of Bill Evans 1966
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Racialist Misunderstandings; Myths of Black Rhythm and White Fantasies
One of the main ideas behind Bernhard Christensen and Astrid Gøssel’s music pedagogy in the
1930’s was that Western cultural norms, manifested in music culture and body-awareness, were
destructive towards children’s natural self expression due to the fact that these cultural norms had
moved away from something “natural”. Christensen in his book “My Motive” spends a great deal of
space investigating Western culture’s gradual oppression of rhythm, dance, improvisation and
spontaneous creation. He paints a very depressing and soul raking picture of how the Medieval
Church in its lust for control and power justified witch hunts, the banning of pagan rituals that
utilized ecstatic music and dance, and the general pacification of a rich and lively folk-culture with
the fact that these activities were seen as belonging within the realm of the Devil or the Anti-Christ.
Peasant folk-musicians shown in illustrations from medieval European history are typically
depicted as devils and an illustration that depicts a Lapland shaman beating an animal skin hand
drum, who turns into a devil, illustrates this point beautifully: rhythm, dance, and ecstatic free
expression is seen as a highly negative value by the authorities in control at the time, the Roman
Catholic Church. According to Christensen, the removal process from the “natural” continues
through Western history with the 18th and 19th century aristocratic tight laced, restrained “corset life
style” leaving no room for free body expression. This is also seen in the musical culture, which
becomes increasingly intellectual, rational, and with no room for improvisation or spontaneous
creation and which focuses increasingly on complex harmony rather than liberating rhythms, which
we tend to see in the Romantic era.113
This view is echoed in Christopher Small’s Music, Society, Education where, what we
typically call Classical Music - a product of Western culture’s post-Renaissance rationalisation
process, is perceived as being regressive rather than progressive. Thus, according to Small, Western
music’s harmonic evolution resulted in a growing rhythmic deprivation; the elitist concert hall
culture which resulted in self contained-ness rather than communal interaction; the staff notation
resulted in a primitive binary divisive rhythmic perception, and so on.114 What was on Christensen
and Gøssel’s agenda was therefore to find and utilize music which was still “unspoiled” from the
contamination of Western society’s regressive formalism in order to apply it to children, who in
their “naturalness” could not relate to the “un-naturalness” of Western Music. Gøssel and
113
Christensen, Bernhard (1983) ch. 14, 17, 18
114
Small, Christopher (1975) ch. 1
62
Christensen discovered that “primitive” music (i.e. non-Western music) and black American jazz
both, in their supposed isolation from Western society, contained elements of “naturalness” in
regards to free self expression (improvisation, spontaneous creation) and unrestrained free body-
muscular awareness, all virtually extinct in classical music. Thus, the “natural” and uncontaminated
individuals were children (of all races), people of “primitive” cultures, and black American jazz
musicians. Gøssel, in an article entitled “Om børnemusik” (About Children’s Music), writes:
The child improvises – just like the primitive – by his/her instrument, whereby the material and the instrument’s
conditions as well as the child’s physique plays a tremendous role. The phonetics and the significance of the words are
the strong fundamentals in which the melody is structured. They rhyme and sing using the words and they sing on
sounds alone just like Cab Calloway, who is their absolute favourite.115
In a slightly similar vein, Christensen in the article “Kultiveret jazz?” (Cultivated Jazz?) criticises
any attempt to “cultivate” jazz because it is a regression towards old European ideals instead of
worshipping the natural and “primitive” of which Louis Armstrong is a representative:
One must count on the fact that jazz musicians generally are not musicians but musicianers.116 What I am referring to is
that they have no schooling behind them, no institutions...Armstrong is a musicianer...When we come to Armstrong it is
to hear jazz style in its purest form, in its primitive improvisational form and to listen to a superb musicianer...We stand
before the choice of, on one hand the primitive jazz (Armstrong), who in its simple folksy musicianer style has great
significance towards the big audience in that it creates impulses towards active self participation in the music. On the
other hand...”cultivated jazz” which utilizes old elements and formulas, slides over into the concert hall, and there
quickly loses its common significance in that it has not managed to have a solid foothold within the population117
Here at the threshold of the idea of rhythmic music; Christensen and Gøssel’s idea of the “natural”
and unspoiled or “childish”, we are confronted with, on the one hand, an extremely progressive and
forward looking revolutionary idea. But on the other hand, seen in retrospect, it is an idea filled with
a tremendous amount of problems and misunderstandings all related to the complex and dangerous
territory of race and race relations. Due to the vast complexity of this issue it is almost impossible to
see clearly what is at stake here, and it is perhaps even pointless to even try to sort out the true from
115
Gøssel, Astrid (April 1935) p. 7
116
Translated from Danish ”musikant” implying a musician of a folksy character. “Musikant” is best translated as
“minstrel” but due to that word’s racial associating from American black face minstrelsy, I choose not to use that word.
The word “musicianer” is the word Sidney Bechet uses in his autobiography Treat it Gentle and I find it appropriate to
utilize his somewhat down to earth and informal word in this context. See Bechet, Sidney (1978)
117
63
the false, the good from the bad etc. However, I think what is possible is to try and look at the
bigger picture and to examine some aspects which Christensen and Gøssel, in their otherwise
revolutionary idea of rhythmic music as well as their idea of “natural-ness”, did not take into
consideration.
Colonialist Projections on Black Rhythm and “Naturalness”
We need to take a look at two issues in regards to black music and its transplantation into the
Western cultural sphere. These are the white reactions and their perceptions of black and
“primitive” music and the black people’s struggle for acceptance and civil rights, especially in
America, often under difficult racially charged circumstances. The very idea of “rhythm” which is
seen as a positive aspect within the idea of rhythmic music, was in 19th and early 20th century
colonialism used negatively and used to justify the oppression and enslavement of a people on
grounds that they were racially inferior. Rhythm was in 19th century science used to stigmatise
Africans as backwards and primitive and it was often, as found in colonialist accounts of encounters
with African drumming, equated with savagery, human sacrifice, madness, intoxication, and so
on.118 In America, accounts on observations of black slave music often emphasized “naturalness”
and “childishness”, all attributes which were thought to be explained racially. The myriad of
paternalistically racist descriptions and observations on slave song, whether real or fictive, bear
witness to an emphasis on the natural, the childish, or the otherworldly: Slave song “is the bird-song
that goes beyond the bloom”119 or “...they get to making all the different noises the human voice is
capable of, all at the same time”120 This emphasis on the “natural” among blacks’ musicality was
used as a strategy to claim a racial difference between whites and blacks and therefore justified
black’s denial of access to the social benefits of white civilisation. In Radano’s words:
Drawing in line the disparate figures of racial difference was the trope of the natural musician, a conceit that embodied
the exceptional qualities of slave music to the point of defining black character for the next one hundred-odd years. In
his happiness, in her pain and sorrow, the slave voiced a certainty of emotion and feeling that precluded the possibility
of intellect, something that was assumed to be beyond black’s capacities. By demonstrating natural musical gifts, blacks
rose to a higher power of awareness just as they were effectively removed from the frames of Euro-Western civility.121
118
See Radano, Ronald (2000)
119
Mrs. Frances Harriet McDougall quoted in Radano, Ronald (2003) p. 143
120
Lewis W. Paine quoted in Radano, Ronald (2003) p. 143
121
Radano, Ronald (2003) p. 146
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Gøssel and Christensen saw this “naturalness” as a positive aspect and put it in high esteem
compared to “Euro-Western civility” which was perceived as regressive. However, in their naivety,
they seemed unable to fully grasp the complexity of colonialist race relations. There is a startling
similarity between Gøssel’s rhetoric and the highly paternalistically racist slave song observations
quoted above, creating a comparison between children, the “primitive” and jazz singer Cab
Calloway. Another example, echoing Mrs. Frances Harriet McDougall’s observation equating slave
song with bird song, is Gøssel using the nightingale as a comparison to jazz singer Ethel Waters’
rhythmic voice technique.122 Seen with our present day post-colonialist eyes, Gøssel’s writings on
“naturalness” from the 1930’s are permeated with a subtle paternalistic racism. However, to
Gøssel’s credit, it must be said that unlike the racially charged slave song observations, which
uncritically explained black’s natural musical disposition racially, Gøssel argued that it was
culturally rather than racially inflicted, and therefore, children, not yet contaminated by “Euro-
Western civility”, could inherit this “naturalness” regardless of race. Christensen joins the argument
