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Will Studdert completed his PhD at the University of Kent, where
he specialised on the history of jazz and propaganda during World
War II.
‘This revelatory book throws fresh light on the manner in which the
widespread popularity of jazz was exploited by the Nazis for
propaganda purposes in World War II. One does not require a
knowledge of jazz history to recognise that Studdert’s critical
analysis of the “jazz war” represents an important contribution to the
historiography of World War II and its social and cultural impact is
clear. A wide-ranging, perceptive and authoritative study.’
David Welch, Professor Emeritus of Modern History and
Director of the Centre for the Study of War,
Propaganda and Society at the University of Kent
For Olya
 CONTENTS

List of Figures
Glossary
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. The ‘Cultural Blackout’: September 1939 – July 1940

Britain
2. ‘Hot’ War: July 1940 – December 1941
Britain
Germany
3. Turning the Psychological Tide: December 1941 –
February 1943
Germany
USA
Britain
4. ‘Total Radio Warfare’: February 1943 – May 1945
Germany
USA
Britain
Postscript
Notes
Bibliography
Index
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Charles Chilton with guitar, late 1930s/early 1940s.

Courtesy: the Chilton family.
Figure 2.2 Lutz Templin in Berlin, 1942. Courtesy: Dr Rainer E. Lotz,
Bonn.
Figure 2.3 Members of the Lutz Templin Orchestra in Berlin, 1942.
Courtesy: Dr Rainer E. Lotz, Bonn.
Figure 2.4 The only known photograph of Charlie and his Orchestra,
practising in a Berlin mattress factory, 1942. Courtesy: Dr Rainer E.
Lotz, Bonn.
Figure 2.5 Klarinette & Mandolin issue of Charlie and his Orchestra’s
St Louis Blues. Courtesy: Dr Rainer E. Lotz, Bonn.
Figure 2.6 Members of the Lutz Templin Orchestra at the Berlin
Kurzwellensender (short-wave station), 1942–3. Courtesy: Dr Rainer
E. Lotz, Bonn.
Figure 2.7 Joseph Goebbels congratulates the composer Paul Lincke
on his 75th birthday in November 1941, with Hans Hinkel (centre)
looking on. Courtesy: Bundesarchiv photo no. 183-B05562
Figure 2.8 Members of the Lutz Templin Orchestra on
Truppenbetreuung duty. Charly Tabor is second from right, Fritz
Brocksieper third from right (back row). Courtesy: Jazzinstitut
Darmstadt.
Figure 2.9 An international gathering of jazz aficionados at a KdF
Kleinkunst (cabaret) facility in Magdeburg, 1943. Hans Blüthner is in
the back row, second from the right. Courtesy: Jazzinstitut
Darmstadt.
Figure 2.10 Jazz fans Lilo Blüthner (right), Siegfried Schröter and an
unidentified woman, early 1940s. Courtesy: Jazzinstitut Darmstadt.
Figure 2.11 The secret jam session at Berlin’s Delphi-Palast,
involving German musicians and members of Ernst van’t Hoff’s
orchestra, 3 April 1942. Courtesy: Jazzinstitut Darmstadt.
Figure 3.1 Dietrich Schulz-Köhn, a renowned postwar jazz
broadcaster and author, in Luftwaffe uniform with members of the
Hot Club of Paris, 1943. Courtesy: Jazzinstitut Darmstadt.
Figure 3.2 Fritz ‘Freddie’ Brocksieper, 1940s. Courtesy: Jazzinstitut
Darmstadt.
Figure 3.3 Elmer Davis, Director of the United States Office of War
Information. Courtesy: National Archives.
Figure 3.4 Sefton Delmer (centre) at the border transit camp Lager
Friedland in February 1958, interviewing German scientists returning
from Soviet captivity. Courtesy: Bundesarchiv photo no. F005103-
0008
Figure 4.1 Police check the draft cards of zoot suiters on Central
Avenue during the riots in Los Angeles, 1943. Courtesy: National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People/Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62-75611
Figure 4.2 Iva Toguri d’Aquino interviewed by American
correspondents, September 1945. Courtesy: National Archives photo
no. 80-G-490488
Figure 4.3 Members of the Lutz Templin Orchestra (including Fritz
Brocksieper, seated) in Stuttgart, 1944. Courtesy: Dr Rainer E. Lotz,
Bonn.
Figure 4.4 Charlie and his Orchestra clarinettist Benny de Weille in
the mid-/late 1940s with Werner Dies, Johnny Richardson and Lucky
Emery. Courtesy: Jazzinstitut Darmstadt.
 GLOSSARY

