Unconventional Story'
TIn New Narrative
Of Battle of the Bulge'

BATTLE: The Story of the Bulge,
by John Toland, Random House,
New York, 1959, 400 pp., $4.95.
IN ONE of his more than usually
Irrational "flashes of genius"
Adolph Hitler in November 1944
conceived the idea of an offensive
against the allies in the West
which was, by some confused train
of thought, to bring victory to the
embattled Germans in that area.
It seems to the sober observer at
the present that the most impor-
tant consideration even for a Nazi
Germany was to keep the Russian
hordes from the soil of the father-
land. The Russians were already
banging at the gates of East
Prussia and Silesia.
Yet the last remnants of Nazi
reserve strength were used not
against the threat from the East
but in a vain, stupid and catastro-
phic offensive in the West. The
plan was to launch a surprise at-
tack through the Ardennes to the
valley of the Meuse, then to swing
northwards and seize the port of
Antwerp. The attack was a collosal
failure although there were initial
successes and much concern and
sometimes panic in American and

British military governmental and
civilian circles.
It is about this Battle of the
Bulge as Americans usually refer
to it or Ardennes Offensive as the
Germans call it, that John Toland
has written his amazing book,
Battle: The Story of the Bulge.
The method of presentation is that
first used so successfully and ably
by S. LA. Marshall in accounts of
several Pacific Island battles. The
procedure relies heavily upon the
interviewing of surviving partici-
Pantshand eye-witnesses, record-
ing their personal accounts and
memories and weaving this mate-
rial, together with other published
material, into a more or less co-
herent narrative. Consequently in
the book we have the experiences
and opinions of several hundred
people from the highest on both
sides, General Eisenhower and
Adolph Hitler, to the common sol-
dier in the ranks such as Private
Ellis and his German counterpart,
Private Hegel. The result is un-
conventional history but it is his-
tory as no conventional history
can be.
HERE Toland is able to depict
the feelings of the partici-
pants, their hopes, their fears, the

small inconsequential events of the
moment, the minute by minute
and day by day conduct of this
officer or that private. The result
in its_ entirety is a veritable " tour
de force." "To gather the material
for this story I travelled almost
100,000 miles; to a senatorial hear-
ing in the Capitol Building; to
former President Harry S. Tru-
man's office in Independence, Mis-
souri; to the West German Senate
Building in Bonn; to the gas
chambers of Dachau; . .. to great
castles and huts in the Ardennes;
. .. to the winding Siegfried lines;
. . to the battlefields of Wiltz,
St Vivth . . . Bastogne and the
Schnee Eifel," writes Toland. Li-
braries and archives were also used
extensively.
The author gives a day by day
account of the whole battle lasting
from the 16th of December to the
23rd of January 1945. Towards the
end he lumps the days together,
as for example 31st December-2nd
January, 3-8 January, 9-16 Jan-
uary, etc. For each time period he
covers the whole field of opera-
tions. This makes it difficult for
the reader to form in his own'
mind a general, coherent picture
of the battle.
However, the author does convey
splendidly the atmosphere, the
agony and human suffering as the
cold analytical account rarely or
never could do.
THE NAZI ATTACK came as a
complete surprise at dawn on
16 December 1944 against the
thinly-held sector of the Ardennes.
Both American and British Intelli-
gence bungled their jobs here. And
it was just in this general area of
the Ardennes that the great Ger-
man breakthrough in May of 1940
had occurred. History repeated it-
self. American higher echelons said
later that they had been taking "a
calculated risk."
The breakthrough soon became
a rout and even a panic in certain
places. American troops retreated
or fled.with orders, without orders
and sometimes against orders. A
large force was cut off and sur-
rounded in the Schnee Eifel and
forced to surrender. The spearhead
of the German offensive with Pan-
zer and infantry divisions actually
reached a point a few miles east
of the Meuse. But they did not
reach the Meuse. And the German
success, even as great' as it was,
was no picnic for the Nazis. Amer-
ican resistance stiffened. There
were examples of tremendous
heroism here and there which can
only give Americans a thrill of
pride.
The Germans paid heavily for
their advance. The defense of en-
circled Bastogne was magnificent.
Here the Americans held stub-
bornly and heroically and consti-
Concluded on Page 10