that “naturalness” is cultural rather than racial and exemplifies it eloquently in “My Motive” with a
picture of a white Australian farmer’s son who, regardless of his race, is able to successfully adopt a
traditional aboriginal dance. (See illustration below)
Arnold Haskell, The Story of Dance (1960) Scanned from Bernhard Christensen “Mit Motiv” (1983)
122
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Black Face Minstrelsy and White Inventions of Black Naturalness
In the idea of rhythmic music and its notion of maintaining the “folksy”, the “natural”, the
“rhythmic” and its opposition to European cultivated-ness, the idea, seen with modern day eyes,
grossly misses the point regarding the blacks’ struggle for civil rights, dignity, and their acceptance
into Western civilization. The notions of the “rhythmic”, the “natural” or the “folksy”, much
esteemed by Christensen and Gøssel, were precisely the notions that were typically emphasized and
illustrated in 19th century black face minstrelsy in the United States. Minstrelsy typically depicted
blacks as ignorant incompetent fools with a “natural” disposition for music and dance and therefore
not worthy of participating in dignified white civilisation. When we put the highly influential
American minstrel legacy with its close association to a spawning popular music industry into the
discussion, something which early rhythmic music discourse for some reason was not able to see,
the issues at stake become infinitely complex and literally mind-boggling. When we look at the
mechanisms behind minstrelsy, coon song, and “darkie”-iconography, all of which are white
projections and popular fantasies about black culture still prevalent far into the 20th century, the
ideas of rhythmic music as constructed by Christensen and Gøssel (and also later), become
frighteningly simplified. Were black jazz artists – Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway,
etc., as Christensen and Gøssel saw it, bearers of a pure and “natural” tradition unspoiled from the
evils of European civilisation or were they products of the minstrel and “darkie” legacy, essentially
a white invention? How do we know the difference between what Christensen and Gøssel would
call a rhythmic musician, someone with a “natural” rhythmic disposition using a fully integrated
body-muscular awareness and a minstrel performer mimicking those same traits to enforce the
negative black stereotypes? Could Gøssel’s statement that “The rhythmic motion-connectedness is
unified with the negro’s body and reoccurs likewise in his rhythmic technique”123 for instance, be
equally applied to minstrel performers Thomas D. Rice and the Bryant Minstrels? (see illustrations
below)
123
66
Detail from sheet music cover of "Sich a
Getting Up Stairs", featuring Thomas D. Detail from a playbill of the Bryant's Minstrels depicting the final part
Rice. Scanned from Dan Emmett and the of the walkaround, 19 December 1859. Scanned from Dan Emmett and
Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy by Hans the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy by Hans Nathan.
Nathan.
1830’s
In regards to the way Louis Armstrong was depicted by Gøssel and Christensen as a “natural” and
“folksy” musician, it is a great opportunity to point out the complexity of the racial issues which
Gøssel and Christensen in their idea of rhythmic music seemed to have completely overlooked. The
case of Louis Armstrong is very complex and has been much debated, but this is only to our
advantage, for we are not seeking ultimate answers but rather attempting to investigate and to point
out the bigger picture in its complexity. Was Armstrong an example of “natural-ness” and pure
“folksy-ness” as Christensen and Gøssel suggested or was he - as an increasing number of black
intellectuals and musicians during the civil rights movements suggested – an “Uncle Tom”
character; a product of the highly influential minstrel and “darkie” legacy, essentially a white
distorted misconception of black culture? Armstrong’s artistry fits many of the paternalistic
antebellum accounts on black’s “natural” and “other-worldly” traits in regards to music with his
unique raspy voice, his stunning “natural” virtuosity on his trumpet, his “swing”, and his highly
dynamic body language on stage. He was highly influenced by the famous black minstrel
entertainer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and with his trademark benign attitude on stage, his grinning,
and his wide rolling eyes, he, in my opinion, evokes subtle associations to the minstrel stage. This
67
was precisely what was later criticized by progressive black musicians and intellectuals during and
after the civil rights movements. Miles Davis, for example, in his notes to the illustrations page
indicated this view: “Some of the images I would fight against throughout my career. I loved
Satchmo [Armstrong], but I couldn’t stand all that grinning he did”124 Some observers disagree.
Gary Giddins in his book “Satchmo” rejects Armstrong’s association to minstrelsy and claims that
Armstrong in fact demolished the minstrel stereotypes – Jim Crow, Zip Coon, etc. and in fact
resented being called “a white folk’s nigger”.125 This does not really answer the question of whether
black jazz musicians were “naturals” as Gøssel and Christensen suggested or products of white
racial fantasies but it shows how complex the situation is and how limited the idea of rhythmic
music in its starting phase was. It shows how complex things become when we add popular culture
and its vastly complex mechanisms to the mix, which, I think, is what is at stake here.
Louis Armstrong. Picture scanned from “Har den danske jazzmusiker swing?” Astrid Gøssel H.O.T. 1935
Black Music: A White Construction?
In light of this, I would like to add a few other situations that expose traps that one could get tangled
up in concerning the idea of rhythmic music. Previously, I attempted to clarify that the complex
mechanisms behind the highly influential black face minstrelsy phenomenon complicate the idea of
124
Davis, Miles (1993)
125
Giddins, Gary (1988) p. 8-10
68
rhythmic music with its claims of “natural-ness” and its rhythmic-motoric element. This is because
in minstrelsy we see projections of black racial fantasies manufactured by whites, in other words
racial images the way whites would like them to be and not the way they actually are. This fine line
between fantasy projection and reality is what permeates black music history and is especially
relevant with artists such as Louis Armstrong, artists who were role models for Christensen and
Gøssel’s idea of rhythmic music. This complexity is further illustrated with the following two
examples of how black music could have been shaped by white projections of their own racial
fantasy rather than having been something pure and “natural”: To maintain the racial myth that
blacks were incapable of handling sophisticated European techniques, black performers were often
prohibited from reading music on the band stand. The band members of one of the leading society
orchestras at the turn of the 20th century, under the direction of James Reese Europe, were forced to
memorize all their music despite the fact that they were all excellent sight readers because they
were not allowed to use music on stage during performance. Allowing them to do so would shatter
the myth about race: that blacks were incapable of handling sophisticated European technique and
that they were carriers of a “natural” oral tradition.126 Similarly, pianist Eubie Blake, a performer
capable of playing classical music, an excellent sight reader, as well as an outstanding composer in
the Western sense of the word, claimed that in those days if black musicians could read music they
had to pretend they could not read, for similar reasons.127 What is projected here is the notion that
blacks have a “natural” capability for oral tradition and an unwillingness to adapt and utilize
sophisticated Western technique such as being able to read music. The trap here is that observers
such as Gøssel and Christensen potentially interpret black musicians’ avoidance of Western
technique as something of their choice due to cultural reasons and fail to see that this is not a choice
but rather something facilitated by white society itself.
Here is another example. Throughout early jazz history it has been evident that black
performers, in order to get better tips from costumers and to survive in general, often would put on a
show to entertain whites and that this “show”, for maximum entertainment value, often was aimed
at fulfilling the whites’ racial fantasies about blacks. Another one of Christensen and Gøssel’s
rhythmic music role models, Duke Ellington, could be said to have done exactly that during his
early years in New York. Ellington and his band performed regularly for exclusively white
audiences first in a club called the Kentucky Club and later the Cotton Club both owned by white
owners. It was here that Ellington developed his famous “Jungle Style” (note the racialist colonialist
126
See Ken Burns’ Jazz
127
Blesh, Rudi (1953) p. 197
69
association) which utilized exciting instrumental “growls”, “roars” and “wah’s” executed with
various plunger techniques. When we watch video footage of his band such as his appearance in the
film “Check and Double Check” from 1930 featuring the overtly racist minstrel-like comedians
Amos and Andy, it is unclear what is “natural” and what is “show” for the benefits of the all white
audience. Are the band members’ rocking, moving, and jiving on stage “natural” rhythmic-motoric
movements or are they part of a show to satisfy the white’s racial fantasies of how blacks are
supposed to behave?
This issue of deliberate racial acting, an illusion to entertain and to get money from
whites is discussed in Scott DeVeaux’s “The Birth of Be-Bop”. Malcolm X is quoted saying that
the main purpose of the Harlem clubs was “to entertain and jive the white night crowd to get their
money” and jazz musician Danny Barker illustrates such a scene eloquently:
