Thinking About Devil Music

“Devil Music” was the subject of my preconcert talks for the LA Philharmonic last weekend. The title of John Adams’ new piano concerto—Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?—was the spinoff. 

I stumbled on a wonderful early recollection by Jazz pianist great Jelly Roll Morton:
“When my grandmother found out I was playing jazz music in one of the sporting houses in the District, she told me that I had disgraced the family and forbade me to live at the house. She told me that devil music would surely bring about my downfall, but I just couldn’t put it behind me.” That was in the 1920s. His grandmother would probably not have survived heavy metal or rap. But that brings up an interesting point:  the “devil music” of present often becomes the nostalgic golden oldies just a generation later. 

That was on my mind when we heard the LA Phil perform theRite of Spring. It was exciting and thrilling. But it was no longer savage… 

“Devil Music” is certainly not exclusive to jazz and rock. Classical music has a long tradition of “devil music.” Infamously, the Catholic church considered banning an entire interval* (and Western music only uses six of them!)—the tritone, also known as diabolus in musica, the “devil in music.” Berlioz emphasized the “devil” tritone in his Witches Sabbath and Liszt famously exploited the tritone in his Mephisto Waltz. But the kind of devil music Jelly Roll’s grandma was talking about was that which prompted “half-crazed barbarians to the vilest of deeds.” ** A piece of music that incited a riot would be more to the point and that would be the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

So two questions for you: 
1) what do you think makes music “Devill Music?” 
2) why so often does the “Devil Music” of one generation become the humdrum music of the next?

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think.
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*and Western music only has 6 intervals, so eliminating one was a big deal!

**so proclaimed Ann Shaw Faulkner, president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, who launched a crusade against jazz in 1921.