band are entirely legitimate. We have yet to see what use they make of them.
In Krehbiel's book the whole question of rhythm is comparatively taken for granted, as it should be. Syncopation discovered in classic music, in the Scot's snap of the Strathspey reel, in Hungarian folk music, is characteristic of three-fifths of the negro songs which Krehbiel analysed (exactly the same proportion, by the way, as are in the interval of the ordinary major). But it is such a normal phenomenon that I have never found a composer to be interested in it. Krehbiel, to be sure, does refer to the "degenerate form" of syncopation which is the basis of our ragtime, and that is hopeful because it indicates that ragtime is a development—intensification, sophistication—of something normal in musical expression. The free use of syncopation has led our good composers of ragtime and jazz to discoveries in rhythm and to a mastery of complications which one finds only in the great masters of serious music. In describing the Dahoman war dances at the Chicago World's Fair, Krehbiel says:
"Berlioz in his supremest effort with his army of drummers produced nothing to compare in artistic interest with the harmonious drumming of these savages. The fundamental effect was a combination of double and triple time, the former kept by the singers, the latter by the drummers, but it is impossible to convey the idea of the wealth of detail achieved by the drummers by means of exchange of the rhythms, syncopation of both simultaneously, and dynamic devices."
The italics are mine. I am fully aware of the difference between savage and sophisticated, between folk music and popular music; yet I cannot help believing that this entire statement, including Berlioz whom I greatly admire, could be applied to Paul Whiteman playing Pack Up Your Sins or his incredible mingling of A Stairway to Paradise with the Beale Street Blues.
Freedom with rhythm is audible—should I say palpable?—everywhere. Stumbling (Zez Confrey) is in effect a waltz played against a more rapid counter-rhythm, and is interesting also for its fixed groups of uneven notes—they are really triplets with the first note held or omitted for a time, then with the third note omitted
