An American Idiom

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. When the first vague drumbeats of a new musical idiom rumbled out of the dark corners of the South, Mencken\u27s \u27Sahara of the Bozart\u27 was no more. In the rhythms of jazz the cacophony that is the modern industrial city found its artistic spokesman. At first this errant child of music was forced to take refuge in the dance halls and smoky dubs like a yelling, mewing. newborn child, and it was several years before the jazz artists were able to attract the serious attention of the cultural custodians of American society, and not merely its outraged gendarmes