The Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont. The Cavalcade of America Beginning this evening, the Cavalcade of America will bring you a series of four weekly musical half hours featuring one of radio's distinguished conductors, Don Voorhees and his orchestra. This evening, the evolution of dance music in America. These programs illustrating the development of interesting phases of American music will be another chapter in the summer series of the Cavalcade of America in Music presented by DuPont. An interesting feature of each program will be a brief story of chemical research, illustrating the DuPont phrase, better things for better living through chemistry. The Cavalcade of America America has always been a dancing nation. From the days when the old fit John Satina played for the Rollicking Barn Band, to the present day when there's hundreds of polished dance orchestras beating out their rhythms on roof gardens high up toward the clouds. The dance music of today gives us a smooth pattern of restful tone colors, or a brilliant flash of rhythmic design, lights and shadows, a variety of arresting effects. Phonographs and radio have made their varying styles of different dance orchestras familiar to Americans from coast to coast. How did it all happen? Let us turn the calendar back to the 1880s and look in on an old fashioned square dance to the tune of Turkey and the Scots. Choose your partner is Paul Paulin. Here comes the gentlemen forward. Wood Th selbst No Th Lady, please, march in order. In your parlor. In your parlor. Form up your dance group. And now, all join hands. In 1906, a new operetta opened. Victor Herbert wrote the music, and it was full of infectious melodies. One of them seems to typify the life that of that day, and the perpetual popularity of that most romantic of all dances, the waltz. In all of New York, remember it? But even then, the tempo of life was increasing. America was in a hurry to advance. The business panic of 1907 came unwind. That same year, the Lusitania made its maiden voyage, and the merry widow came to America from Vienna. The Nickelodeon movie house came into vogue. Burt Williams was in the Siegfeld Follies, and women began to smoke. But the waltz was still the favorite dance. Sentiment was still the leading characteristic of the songs and spirit of the time. And then something happened. It was the original Dixieland Jazz Band, organized in New Orleans in 1909. And it marked the beginning of dance music as we know it today. They played with gyrations. They shook, twisted, swayed. The listener's head was dizzy, but his feet understood and beat time. It was cool, perhaps, but its rhythm was arresting and its spirit catching. It had vitality and sincerity. It was peculiarly American. For some time, the Dixieland Jazz Band was not well known. But in 1912 in New York, something else happened. Irving Berlin, 23-year-old songwriter of Ken Pan Alley, wrote Alexander's Ragged and Band. Nothing like its syncopated jubilance had ever been heard before. Its new rhythm insinuated itself into the life of America with a bang. Shoulders started swaying. The lobster palace of Diamond Gym Brady fame came to an end, where every restaurant had to provide dance music with meals and dining became incidental. The haunting strains of Alexander's Ragged and Band were heard everywhere. It was the song of the hour. The dance craze was on. Alexander's Ragged and Band started it. Alexander's Ragged and Band started it. America literally went dance crazy. It seemed as if no one could dance enough. Dance orchestras sprung up everywhere. Many strange variations of dance steps came into fashion. Turkey trot, bunny hugs, grizzly bear, one step, fish walk, and fox trot. Two celebrities emerged from this dancing world, Irene and Vernon Cattle, whose charm and graceful dancing made them idols of the day. Meanwhile, the Dixieland Jazz Band journeyed from New Orleans to Chicago, where the crowds went wild. From there to San Francisco, where they also created a sensation. But the Dixieland had never been to New York, and New York had never heard anything quite like it. And yet New York was supposed to set the styles. The Dixieland Jazz Band finally came east and was engaged by Rice and Webber's Cafe. Let's look in at Rice and Webber's in New York on the evening when the Dixieland Jazz Band is to be introduced to New York for the first time. There's an unmistakable air of excitement and pleasant anticipation. Every table is filled, and mostly with celebrities. We hear a couple talking at one of the tables. Waiter, waiter, please. Yes, sir. This way, please. Well, darling, isn't it about time for them to introduce the Dixieland Jazz Band? Yes, yes. They're coming on the stand now. I hear it's great music. Oh, I can hardly wait. I bet it's wonderful for dancing. Well, I hope so. I never saw it at the turn out like this. Every celebrity in town is here. Oh, look, look. The manager's going to make an announcement. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce to you the greatest dance music you've ever heard, the Dixieland Jazz Band, for its first appearance in New York. These boys started something when they began a couple years ago in New Orleans. They went to Chicago, they came to talk to the town, then San Francisco, and now, ladies and gentlemen, Risenwebbers in New York. Get ready to dance, ladies and gentlemen, the Dixieland Jazz Band. Well, dear, shall we dance? Well, no. No, wait a minute. I don't want to be the first on the floor. Somebody has to start. Come on. Well, I don't know. I'm kind of scared. Well, anybody who likes to dance as much as you do, I... Yes, but I've never heard music like this before. I wouldn't know how to dance to it. You wouldn't either. Well, I admit it. But look, there isn't a soul on the dance floor. Yeah, no one's even smiling. Oh, that's too bad. After all we've heard, and I thought it would be such a success. You never will look for the world, Aiden. The world is? Huh. Look at the manager. He looks as if he lost his last friend. Yes, he looks frantic. Then you're blaming. Ladies and gentlemen, please, you don't understand. This is jazz. It's meant to be danced to. Try it and you'll see how someone started. Please. I'll even dance myself. Here we go. All right, boys. I'll take a chance, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Try it again. Try it again. Try it again. Try it again. Come on. Maybe it was because the guests felt sorry for the manager. Maybe it was because someone laughed. Maybe it was the crowd at Wyson Leathers that night danced as they had never danced before. Jazz had hit New York, and New York loved it. While this was going on, something was happening out in California. A young man named Paul Whiteman had organized an orchestra and was playing at the Alexander Hotel in Los Angeles. He believed that jazz was the soul of America, and he gave himself the job of taming it, refining it, to bring out the beauty he felt sure was there. He and his orchestra came east for an engagement at the Ambassador in Atlantic City. They didn't cause much of a stir, and they might have packed up and gone home. A representative of the Victor Talking Machine Company hadn't happened to lunch at the Ambassador one day in 1920. Paul Whiteman was given a two-year contract to make Victor records, and that was the beginning of a psychotic series of happening. New York and an engagement at the Valley Royal, the largest café in town. Pictures in the papers, theater engagement, fame. Paul Whiteman revolutionized jazz. It became a thing of beauty and charm, full of instrument variety. With it came a refinement of dance steps. The names that make news all flocked to the Valley Royal to hear the new jazz. In 1920, people everywhere were owing back their rugs and dancing to Paul Whiteman's famous phonograph record of whispering. ["APerfect I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. 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