I first saw the drama cleverly enacted at the old Nest Club, where there was not much action until after the big joints
closed at the curfew time....It was a night when the place was empty. Everybody sat around like half a sleep. At the door
upstairs there was Ross the slick doorman. When he rang three loud rings on the upstairs buzzer (it rang loud), it meant
some live prosperous, a party, were coming in. Like jacks out of a box the band struck up Lady be Good. Everybody
went into action; the band swinging, waiters beating on trays, everybody smiling and moving, giving the impression the
joint was jumping....The unsuspecting party entered amid finger-popping and smiling staff....Then on came the singers,
smiling and moving; then another singer, a dancer.128
Rhythmic Music’s “Ghetto-Romanticism” and Blacks’ Civil Rights
Coming back to the issue of blacks’ struggle for civil rights, the idea of rhythmic music and its
deliberate distancing of anything “serious” as well as its romanticised idea of the un-schooled, un-
trained ghetto-musician, again misses crucial elements in black music; indicators of a battle for
dignity, civil rights, and the access to the benefits of European civilisation. Christensen was against
any attempt to “civilize” jazz by lifting it up to the level of the concert hall and Ole Matthiessen
expressed a similar attitude, that why should jazz, which is already a mix of African and European
music, be mixed even further with European music(?)129 Both Christensen and Matthiessen point
out the importance of the un-schooled ghetto musician in relation to rhythmic music, in
Christensen’s words: “It was not among the “privileged” social classes that I found rhythm and
128
Malcolm X and Danny Barker quoted in DeVeaux, Scott (1997) p. 228-229
129
See the chapter ”Rhythmic Music Theories and Narratives”
70
improvisation but on the contrary in oppressed minority groups, “overlooked” groups, who never
had taken part in the cultural patterns of the bourgeoisie. It was among the Brazilians in the shanty
towns (Favela), among the Negroes in Harlem, New York where the Western world’s cultural
pattern, even in its immediate geographic proximity, was a world far removed from theirs. Here the
rhythm was alive with song, music, and dance as a condition of life.”130 Ole Matthiessen quoting
South African trumpet player Hugh Masakela: “Mbaqanga became Mbaqanga the same way
Calypso became Calypso, Highlife in West Africa became Highlife or Reggae became Reggae in
Jamaica...They are all ghetto music of the under-privileged classes.”131
There is much truth to the often observed phenomenon that it is sometimes the
oppressed who ironically express themselves in a freer and more unrestrained way than the
privileged. But Christensen and Matthiessen, writing from the safety of privilege, both having
received the benefits of European civilization such as education and civility, have a tendency to
romanticise the ghetto aspect and therefore miss many aspects of black music’s struggle for dignity
and acceptance. They overlook the crucial driving force behind the music of Scott Joplin, Robert
Nathaniel Dett, James P. Johnson, Duke Ellington, Marion Anderson, William Grant Still, Charlie
Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane to name only a few black artists, who through their art have
struggled for dignity, civil rights, and acceptance into white civility by proving capable of utilizing
complex European intellectualism but without losing touch with their black cultural heritage. The
whole idea, for instance, of the Classic Ragtime, a term conceived by Scott Joplin and his publisher
John Stark, was to lift black music out of the “ghetto”, to oppose the stigmatisation of the racially
derogatory coon song and darkie-iconography, often depicted on early ragtime sheet music. Joplin
and Classic Ragtime strived for an acceptance on the same level of dignity as Chopin and
Schumann but maintaining a unique black flavour.132 Towards the end of his life, Joplin became
completely immersed in composing “Treemonisha” a monumental and extremely overlooked
master piece, which in its essence was about black civil rights, only many decades before Martin
Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and before the Harlem Renaissance had a strong foot-hold in New
York in the 1920’s. The theme of the opera is that education and civility is the only way that the
Negroes living in ignorance and “backward-ness”, exemplified by conjuring and superstition, will
advance in society. Joplin in the preface to Treemonisha writes:
130
131
132
Schafer, William et. al (1973) p. 52
71
The year 1866 finds them [the Negro ex-slaves] in dense ignorance, with no-one to guide them, as the white folks had
moved away shortly after the Negroes were set free and had left the plantation in charge of a trustworthy Negro servant
named Ned. All of the Negroes, but Ned and his wife Monisha, were superstitious, and believed in conjuring. Monisha,
being a woman, was at times more impressed by what the more expert conjurers would say. Ned and Monisha had no
children, and they had often prayed that their cabin home might one day be brightened by a child that would be a
companion for Monisha when Ned was away from home. They had dreams, too, of educating the child so that when it
grew up it could teach the people around them to aspire to something better and higher than superstition and
conjuring.133
Some years later, the Harlem Renaissance sought to achieve a much needed level of dignity and
acceptance by proving that blacks, contrary to racial belief, could handle European form and
technique and be immersed in intellectual matters but still maintaining their black cultural pride. In
Alain Locke’s anthology of the Harlem Renaissance The New Negro (1925) he states that the
elevation or “vindication of the Negro” can only be obtained through the “mastery of [European]
form and technique” as well as with the “mastery of mood and spirit”.134 This philosophy seems to
have been the main idea behind the Negro spirituals and the culture surrounding them. Composer
Robert Nathaniel Dett’s arrangements of the spirituals were crafted using his formal education in
Western music and although the arrangements and the performances most likely had a distinct
African-American sensitivity, the pure traditional aspects of black song, the rhythmic and the
“natural”, were deliberately removed. This would have disappointed white audiences, who had
become well accustomed to racial difference and had therefore expected “the spirituals to be
accompanied by swaying, hand-clapping, and foot-patting”.135 It was precisely these expectations
that Dett wanted to get rid of, which is very understandable in the light of hundreds of years of
whites projecting their racial fantasies of difference on to black people as I have discussed in detail
above. On Dett’s tour to Europe with the Hampton chorus, the white passengers on the boat from
New York to England, who probably had negative or paternalistically racist expectations of the
black singers as “natural” and rhythmic, were deeply mystified, since, according to Dett, “none
drank wine, spoke dialect, or indulged in gambling” and by the fact that they sang selections of
European classical music136 In other words, they were dignified members of Euro-American society
on the same level as whites. This was clearly the effect that Dett sought to achieve and it could only
133
Scott Joplin preface to “Treemonisha” composed and published by Scott Joplin 1911
134
Alain Locke quoted in Spencer, Jon Michael, (1997) p. 74
135
Spencer, Jon Michael (1997) p. 39
136
Spencer, Jon Michael (1997) p. 53
72
be done by removing many of the outer black stereotypes and by adopting European forms while
maintaining black cultural pride.137
It is in this light that we see the famous black American opera singer Marion
Anderson and her monumental role in the civil rights movement and how the idea of rhythmic
music in its romanticised view on the “natural” and the un-schooled is seemingly unaware of the
issue of civil rights. Astrid Gøssel’s comparison with Marion Anderson and Ethel Waters, where
Ethel Waters is recognized as the singer with the most rich and nuanced “speech” voice138, raises an
interesting point but avoids the civil rights issue. Similarly, Bent Haastrup’s claim that Negro
spirituals and Anderson and Paul Robeson’s performances of them, are not considered rhythmic
music because they don’t swing, also misses the point: The spirituals were in a sense a means of
striving for civil rights and acceptance and it is precisely Haastrup’s notions of “swing” and rhythm
that they strived to rid themselves of in order to avoid the negative stigmatisation of black rhythm
and “natural-ness”. This is not to say that the idea of the Harlem Renaissance - a movement in stark
contrast to the idea of rhythmic music - is not problem-free. The movement was sometimes
criticized for being too European and it, often in a snobbish manner, frowned upon “lower” forms
of black music such as the Harlem stride piano, the blues, and jazz. The poet Langston Hughes,
himself an honorary member of the movement, was among the critiquing voices:
Let the blare of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith singing Blues penetrate the closed ears of the
colored near-intellectuals until they listen and perhaps understand... We younger Negro artists who create now intend to
express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are
not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs.139
Even though I am not giving any clear answers as to what is really at stake and who is
right or wrong, I am attempting to broaden our perception of the vast complexity of the matter and I
have shown that rhythmic music discourse suffers from not understanding or acknowledging these
complexities. We have seen in this chapter that Christensen and Gøssel’s early rhythmic music
discourse is deeply flawed when it comes to race relations. This flaw is partly excused when we
take into consideration that Christensen and Gøssel were brought up in Denmark, a homogenous
