against which,
in some sort, they must ever be reactions.

The Jazz movement is a ripple on a wave; the wave--the large movement
which began at the end of the nineteenth century in a reaction against
realism and scientific paganism--still goes forward. The wave is
essentially the movement which one tends to associate, not very
accurately perhaps, with the name of Cezanne: it has nothing to do with
Jazz; its most characteristic manifestation is modern painting, which,
be it noted, Jazz had left almost untouched. "Picasso?" queries someone.
I shall come to Picasso presently. The great modern painters--Derain,
Matisse, Picasso, Bonnard, Friesz, Braque, etc.--were firmly settled on
their own lines of development before ever Jazz was heard of: only the
riff-raff has been affected. Italian Futurism is the nearest approach to
a pictorial expression of the Jazz spirit.

The movement bounced into the world somewhere about the year 1911.
It was headed by a Jazz band and a troupe of niggers, dancing.
Appropriately it took its name from music--the art that is always behind
the times. Gavroche was killed on the barricades, and it was with
his name that Jazz should have been associated. Impudence is its
essence--impudence in quite natural and legitimate revolt against
nobility and beauty: impudence which finds its technical equivalent in
syncopation: impudence which rags. "The Ragtime movement" would have
been the better style, but the word "Jazz" has passed into at least
three languages, and now we must make the best of it.

After impudence comes the determination to surprise: you shall not be
gradually moved to the depths, you shall be given such a start as makes
you jigger all over. And from this determination issues the grateful
corollary--thou shalt not be tedious. The best Jazz artists are never
long-winded. In their admirable and urbane brevity they remind one
rather of the French eighteenth century. But surprise is an essential
ingredient. An accomplished Jazz artist, whether in notes or words,
will contrive, as a rule, to stop just where you expected him to begin.
Themes and ideas are not to be developed; to say all one has to say
smells of the school, and may be a bore, and--between you and me--a
"giveaway" to boot. Lastly, it must be admitted there is a typically
modern craving for small profits and quick returns. Jazz art is soon
created, soon liked, and soon forgotten. It is the movement of masters
of eighteen; and th