Endsieg – final victory

Gauleitung – district leadership
Geheime Sonderdienststelle – secret special agency
Heimat – homeland
Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur – Combat League for German
Culture
Kurzwellensender – shortwave station
Machtergreifung – Nazi seizure of power
Obersten Reichsbehörden – top Reich authorities
Reichspropagandaleitung – Reich Propaganda Leadership
Soldatensender – armed-forces radio station
Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. – special wanted list Great Britain
Truppenbetreuung – troop entertainment
Völkisch – racial, ethnic
Volksempfänger – peoples’ receiver
Wunschkonzert – musical request programme
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ABC American Broadcasting Company

BA Bundesarchiv Berlin
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC WAC BBC Written Archives Collection, Caversham
CBS Columbia Broadcasting System
COI Office of the Coordinator of Information
CTASC Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections,
York University, Toronto
DNB Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro (German News
Agency)
DRA Deutsches Runkfunkarchiv Frankfurt
DTU Deutsche Tanz- und Unterhaltungsorchester
(German Dance- and Entertainment Orchestra)
ENSA Enterntainments National Service Association
FCC Federal Communications Commission
JZD Jazzinstitut Darmstadt
KWS Kurzwellensender (Shortwave Station)
MBS Mutual Broadcasting System
MEW Ministry of Economic Warfare
MI5 Military Intelligence, Section 5
MoI Ministry of Information
NA National Archives, Kew
NAACP National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People
NARA National Archives and Records Administration,
College Park, Maryland
NFCL National Federation for Constitutional Liberties
NID Naval Intelligence Division
NJA National Jazz Archive, Loughton
NSDAP Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
(National Socialist German Workers’ Party)
OCD Office of Civilian Defense
OFF Office of Facts and Figures
OKW Oberkommando Wehrmacht (Armed Forces
High Command)
OWI Office of War Information
PID Political Intelligence Department
POW Prisoner of War
PWB Psychological Warfare Branch
PWD Psychological Warfare Division
PWE Political Warfare Executive
RBTO Radio Berlin Tanzorchester (Radio Berlin Dance
Orchestra)
RKK Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of
Culture)
RMK Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Chamber of Music)
RMVP Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und
Propaganda (Reich Ministry of Public
Enlightment and Propaganda)
RRG Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (Reich
Broadcasting Corporation)
RTK Reichstheaterkammer (Reich Chamber of
Theatre)
SD Sicherheitsdienst des Reichführers-SS (Security
Service of the Reichsführer-SS)
SHAEF Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary
Force
SOE Special Operations Executive
SS Schutzstaffel (Defence Corps)
SSD Special Services Division
UK-Stellung reserved occupation
(Unabkömm-
lichstellung)
VOA Voice of America
So it seems that Swing is mobilised and will play its part in the
coming struggle.
B. M. Lytton-Edwards, Melody Maker,
October 1939
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the years spent working on my doctoral thesis and this resulting