society with little or no tradition for racial awareness. Their superficial “fieldwork” in African
American culture simply could not teach them sufficient insight into the vast complexities of race
137
See also Müller, Jonas (2006) p. 22-23
138
139
From ”The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” Langston Hughes The Nation June 23 1926
73
relations in the United States. The fact that they never spent a considerable amount of time actually
living in American society, always maintaining the umbilical chord to the safety of their home
country intact, must have also prevented them from having a clearer perception of the various
aspects of race in American society. We can then, with the benefit of post-colonial hindsight as well
as my own insight, gained from having spent six years residing in the United States, see clearly the
issues which Christensen and Gøssel were not aware of and we can thereby expose the deep flaws
in their otherwise progressive theories. But it is a bit startling that to my knowledge, none of these
flaws, the black face minstrelsy issue or the civil rights issue, have been thoroughly criticised in the
years after Christensen and Gøssel’s time. All publications and articles I have encountered about
Christensen and Gøssel’s work published during the last 30 years140, do not contain any mention
nor address their racial misunderstandings and, most importantly, there is no mention of the subtle
paternalistic racism found especially in Gøssel’s work. Instead, they focus, understandably, on
promoting and honouring their cause in trying to raise awareness of their pioneering work and so
they, in their well meant enthusiasm, miss the more problematic sides of their theories.
140
Lyhne, Erik (2004); Kristensen, Sven Møller (1982); Ahlmann, Lise (2000)
74
Conclusion
In this assignment I have presented a general outline of what lies behind the Danish term rhythmic
music. I have accomplished this through the presentation of four different narratives and from those,
as well as from additional information, I have extracted a sort of definition in order for the non-
Danish readers to obtain an approximate idea of what the term actually stands for. The main
objective for this assignment was to thoroughly question and criticise the way in which rhythmic
music discourse has attempted to invent and legitimize the term through their different narratives. I
have been critical in the discourse’s lack of a precise definition, asking the question whether this is
an avoidance of the real issues involved and whether or not this tendency threatens the legitimacy of
the music. I have been critical of rhythmic music’s self-proclaimed “broadness-concept” in that it
has a tendency of diluting the integrity of the individual styles and also that its refusal of regarding
jazz as a unique style separate from the other styles threatens the integrity of jazz music. I have
pointed to rhythmic music discourse’s oversimplification in its attempt to claim specific geographic
origins and its misleading America centred-ness and lack of acknowledging European folk music
and musical theatre traditions as a vital element of rhythmic music. I have shown how a focus on
“difference” in relation to Western classical music perpetuate myths and generalisations, which
distort the real picture of the music one is dealing with and, finally, I have tried to bring attention to
overlooked issues concerning race relations embedded particularly in the early rhythmic music
discourse. Here I have questioned rhythmic music discourse’s ideas of “naturalness” and “rhythm”
and weighed it against the issues of black’s civil rights in a white society with an age long history of
projecting their own fantasies of “black naturalness” onto the scene.
As Henrik Sveidahl expressed in my interview with him, if the Rhythmic Music Conservatory is to
convert to a more internationally applicable standard, the term rhythmic music, being an outdated
concept, must be abandoned in favour of a better term. If we look at the vast amount of problems
embedded in the word; its myths, generalisations, and subtle racism, we should want to see the
word abandoned in Danish cultural discourse as well as in institutional music education discourse.
The term had a certain purpose in the early days to penetrate the then closed barrier of the all rigidly
dominating and close-minded classical music world and to create awareness of alternative ways of
looking at music performance and education. However, it quickly became just as rigid and close-
75
minded and created myths and generalisations that inhibit all true free creativity. If the term
continues to be used in Danish music education, it will maintain what it was designed for: the
superficial comfort and convenience of having a fundamentally segregated music system. But the
consequences would be that truly creative artists and musicians, who always at all times through
their art attempt to free themselves of the limits of such categorisations, often feel disillusioned and
out of place, as I myself have felt many times in Danish cultural life. The alternative would be to
use internationally applicable terms such as jazz, rock, or popular music, which are, of course, also
limiting terms. However, they differ from rhythmic music because they have been brought to life by
a diverse amount of people ranging from musicians, critics, the public, and scholars and so the
words have a deeper integrity than an artificial word such as rhythmic music, which was developed
by a handful of music educators in a small country. Furthermore, terms like jazz, rock, and popular
music have undergone serious international scholarship to a much larger extent in comparison to
rhythmic music, which has remained isolated. Therefore, the ideas behind those terms are more
solidified and have gained a more substantial integrity. Other alternatives could be to use more
vague terms, as suggested by Sveidahl, such as “contemporary music” or “world music” but then
deal with the difficulties of having to define the terms properly.
Another option, if we are to continue to use the term rhythmic music appropriately, is
to use Christensen and Gøssel’s early rhythmic music discourse as a point of departure and expand
and modify their theories for use in a more modern context. We have seen that their theories,
although problematic in many ways, often are far more nuanced and thoroughly thought out
compared to the later rhythmic music theories and therefore, many of their ideas could, with some
modification, easily be intelligently applied to a modern music educational setting. Here, their idea
of rhythmic music as a way of playing and not a style or specific cultural area is very usable and
their open-mindedness about world cultures as well as certain European classical music, often
lacking in later rhythmic music discourse, is a healthy attitude. Their theories of bodily awareness
and the attention they have given to Western culture’s oppression thereof is still very relevant today
and could easily be expanded on. It is also in this discourse, particularly in Bernhard Christensen’s
work, that we see a rare account of the history of Europe’s non-classical music. This area of study is
almost completely neglected in later rhythmic music discourse. It is also often overlooked in
mainstream musicology in its focus on Europe’s classical music; on world music with its tendency
of dealing primarily with exotic non-European cultures; or popular music dealing primarily with
modern American or English music. However, before we attempt to use rhythmic music in that
76
context, there is a fundamental unfortunate Danish isolationism that has to be dealt with, as well as
a lot of racially related questions concerning Christensen and Gøssel’s theories, that still must be
properly answered.
I am hoping that studying this assignment, the reader will have obtained an impression of a well
intended but highly problematic aspect of cultural life in Denmark: The invention and the
legitimisation of the term rhythmic music. As I have shown in numerous examples, this term has
suffered from abundant oversimplifications and a lack of musical and cultural depth in its attempts
to legitimize itself, and any future use of the term must, accordingly, be seriously questioned. The
fact that the term is an entirely Danish invention, not existing anywhere else, points to a certain
isolationism and perhaps explains its oversimplifications, its apparent backwardness in relation to
international scholarship, its perpetuation of myths, and its lack of proper racial awareness. This
term and its discourse seem to have been permitted to remain unexamined and unquestioned in its
isolation from the international scene and so even recent rhythmic music scholarship suffers from
lack of depth and oversimplification. Because of this, I find it appropriate to conclude that rhythmic
music is no more than a form of Danish music performed and taught by Danes, discussed and talked
about among Danes - in Denmark, and that rhythmic music therefore has little to do with Africans
or African-Americans and their music. The term serves little or no use in an international setting
and my recommendation is that the term must either undergo radical modifications or be completely
abandoned unless for the use of historic reference.
77
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Agawu, Kofi V. (2003) The Invention of “African Rhythm” from “Representing African Music;
Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions” Routledge London and New York
Ahlmann, Lise Astrid Gøssel (1892-1975) 0-14. - Årg. 10, nr. 3 (2000). - p. 90-96
Bailey, Derek Improvisation; Its Nature and Practice in Music Da Capo Press, New York 1992
Bechet, Sidney Treat it Gentle Da Capo Press 1978
Blesh, Rudi Shining Trumpets; A History of Jazz Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY 1953
Blesh, Rudi & Harriet, Janis They All Played Ragtime; The True Story of an American Music The
Jazz Book Club by arrangement with Sidgwick and Jackson. London, 1960
Christensen, Bernhard Mit Motiv; Musikpædagogik bygget på rytme og improvisation Gyldendal,

