Oxford High School - Ravelins Yearbook (Oxford, MA)

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THE RAVE-LIN'S, 1936 23 been made by great American composers. From then on through the efforts of White- man-now known as the jazz king-many con- temporaries such as Berlin, Kearns, and Ham- merstein have glorified Jazz, which has one- hundredfold justified itself by opening such wide fields in instrumental interpretation and modification. And so, through Ragtime, Jazz, and Swing Music, the Americans have devel oped something strictly their own-their mu- sic-something of which they can be justly proud-Jazz ' CLASS WELCOME By Eugene Schofield. This is station O.H.S. operating on the short wave 1936. Before starting the program, we wish to thank our sponsors, who are our parents, teach- ers, school committee, superintendent, and friends. Through their efforts it is possible to present the following program: Advice to Undergraduates ........ John Connors Class History .................................... Vincent Gill Class Prophecy ........ ............ H elen Daley Class Will ............. ................. O live Wood Class Poem .............................. Cathryn Christian Class Song ............................ Paulena Chickering Class Gifts ........ Rita Lyman and Robert Allen The entire cast welcomes all friends of the school. We feel that this program will show that your faith in Station O.H.S. is justified. We hope that it will show you that this station is producing a program of which you can be proud. Your announcer, in behalf of the cast of the studio, thanks the audience for all it has given to the programs sponsored by us for the past four years. The last of this series of programs will take place Wednesday evening at eight o'clock from the same studios, by the same cast. I now turn the microphone over to the first of our enter- tainers.

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22 THE RAVELIN'S, 1936 THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAZZ By Matthew Sands. Since prehistoric times, musical expression has afforded an outlet for man's emotions. From the cave man to the average American of to- day, moods have been expressed by music and rhythm. At first, this music was Simply the beating of a drum, to which was added a series of four or five notes that were sung continu- allv for hours, either individually. or by groups when the prehistoric man was caught in the throes of some emotion,-,' perhaps collective groaning in times of imeiase hunger. From these simple beginnings has come our modern music with its complicated' melodies, counter- points, and elaborate orchestration of instru- ments and voices. With the beginning of music probably civili- zation began. Music is natural, and laws of mob psychology and sociology state that people living collectively fall to music as a means of synchronizing common thoughts and impulses, and so it is no more than natural that as Amer- ican civilization grew out of its independence it should turn toward music. Having no music of its own it started by borrowing the Euro- pean arts. But, Americans being essentially a revolutionary people soon grew tired of the old masters and a pause in music interest oc- curred. It was during this pause that our ul- tra-modern music, which had been developing in the American negro, was allowed to come forth and present America with its music- Jazz. During the later years of the nineteenth century the negroes, naturally a musical race, after their release from enslavement began to fnrm their own quarters in cities, and subse- quently began to form little bands or orches- tras of their own composed of a few cheap homemade or remodeled relics of instruments on which they played, with their only bond the common knowledge of the same tune. Each member of such bands would, in an endeavor to secure recognition, alter his instrument ofa learn the use of tongue devices such as treble tongue, in such a manner as to publicise its unique characteristics. The extensive use of wind instruments, because of their volume and versatility in small numbers, drove out the small stringed instruments, the banjo being the only survivor in the long struggle. When the music first played bv these negro bands came into the public eye, in the first years of the twentieth century, it was called Ragtime, and it retained that title for about fifteen years before being popularly known as Jazz. In Memphis where these bands first ap- peared they soon popularized the style of mu- sic known as Negro Blues. In this music as in nur present day Swing Music, between the verses or vocalized sections of the song, the various instruments would, in turn, give their interpretation, the player endeavoring to se- cure a unique effect which would mean popu- laritv. These Negro Blues were seldom writ- ten in music form and even then only by ne- gro composers. The only notable example of such a composition was the Memphis Blues, which was also interesting in that it had a mi- nor strain sprinkled throughout. The other maior type of strictly American music originated with a few negro and white bands in New Orleans which began at almost the same time as those in Memphis, but whose essential trait was the simultaneous competi- tion of the instruments in a group. Although never copied extensively, these general types brought forth many characteris- tics of present day Jazz. The development of this music was spread by touring ragtime bands started first as a commercial enterprise. It wasn't long, however. before such leaders as Art Hickman and Paul Whiteman, because they recognized the possibilities of such music, started to calm down the unreliable Memphis take your turn style, and the New Orleans altogether manner, by getting elaborate in- strumental music written by Grofe, a famous composer and arranger. In these orchestra- tions the spontaniety of each member was sac- rificed for miraculous effects in beauty of mel- ody and volume. ' Supplementing this work of Whiteman and .Q'ofe, George Gershwin produced in 1924, the most beautiful and only truly successful piece of modern music, in which he incorporated all of the jazz essentials into a beautiful melody, even eliminating the monotonous fox-trot bass time. This well known piece of work is his Rhapsody in Blue, whose success has never been duplicated, though many attempts have