book, I have accumulated a number of personal and scholarly debts.
I am particularly grateful to my supervisors at the University of Kent,
Professor David Welch and Professor Ulf Schmidt, for sharing their
expertise with me. Their convivial encouragement and patience
during the research and writing of my PhD (and beyond) have been
much appreciated, and both this book and I have benefited greatly
from their insights, advice and criticism. The publication itself would
not have been possible without the support and enthusiasm of
Tomasz Hoskins, my editor at I.B.Tauris, and Florian Duijsens has
copyedited the final draft with his trademark diligence and creativity.
The PhD was generously funded by a three-year studentship
from the University of Kent’s School of History, and the School’s top-
up fund allowed me to undertake research trips to Darmstadt,
College Park and Toronto. It was at York University, Toronto, that I
was able to access the wealth of material collected by Professor
Michael H. Kater during the research for Different Drummers, his
seminal work on jazz in Nazi Germany, and which is now housed at
the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections. I thank Professor
Kater for his permission to use these remarkable resources, which
constitute the bulk of the German oral history cited in this book; in
the absence of surviving protagonists, the interviews and
correspondence with musicians and aficionados from the Third-Reich
jazz scene have been invaluable. Another influential figure in the
field, Dr Rainer E. Lotz, co-author of the groundbreaking Hitler’s
Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Broadcasting and Propaganda
Swing, very kindly made rare photographs available to me.
 Elsewhere, I have been most professionally assisted on my many
visits by the staff at the National Archives, Kew, the Bundesarchiv,
Berlin and the National Archives and Records Administration at
College Park, Maryland. I am grateful to Dr Wolfram Knauer and
Doris Schröder at the Jazzinsitut Darmstadt, Jeff Walden at the BBC
Written Archives Collection and Suzanne Dubeau at the Clara
Thomas Archives and Special Collections at York University, Toronto,
for their help in navigating the material at their institutions, and to
David Nathan for his cordial support at the excellent National Jazz
Archive at Loughton.
I was very fortunate to meet one of the key British protagonists
of this book in person. My wife Olya and I visited Charles and Penny
Chilton at their home in West Hampstead in June 2012, and the
interview was memorable not only for the extraordinary opportunity
to talk to Mr Chilton about his wartime experiences at the BBC, but
also for the warmth and humour of our hosts. Back at home in
Berlin, I have been able to call upon the help of the author and DJ
Stephan Wuthe, a leading authority on German jazz and a central
figure in the city’s vibrant swing revival culture. Stephan has
graciously taken the time to read the areas of the manuscript on
which he has unsurpassed expertise, setting me straight on
important points and providing information which I could not have
found elsewhere.
Professor Catherine Tackley, a preeminent historian of British jazz
with whom I shared a panel at the University of London (the former
headquarters of the Ministry of Information) in January 2013, was
kind enough to send me an as-yet-unpublished chapter of hers. She
also introduced me to British jazz aficionado Peter W. G. Powell,
whose detailed answers to my written questions have provided a
firsthand account of the experiences of a young jazz fan in wartime
London. In addition, Mr Powell generously sent me a pre-publication
manuscript relating to the landmark First English Public Jam Session
of 1941, which he attended, as well as numerous copies of articles,
photographs and concert programmes not available in any archive.
In spite of the assistance I have received from others during the
research and writing process, as well as the insightful comments and
expert suggestions of my anonymous peer reviewer, some errors of
fact or interpretation may well remain. I take full responsibility for
these.
Last but not least I thank my parents, Chris and Inge, who have
helped me over the years in ways too numerous to list, and more or
less cheerfully resigned themselves to my return to the household
during the periods when I was in the UK. And I dedicate this book to
Olya, who has been a continuous source of love, support and
kindred musical appreciation. Our nocturnal forays into the jazz
scenes of Berlin, London, New York and beyond have provided
frequent inspiration, serving as vivid reminders that this wonderful
music is alive and well in the twenty-first century.
 INTRODUCTION