Denmark 1983
Christensen, Bernhard Kultiveret Jazz? H.O.T. Tidskriftet for moderne musik, Copenhagen April
1934
Danstrup, Peter Konservatorium fra Kjeldgaard, Bo Asmus (et. al.) Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium
10-års jubilæum 1986-1996 Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Frederiksberg 1996? (Year not
indicated on publication)
Davis, Miles & Troupe, Quincy The Autobiography Simon and Schuster, New York 1989
DeVeaux, Scott The Birth of Be-Bop; A Social and Musical History University of California Press
1997
Floyd, Jr., Samuel Toward a Philosophy of Black Music Scholarship. In Black Music Research
Journal vol. 2 1981-82
Gøssel, Astrid Teknik og tone i jazz H.O.T. Tidskriftet for moderne musik, Copenhagen August
1934
Gøssel, Astrid Har den danske jazzmusiker swing? H.O.T. Tidskriftet for moderne musik,
Copenhagen January 1935
Gøssel, Astrid Om børnemusik H.O.T. Tidskriftet for moderne musik, Copenhagen April 1935
Haastrup, Bent Betænkning inden for den rytmiske musik 1982 (own publication)
Haastrup, Bent & Gravesen, Finn Rytmisk Musik – Jazz Danish Radio, Copenhagen 1979
78
Hagen, Aage Rhythm Training; A Survey on a Basic Musical Training and its Relationship to
Instrumental and Ensemble Teaching from Traasdahl, Jan Ole (ed.) Rhythmic Music Education;
Jazz – Rock – World Music IMC of UNESCO Congress, Copenhagen 5-8 July 1996
Hentoff, Nat Jazz Is Ridge Press, New York, NY 1976
Hentoff, Nat Warren ”Baby” Dodds from Shapiro, Nat et. al (ed.) “The Jazz Makers” Greenwood
Press, Westport CT 1975 (orig. 1957)
Joplin, Scott Treemonisha – Opera in Three Acts Scott Joplin, New York 1911
Kennedy, Gary W. Jazz Education Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed Tuesday, 26
February 2008), http://www.grovemusic.com
Kofsky, Frank Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music Pathfinder Press, New York 1970
Kristensen, Sven Møller et. al. (ed.) Bogen om Gøssel: Astrid Gøssel - en bevægelsesform - en
pædagogik - en arbejdsmetode Gyldendal 1982
Krog, Peter et. al. Rytmisk musik – historie, miljø og vilkår Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk
Forlag, Copenhagen 1978
Locke, Alain The Negro and his Music Arno Press, New York 1969 (Orig. 1936)
Lyhne, Erik Musik med mening: et livslangt arbejde med børn og musik - Bernhard Christensen,
Astrid Gøssel og Jytte Rahbek Schmidt Åbyhøj: Lyren 2004
Matthiessen, Ole Trommernes rejse – Historien om den rytmiske musik Husets forlag, Århus 2006
Mezzrow, Mezz Really the Blues Double Day (1972)
Monson, Ingrid Russel, Coltrane and Modal Jazz From: Nettl, Bruno & Russel, Melinda (ed.)”In
the Course of Performance; Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation” University of Chicago
Press 1998
Moseholm, Erik Historisk forspil from Kjeldgaard, Bo Asmus (et. al.) Rytmisk
Musikkonservatorium 10-års jubilæum 1986-1996 Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Frederiksberg
1996? (Year not indicated on publication)
Müller, Jonas The Marginalisation of James P. Johnson’s Symphonic Music Batchelorprojekt

