When jazz music flourished on the American scene, says Tom Patterson a band director in Round Rock, it was the first art form to ever challenge the Eurocentric definitions of culture. Tom Patterson of Round Rock explains that, during the early 20th century, old guard music traditionalists could not accept the new creative energy of jazz music. Tom Patterson of Round Rock says that jazz challenged the established cultural cannon. According to Round Rock’s Tom Patterson, jazz called into question the ideas of "high brow," "serious," or "time-honored" musical expression.
In a recent discussion with Round Rock students, Tom Patterson identified an emblematic moment in the popularization of Jazz. In 1917, explained Round Rock’s Tom Patterson, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band produced their first recording. Their relatively new sound scandalized many music critics. Tom Patterson of Round Rock relayed how critics of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band sound considered it "low-brow." Tom Patterson of Round Rock said that the musical establishment of the time thought that any music so strong in rhythm and so weak in melody was barbaric, appealing only to base sensibilities.
In those days, continued Round Rock’s Tom Patterson, jazz was associated with the undesirable elements of American civilization – the lawless and unrefined. Tom Patterson of Round Rock added that jazz was even considered by many to be downright threatening.
Even in Paris, during World War I, continued band director Tom Patterson of Round Rock, jazz was greeted with shock. Round Rock’s Tom Patterson observed that the Parisians thought the music was beyond music. They were surprised by how visual, physical, emotional, and social jazz music was. Listeners also understood that early jazz music was a black music, even if occasionally popularized by whites. Tom Patterson told his Round Rock students that all of these factors converged to give jazz a subversive and marginalized quality that it would not shake for decades.
Tom Patterson of Round Rock concluded, however, that jazz has developed and grown beyond the original scandalized perceptions it drew from listeners. Tom Patterson of Round Rock applauded jazz as a truly unique American art form that has transformed the artistic landscape of the entire world.