World War II was the first major conflict in which radio played a
central role. Broadcasting was far more than just a means of
conveying information and entertainment; it had the potential to
inform or deceive, to build or break morale, to amuse and to
intimidate, and, over the course of the war, the ‘battle of the ether’
came to constitute a front in its own right. Listeners in the armed
forces presented broadcasters and propagandists on both sides with
a wholly new kind of audience; young men desirous of upbeat
entertainment and accurate news, living closely together in an
environment where group listening habits and majority taste ruled.
Whatever differences there were in their personal, cultural and
political backgrounds, Allied and Axis forces audiences shared a
common taste for one type of music in particular: jazz.
The widespread international popularity of jazz made it a
potentially formidable weapon, and it is unsurprising that it came to
be exploited as a means of propaganda to such a degree during the
war. My introduction to the curious concept of ‘propaganda jazz’
came some years ago when I chanced upon the recordings of
Charlie and his Orchestra, Joseph Goebbels’ English-language jazz
band. Presumably in keeping with the songs’ original intended
impact on wartime British listeners, I was immediately struck by the
jarring contrast between the familiar American musical ‘evergreens’
and the Nazi worldview reflected in the lyrics, and began seeking out
the existing secondary literature on the subject, starting with Michael
H. Kater’s Different Drummers and Horst J. P. Bergmeier and Rainer
E. Lotz’s Hitler’s Airwaves. Yet the further I delved into books and
primary sources, it became clear that propaganda jazz was far from
being only a Nazi phenomenon; an array of organisations on both
sides of the conflict used popular music as a tool to influence or
attract audiences. The fact that Goebbels’ Reichsministerium für
Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (RMVP) appeared to have initiated
the ‘Charlie’ project as a response to BBC jazz broadcasts to
Germany also suggested that these propaganda strategies did not
emerge in a vacuum but directly influenced and affected one
another.
My comparative research into the uses of jazz music as
propaganda during World War II culminated in a PhD at the
University of Kent, of which this book is the result. Visiting archives
in Britain, Germany, the USA and Canada, I found that the ‘call and
response’ nature of the propaganda was indeed part of an
international discourse involving myriad personalities and
organisations, and encompassing a range of social, political and
cultural histories. Restricting the project’s focus to Britain, Germany
and the USA allowed me to explore the relations between these
individuals and government agencies in greater detail, concentrating
in particular on the work of the RMVP. in Germany, the Office of War
Information (OWI) in the USA, and Britain’s Political Warfare
Executive (PWE), a clandestine body established in August 1941 to
consolidate psychological warfare activities to enemy and neutral
countries. This book does not attempt to provide a comprehensive
overview of the uses of jazz music as a means of manipulation
during the war; the range of its impact and the truly international
nature of its popularity makes this impossible. Instead, it seeks to
reappraise and, in some cases, discuss for the first time several
diverse aspects of ‘the jazz war’ – from semi-legal nocturnal jam
sessions to subversive, clandestine radio stations, and from national
broadcasting policies to governmental debates – in order to facilitate
a clearer and more extensive understanding of jazz’s role in the
conflict.
The broad contemporary interpretations of the terms ‘jazz’ and
‘propaganda’, which I adhere to in this book, differ somewhat from
today’s usage. Although there already existed the belief among
connoisseurs that ‘jazz’ and ‘dance music’ were mutually exclusive
entities,1 in practice the boundaries between these genre distinctions
were fluid, and dance music is inseparable from the wartime jazz
discourse. Even the influential British jazz journal Melody Maker
devoted a great deal of coverage to dance bands, probably because,
since jazz was a minority taste, mainstream appeal was needed to
remain profitable through sales and advertising revenue.2
Meanwhile, many dance musicians, including the popular Geraldo,
jumped on the swing bandwagon during the British swing craze of
1942, and dance-band broadcasts over the BBC would usually offer
‘something for everyone’, from saccharine commercial tunes to ‘hot’
swing numbers.3 Indeed, the BBC had difficulties distinguishing
between jazz, dance music, and swing,4 and aficionados in the USA,
Britain, France, Germany and elsewhere often erroneously perceived
swing to be a slick commercial imitation by white musicians of
‘authentic’ African-American jazz.5 In Germany, the borders between
jazz and dance music were further blurred by the delayed
introduction of jazz to the Weimar Republic.6 A manual issued in
1928 provided instructions on how to convert a salon orchestra into
a jazz band,7 and this distinctly un-swinging model persisted in the
German musical imagination, remaining the dominant format of the
jazz band right up to the end of the Third Reich.
‘Propaganda’ is a similarly problematic concept. From the first
use of the term in Pope Gregory XV’s Congregatio de Propaganda
Fide in 1622 through to continental Marxist parties in the early
twentieth century, it was understood as a vehicle used to spread an
intellectual doctrine, which the Bolsheviks saw as a strictly separate
phenomenon to agitprop – the agitation of the masses. No such
distinction existed for the National Socialists, and propaganda
accordingly assumed a new significance under the direction of
Joseph Goebbels,8 who certainly did the most to ensure that the
word would acquire wholly negative connotations for subsequent
generations. To fully understand the nuances of wartime