Copenhagen. University 2006
Musikvidenskabeligt Institut, København: Københavns Universitet Eksamensordning for Hoved-

og Bifag i musik August 1975
Nettl, Bruno An Art Neglected in Scholarship From: Nettl, Bruno & Russel, Melinda (ed.)”In the
Course of Performance; Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation” University of Chicago
Press 1998
79
Radano, Ronald TheRacial Formation of "Negro" Difference From "Lying Up a Nation; Race and
Black Music" Chicago University Press 2003
Radano, Ronald Hot Fantasies: American Modernism and the Idea of Black Rhythm From Radano,
Ronald & Bohlman, Philip (ed.) “Music and the Racial Imagination” University of Chicago Press,
Chicago 2000
Roar, Finn Den første tid from Kjeldgaard, Bo Asmus (et. al.) Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium 10-
års jubilæum 1986-1996 Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Frederiksberg 1996? (Year not indicated
on publication)
Schafer, William et. al The Art of Ragtime – Form and Meaning of an Original Black American Art
Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1973
Schuller, Gunther Early Jazz; Its Roots and Musical Development Oxford University Press, New
York 1968
Shapiro, Nat & Hentoff, Nat (ed.) Hear Me Talkin To Ya; The Story of Jazz and the Men Who Made
It Rinehart & Co., Inc., London 1955
Small, Christopher Music – Society – Education John Calder, London 1977
Stearns, Marshall et. al. Jazz Dance – The Story of the American Vernacular Dance Da Capo Press.
New York, 1994 (1968)
Sveidahl, Henrik Rytmisk musik er et dansk begreb from ”20 - Rytmisk musikkonservatorium
jubilæum 2006” (own publication)
Traasdahl, Jan Ole (ed.) Rhythmic Music Education; Jazz – Rock – World Music IMC of UNESCO
Congress, Copenhagen 5-8 July 1996
Weber, Max The Rational and Social Foundations of Music Translated and Edited by Don
Martindale, Johannes Riedel, Gertrude Neuwirth Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale and
Edwardsville 1958
Wiedemann, Erik Jazz i Danmark – i tyverne, trediverne og fyrrene – en musikalsk undersøgelse

Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen 1982
Wiedmann, Erik Jazz og jazzfolk Asschehoug dansk forlag, Copenhagen 1958
80
Filmography
Jazz – A Film by Ken Burns PBS Home Video (2001)
Tanrıkorur, Cinuçen: Lecture Demonstration by Cinuçen Tanrıkorur New England Conservatory

Boston MA 1994. Source: Cinuçen Tanrikourur Archives
The Universal Mind of Bill Evans; Jazz Pianist on the Creative Process and Self-Teaching
Rhapsody Films 1966
Check and Double Check RKO pictures 1930 (featuring Amos and Andy and the Duke Ellington
Orchestra)
Discography
Mali to Memphis; an African-American Odyssey Putumayo World Music 1999
Johann Sebastian Bach: Harpsichord Concertos Vol. 1, Lars Ulrich Mortensen and Concerto
Copenhagen Classic Produktion Osnabrück 2003
Benny Goodman: The Young Benny Goodman 1928-31 Timeless Holland 2005
Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings With Alan Lomax 1930-38
Cambridge, MA: Rounder 2005
The Complete Original Dixieland Jazz Band RCA 1995
Interviews
Bent Haastrup: Copenhagen March 3rd 2008
Olav Harsløf: Copenhagen March 6th 2008
Karsten Simonsen: Copenhagen March 28th 2008
Raymond Pitts: Copenhagen March 13th 2008
Ole Matthiessen: Copenhagen April 5th 2008
Henrik Sveidahl: Copenhagen April 25th 2008
Erik Christensen: Copenhagen April 17th 2008
Graig Earle: Copenhagen May 25th 2008
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The Invention of “Rhythmic Music”