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24 THE RAVELIN'S,1936 THINGS THE UNDERCLASSMEN SHOULD KNOVV OR ADVICE TO UNDERGHADUATES By John Connor. X 1. That teachers are generally kind to dumb animals and will help them at anytime if they desire to be helped. 2. That it doesn't cost very much to be on the honor roll all the time in the four years of high school and it is cheaper in the long run. The only trouble is that most of us get out of breath in the long run, and get on the honor roll only part of the time. 3. That the Seniors, in general, think that you should know where you are going and what you are going to do when you get out of high school, and that you should take the cor- rect subjects during your first three years in- stead of trying to take five for even sixj sub- jects in your last year. Now don't even think of passing notes in school, at least not until the depression is over, because note passing is just a waste of paper and the height of extravagance. Now, while we are speaking of detentions, I want to tell you that detentions are a waste of time. You may do something wrong for one minute, let us say, and you suffer the conse- quence for one hour and the pupil always gets the worst of the bargain So just bear in mind that, You can't win. There is an old saying that haste makes waste, and I want you to remember it when you are starting to run up the stairs next year. If you run up the stairs in school you will get caught and have to go back and walk up them again. So again I say, haste makes waste. Of course I could go on like this indefinitely, but I know you wouldn't want me to, so I will turn to a few specific problems of the under- classmen and, as a giver of free advice and therefore the one naturally to be consulted, I have received many letters. I now will read you a few excerpts from some of them. The first letter was from a boy in the senior class. In it I was asked whether I thought it was a good idea to come in the school window instead of the school doors. This boy further stated that he thought it would solve the traffic problem of this school if we did this . . . Well. of course, this plan has possibilities and it might solve the traffic problem of the school, but I wouldn't advise you to do it, because you are likely to get a detention or expelled from the school, but if there were no teachers nor tattletales around I think that it would be quite the right thing to do-just watch out for the teachers and your own necks. Another letter from a freshman said that all the people in the school do not always read quite the correct things during studv periods, and asked me to advise these pupils how to spend their study periods. That seems to be quite a problem but you should realize that study periods are for study and not for pleasure as most of us know. You should look upon the matter in this way. If you read the wrong things during study peri- ods, you will have to do more homework, so you don't gain anything by wasting your study periods and you lose that much time at home in which you might enjoy your reading to a greater extent. Another pupil wrote to me asking about throwing papers out the windows instead of in the waste baskets. They figure that it is much easier to do it that way and it saves time, they say. Well, of course, I agree that it saves time and is much easier but who is going to pick up the papers outside the school. You can't let them blow all over Oxford and let the peo- ple know what silly things you write. So I think you had better use the waste baskets. So, all in all, I think that you will be very good students, and Oxford will have a model school if you follow the advice that I have given you, but always remember that free ad- vice does not cost anything until you start us- ing it.