propaganda, it is necessary for us to overcome these pejorative
associations and recognise it instead as a variety of communications
processes with differing goals and relationships to the truth.
Indeed, Hans Fritzsche, that otherwise unreliable witness who led
the RMVP’s Press Division from January 1939 until March 1942 and
its Broadcasting Division from November 1942 until May 1945,9
provided a more realistic definition of his craft in his defence at
Nuremberg, describing propaganda as ‘the art of awakening
thoughts or feelings in other people which they would not have
thought or felt without this stimulus’.10 The one consistent element
in all propaganda is the attempt to exert some form of influence
over the recipient, and therefore attempts to bolster morale also
constitute propaganda. They were certainly perceived as such at the
time, with government agencies such as the RMVP, OWI and the
British Ministry of Information (MoI) attempting to psychologically
and emotionally manipulate their own forces and civilians for the
benefit of the war effort. In keeping with the word’s wartime usage,
I will treat both malevolent and benevolent attempts to influence an
audience as propaganda.
Much like the terminology of the era, the wide variety of primary
sources cited in this book is the product of specific contemporary
political and cultural environments. In terms of the jazz discourse,
for example, this is evident in the BBC’s self-perception as the
guardian of British cultural values, a role which was often
incompatible with the arguably more pressing task of making
concessions to popular taste in the name of wartime morale.
Reading between the lines of the empty clichés and bureaucratic set
phrases used by the Nazi cultural apparatus is also vital to any
analysis of Goebbels’ attempted creation of a ‘New German
Entertainment Music’ to replace jazz. I have endeavoured to
contextualise such sources, and the international scope of the book
has in many cases made it possible to cross-reference British,
German and US archive material to provide a range of diverse
perspectives, including an extraordinary German commentary on
BBC dance music policy, revealing some remarkable similarities in
the challenges facing Allied and Axis broadcasters alike in the realm
of musical entertainment.
Melody Maker remains the single most valuable source on jazz
culture in wartime Britain, and was considered significant – or
troublesome – enough by the BBC for the Corporation to keep its
own file on the journal, reopened for the first time for this research.
Its output cannot be properly interpreted without an understanding
of the dramatically varying agendas and credibility of its journalists,
and these are discussed at length in Chapter One. I have also
utilised wartime diaries kept by members of the public for the social
research organisation Mass Observation, which offer fascinating
accounts of everyday life in Britain during the war but cannot be
taken at face value; as Mass Observation’s biographer Nick Hubble
has noted, the diaries have their own ‘internal logic’ rooted in the
organisation’s culture, and the diarists were fully aware that they
were writing for an audience, playing ‘the unique role [. . .] both as
researcher and researched, archivist and archived’.11 Nonetheless,
the various diaries, as well as a series of special reports and
analyses created for and by Mass Observation, provide valuable
personal and street-level perspectives on issues ranging from anti-
Semitism to air raids, morale and popular music, at a time when the
public mood was of paramount importance to the government and
the war effort.
Oral history interviews, too, present their own methodological
problems. The recollections of protagonists, often recorded long
after the events described, are inevitably susceptible to a range of
factors, from manipulation or guidance through the interviewer’s line
of questioning to lapses of memory or attempted self-justification on
the part of the subject. Indeed, the question of vindication is an
obvious challenge when critically assessing evidence such as the
recordings and transcripts of Michael H. Kater’s interviews with
German musicians who collaborated with the Nazis, and may have
had reason to obscure the extent of their complicity. This material
must be approached with appropriate caution, and, wherever
possible, I have corroborated it against other sources. It would,
however, be a mistake to omit such testimony, which, as in the case
of the surviving jazz musicians’ unanimously positive views of Nazi
ministerial official Hans Hinkel, can also open up new and potentially
significant lines of historical enquiry. The experiences of musicians,
broadcasters and listeners on both sides, whether written at the time
or related in retrospect, remain an essential and inextricable part of
the history of popular music in wartime.
This book is chronologically divided into four broadly defined
‘psychological phases’ of the war, each of which is discussed in a
separate chapter. Chapter One will look at the period from the start
of the ‘Phoney War’, the early months of relative military inactivity on
the Western Front, in September 1939 until the beginning of the
Battle of Britain in July 1940. During this time, the so-called ‘cultural
blackout’ intensified the atmosphere of boredom and anxiety on the
British home front, presenting the Nazis with an excellent
opportunity to gain an audience in Britain. Chapter Two covers the
real commencement of Anglo-German hostilities, from July 1940
until the eve of the USA’s entry to the war in December 1941, and
Chapter Three will explore the post-Pearl Harbor ‘turning of the
psychological tide’ through to the catastrophic German defeat at
Stalingrad in February 1943. The final period of the conflict, which
saw Allied ‘total radio warfare’ answering Goebbels’ calls for ‘total
war’, will be discussed in Chapter Four.
 CHAPTER 1
THE ‘CULTURAL BLACKOUT’: SEPTEMBER
1939 — JULY 1940