Jazz, Rock, and World Music in Danish Music

Master’s Thesis by Jonas Müller

Copenhagen University Department of Arts and Cultural Studies

Jazz, Rock, and World Music in Danish Music Education

Master’s Thesis by Jonas Müller

Total number of characters: 193.029

PART 1 - WHAT IS “RHYTHMIC MUSIC”? 11

Rhythmic Music Theories and Narratives: Musical and Stylistic Definitions 13

Towards a Rhythmic Music Definition: Agreements and Contradictions 24

Anti-Western Classical Attitude 24

PART 2: RHYTHMIC MUSIC AS IDEA – 30

The Problems of Categorising; Simplified Definitions and Historiographies 32

Defining Rhythmic Music 33

The Politics of “Difference”: The Exclusion of Classical Music 48

The Concept of Swing 53

Racialist Misunderstandings; Myths of Black Rhythm and White Fantasies 62

Colonialist Projections on Black Rhythm and “Naturalness” 64

Anti-Western Classical Attitude

Rhythm and “Swing”

Chronology of Rhythmic Music’s Stylistic Developments

Early rhythmic music discourse:

Later rhythmic music discourse:

Copenhagen University 1975: “Jazz, Beat [Rock], and related music”36

Defining Rhythmic Music

Rhythmic Music’s Concept of Broadness

The African Heritage of Rhythmic Music

WESTERN EUROPE WEST-AFRICA MAGHREB

America-Centeredness: The Exclusion of European Folk Music Traditions

America-Centeredness: The Exclusion of European Musical Theatre Traditions

The Concept of Swing

The European Legacy of Jazz

Scott Joplin, “School of Ragtime” (1908) Exercise No. 1

Colonialist Projections on Black Rhythm and “Naturalness”

Black Music: A White Construction?

Rhythmic Music’s “Ghetto-Romanticism” and Blacks’ Civil Rights

Bechet, Sidney Treat it Gentle Da Capo Press 1978

Christensen, Bernhard Mit Motiv; Musikpædagogik bygget på rytme og improvisation Gyldendal,

Hentoff, Nat Jazz Is Ridge Press, New York, NY 1976

Mezzrow, Mezz Really the Blues Double Day (1972)

Müller, Jonas The Marginalisation of James P. Johnson’s Symphonic Music Batchelorprojekt

Musikvidenskabeligt Institut, København: Københavns Universitet Eksamensordning for Hoved-

Small, Christopher Music – Society – Education John Calder, London 1977

Wiedemann, Erik Jazz i Danmark – i tyverne, trediverne og fyrrene – en musikalsk undersøgelse

Wiedmann, Erik Jazz og jazzfolk Asschehoug dansk forlag, Copenhagen 1958

Jazz – A Film by Ken Burns PBS Home Video (2001)

Tanrıkorur, Cinuçen: Lecture Demonstration by Cinuçen Tanrıkorur New England Conservatory

Mali to Memphis; an African-American Odyssey Putumayo World Music 1999

The Complete Original Dixieland Jazz Band RCA 1995

Bent Haastrup: Copenhagen March 3rd 2008

Olav Harsløf: Copenhagen March 6th 2008

Karsten Simonsen: Copenhagen March 28th 2008

Raymond Pitts: Copenhagen March 13th 2008

Ole Matthiessen: Copenhagen April 5th 2008

Henrik Sveidahl: Copenhagen April 25th 2008

Erik Christensen: Copenhagen April 17th 2008

Graig Earle: Copenhagen May 25th 2008

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