Modern

Jazz Adds Rhythm

To A Predominant Melody
By RICHARD POLLINGER

The Axis forces extended their holdings (indicated by the lighter
area) almost as far as Dinant on the Meuse before the Allied
troops began their offensive.
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-F COURSE Jazz is hard to
listen to for the first time. So
Is Schoenberg. However, jazz is
now too substantial a musical type
to be ignored.
Those elements unique to jazz,
by their very uniqueness, throw up
a screen of sound which must be
passed through. The novice listens
to the constant pulse of the ride
cymbal as an equal voice in the
jazz group, which it is not.
And that is but one instance
where preconceived notions of in-
strumental use can put otherwise
intelligent music listeners on the
wrong track. One can miss the
substance of Jazz very easily be-
cause he listens to it in terms of
"classical music."
Certain things are both special
to jazz and must be accepted for
themselves before one can listen to
jazz intelligently.
INITIALLY there is the sound of
the drums. The nature of jazz is
such that the movement of music
through time must be sharply de-
lineated. The drummer fulfills that
function, among others. Jazz is
essentially theme and variations.
The soloist may stop paying for
several measures, but times does
not stop. When he resumes his
"variation" he plays in the har-
monic spot that he would be play-
ing in had he never stopped. For
this reason the drummer provides
the "continuo" to help unify the
whole group as it moves through
the chords, and to feed a constant
rhythmic backing to the other mu-
sicians.
Rhythmic vocabulary is another
unique quality of jazz. Just as
Bach wrote evenly measured
music, and just as real Viennese
waltzes are always played with the
second beat early and accented, so
does jazz have its own dialect. A
flow of quarter notes may be no-
tated as in illustration (1) or
The Music
Of America
Continued from Preceding Page
to the genius of its leader, this
band lived through the Depression
and into the thirties, and enjoys
as much success today as it did
in the early days at the Cotton
Club.
Ellington, however, marks a
position of transition. By using the
devices and contributions of classi-
cal musicians, the Duke broke
away from the New Orleans pat-
tern. Retaining the fundamentals
of jazz and in fact utilizing them
to the fullest, he brought sounds
which have remained fresh and
vibrant down to today. His influ-
ence is beyond measure and he has
brought jazz from something of a
ragged and sometimes noisy music
of the speakeasy to the sound
stage of his latest accomplishment
of note, background music for
"Anatomy of a Murder."'
The beginning elements of jazz
are still felt today. Its social im-
pact is a continuing fascination
for the sociologically oriented. The
integration of the Negro into the
white man's kingdom has been
greatly aided by the music which
is America's own. From the re-
vival meeting of the nineteenth
century to the weekend festivals
of the large cities, jazz has been a
source of entertainment, pleasure
and an outlet for stored creativity.
Most important, however, jazz is
a way of understanding other
people. For jazz is happy extro-
vertism and represents communi-
cation without regard for formal
introductions, language or color.
Someone once said that the
mother of jazz is the cultures of
the world and the father of jazz
is the soul of man. And so it is.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1.-, 1959

illustration (2) but is always
played as in illustration (3). This
uneven, pulsating flow may be
punctuated frequently with full
triplets that blend smoothly into
the surrounding context.
ALTHOUGH each school of jazz-
men phrases and accents the
various notes of solos differently,
the feel of this type of rhythmic
cascade is a basis for all.
Improvisation on the spot in-
creases the uniqueness of jazz. A
standard popular song is selected
by the group and played once, and
then repeated many times in chord
structure only. Then the melody
is abandoned as one musician im-
provises several choruses of the
song, using the harmonic pattern
supplied to him by the rest of the
group (this pattern is planned by
the group). When he finishes play-
ing, another soloist begins. Later
there may be four-measure inter-
changes between some of the mu-
sicians. And like any well-behaved.
theme and variations, the original
song is usually played again
"straight" for the last chorus.
NATURALLY, no one person is
capable of continually creating
new ideas at a furious pace for
hours on end. And so the more.
frequent mode of improvisation in
jazz includes the manipulation of
catchy phrases which fit common-
ly recurring chord progressions.
These are known in substance by
all jazzmen. The phrases are in-
numerable-each has many slight

variations depending upon who
plays them, exactly where they oc-
cur in the song, the context of the
preceding and following solo, and
so on.
As soon as a phrase is used too
often, it becomes trite, and this
process is in part what makes jazz
a highly-stylized, rapidly-changing
music of the moment.
Attempts to combine jazz and
classical music have uniformly
failed, essentially because of the
contradiction of their respective
elemental premises. There have
been several instances of historical
minterest where ".classical" com-
posers have announced that they
have "assimilated jazz" and pre-
sented proof in the form of a ma-
jor composition.
Each time the composition failed
in those spots in which "jazz" was
supposedly utilized. Jazz was not
utilized, but rather a classically
based imitation of it was. And
some jazz groups have tried to play
jazz within the framework of clas-
sical forms, and these attempts
have been similarly futile.
To enjoy jazz for more than the
extra-musical values it imparts
(such as merely the muscular
pleasure involved in keeping time
to the beat), one must listen to
it carefully and often enough to
become conversant with the quali-
ties of a particular style. Once
past this stage, one can appreciate
most fully how the improviser is
making meaningful sounds. And
this, after all, is the ultimate cri-
terion of any musical form.
Richard Pollinger is a sen-
ior in the literary college and
editor of Gargoyle magazine.
He has played piano with a
jazz group in Ann Arbor for
the past year.

#-, - i i 4!.FA .. , . ... . I . - !w i % 10 o 4

~- -


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