Those who listen to the wireless will tell you that at present
we can pick up in England from eight to ten German stations
daily. If our own broadcasts are not attractive, if the news is
dry, if the entertainment is mediocre, and if the music is of a
low standard, which is what people complain of, the listener
just turns the button and he gets a foreign broadcast. He may
very well tune in to a German programme for its
entertainment value, but he also gets a full measure of
German propaganda, skilfully delivered and in excellent
English. Do not let us undervalue the possible effects of this.
Sir Samuel Hoare, House of Commons, 11 October 19391

On 2 September 1939, Melody Maker ran a front-page article

explaining how war – should the crisis in Poland ‘break the wrong
way’ – would affect the jazz world and its protagonists.2 That same
day, a 17-year-old Romford schoolgirl observed in a diary kept for
Mass Observation that, on a cinema visit, newsreel footage of
Chamberlain was wildly applauded, whilst Mussolini’s appearances
were greeted with hissing. ‘What an anticlimax it would be,’ she
noted, ‘if there were no war!’3 At 11 o’clock the next morning,
however, the British ultimatum to Hitler expired, and war was
declared, with France joining Britain as its own ultimatum expired at
5 pm.4 The American CBS network’s Berlin correspondent William L.
Shirer opened his evening broadcast with the words, ‘Hello. The war
is on,’ and reported that German radio was ‘playing a stirring piece
from the Fourth Symphony of Beethoven. Sometimes the music
stops and the proclamations which the German Führer issued at
noon today are re-read [. . .] Then the music goes on and people
huddle close to their sets for the next piece of news.’5
The German population met the declaration of war with ‘reluctant
loyalty’6 rather than widespread popular enthusiasm,7 and Shirer
found ‘no excitement [. . .], no hurrahs, no throwing of flowers – no
war fever, no war hysteria’ on the streets of Berlin.8 Nonetheless, the
quick succession of military victories in the early months of the war,
skilfully exploited by Goebbels in popular newsreels, ensured a
growing degree of national consensus.9 The initial British
propaganda strategy was largely disingenuous, with the BBC’s
European Service concentrating its efforts on attacking Hitler and
insisting that a Nazi victory was impossible10 – an unconvincing
message in the months of the Blitzkrieg. In the first year of the war,
the Nazis were conducting their propaganda campaign from a
position of strength, supported as it was by mounting victories, and
the BBC’s morality lectures to the German people – described by the
contemporary American sociologist Kenneth Burke, apparently
without irony, as ‘a liberal university of the air’11 – could only hope
to appeal to ‘the infinitesimal few’ who hoped that Hitler would
fail.12

Britain
Melody Maker and the BBC
While German radio was co-opting Beethoven to inspire a martial
mentality amongst the populace, the 9 September 1939 edition of
Melody Maker found the British jazz journal in a similarly warlike
spirit. The front page was divided into two parts: ‘Our Job Now’
highlighted the new responsibilities acquired by the musical press,
and ‘Your Job Now’ reminded British musicians of their role in
maintaining morale. Even the heroes of the comic strip Billy Plonkit
and His Band, a weekly feature following the exploits of a hapless
jazz group, were mobilised for the cause. Their wartime debut
showed Plonkit’s group marching in khaki uniforms, complete with
rifles and kit bags, and the bandleader staring determinedly into the
unknown future. The nonchalant caption states: ‘Cheerho, Fellers.
We’ve got a gig in Poland!’13
This militarisation of the Plonkit strip was symbolic of the general
mobilisation of the British jazz scene that was already underway,14
although the gravity of the situation was tempered with a tongue-in-
cheek approach to international developments which, to paraphrase
the historian Martin Doherty, arguably represented ‘bravado
disguised as humour disguising fear’.15 Melody Maker quipped that
the feuding dance musicians Bert Ambrose and Jack Harris were
rumoured to be about to sign a non-aggression pact,16 and the
South-West London Rhythm Club announced the assembly of a
‘Supreme War Council’, which had reached the unanimous decision
that they should ‘continue to grind out jazz propaganda each Sunday
between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. at their headquarters’, and invited
members of newly defunct rhythm clubs to join for no extra cost.17
Indeed, one week earlier, Melody Maker had already insisted that
jazz would be an active protagonist in the coming conflict:

It is argued that jazz, in particular, being a virtual prerogative

of youth, will be practically stilled by the mobilisation of the
young men who now create it. That is a fallacy. Come what
may, there will not even be a lull in jazz. [. . .] Music, indeed,
comes right into its own in times of national menace: much
more so than in times of prosperity, because it is the main
prop of any country’s morale, and nothing can be so
important to a State as that its people should be inspirited to
endure danger and stress with buoyant cheerfulness.18
But if much of the journal’s humour upon the outbreak of war
revolved around the juxtaposition of the macro-significance of
international politics with the micro-significance of musical politics, it
nonetheless also earnestly and adamantly acknowledged the
potentially crucial role that musicians could play in the war. The
technical editor, Dan S. Ingman, emphasised this on 9 September,
albeit via a series of crude analogies with the practices of ‘jungle
savages’ that resembled the language used in Nazi attacks on jazz
music and belied the Melody Maker’s generally progressive stance
regarding racism:19

Music has been used as an incentive to fighting men from

time immemorial. If we are to believe that the savages of the
jungle are merely a reflection of our earlier selves, then we
can say with confidence that from the earliest dawn of time
mankind has used music to stir himself up.
The throbbing of jungle tom-toms has a stimulating effect
on the warriors who dance to it. Savage tribes the world over
prepare themselves for battle with music of some kind.20

Although clumsily made, Ingman’s case for the importance of music

during wartime was valid. During the first weeks of the war,
however, a ‘cultural blackout’ was imposed as part of restrictive air-
raid precautions, ceasing all television and commercial radio
broadcasts,21 and closing football grounds, theatres, public
museums and cinemas,22 as well as many places of nocturnal
entertainment.23 The BBC Home Service was the Corporation’s sole
radio channel, and even this was reduced to a skeleton staff, with
most employees being sent home. Melody Maker’s criticism of the
new limited service was vehement; now publishing monthly in order
to save paper, in its October edition the journal attacked the BBC’s
‘Great Wartime Flop’ and bemoaned ‘the deplorable drop in the
standard of broadcast entertainment since the war’.24
In the same edition, B. M. Lytton-Edwards, the pseudonymous
writing team Mary Lytton and Bettie Edwards, observed
pessimistically that ‘it looks extremely probable to me that the
gramophone alone will keep us amused during the war.’25
Gramophone sales in Britain doubled during September and October
1939,26 and the BBC’s shortcomings were raised in Parliament by
Labour MP Arthur Greenwood:

In these rather dull and dreary days there is something to be

said for increasing brightness. [. . .] I hear everywhere
complaints about the ‘weeping Willy’ programmes that we
have been given. We have to remember that in the
conditions of war, with the limitations there are in public
entertainment outside the homes, the B.B.C. becomes the
main avenue of public entertainment for millions of our
people. In these days of train restrictions, lighting
restrictions, restrictions here, there and everywhere, and the
determination on the part of the Government to make the life
of everybody as miserable as possible, it would be well if we
could have some brighter entertainment from the B.B.C.27

The BBC’s output was centred on the Canadian organist Sandy

MacPherson, whose popularity could not prevent growing frustration
at the lack of variety on the airwaves.28 Its Variety Department,
which had been evacuated to an ostensibly secret location code-
named ‘Exbury’ (Bristol),29 also employed one new band every two
weeks, beginning with the renowned dance band of Jack Hylton,30
whose first broadcast was praised by Edgar Jackson in Melody Maker
as sounding ‘just like a first-rate American outfit, the brass being
really superb’. Jackson was less enthused by the ‘Swing Ramblers’, a
new group that performed on two consecutive nights in September,
complaining that ‘as far as I can ascertain this combination was
recruited from the BBC Variety Orchestra. If that’s wrong I have
sincerely to apologise, for more laughably amateurish attempts at
swing I have never heard.’31
 Yet Melody Maker’s October attacks on the BBC’s early wartime
output also gave indications of the more constructively critical role
that the journal could play. In a section entitled ‘The “M. M.” Asks
The B.B.C.’, the magazine launched a slew of bluntly-worded
questions at the national broadcaster:

Is it beyond the wit of all the men at the B.B.C. to devise and
provide a continuous daily entertainment radio service of 24
hours as a means of keeping up the spirits of the populace in
general and civil defence workers in particular?
Cannot [BBC Director-General] Mr. Ogilvie realise that,
after the conclusion of the B.B.C.’s midnight news, there is
nothing for these listeners to do but tune into the violent anti-
British propaganda emanating from a treacherous renegade
[Lord Haw-Haw] in Germany, whose ‘music hall act,’ though
unconsciously funnier than Arthur Askey still makes any
decent stomach revolt?
[. . .] What’s wrong with giving listeners instead plenty of
dance music by plenty of bands?
Why has British radio got to be the world’s worst bore?32

The potential for such criticism to have an impact on BBC policy was
evident from a memorandum written by Godfrey Adams, the Director
of Programme Planning, dated 1 August 1939, which anticipated ‘a
reaction from the public that our purge of dance music has been too
severe. We ought perhaps, therefore, be prepared for some
concession if pressure is considerable.’33 On 20 September, the
Corporation’s West of England Press Officer A. J. P. Hytch reported
‘considerable interest in the dance band situation from specialist
papers such as Melody Maker’ and requested ‘a line on future plans’
with which to feed the media,34 indicating that the BBC was paying
at least some attention to the journal and taking account of its
readers’ views from the outset of the war.

Melody Maker Journalists: Propaganda and ‘Jacksonese’

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