Modern Music (M&D page 264)

[Toby Levy]

Was anyone else struck by Cherrycoke's audience's discussion of "Modern
Music" in chapter 26?

"hast heard the Negroe Musick, the flatted Fifths, the vocal portamenti,
-- 'tis there sings your Revolution."

Now I'm no musician, but isn't the flatted fifths what identifies Blues,
and thereby Jazz, the only truly original American music?

The above quote is quickly followed by Pynchon's wordplay joke as
Ethelmer says "Is it not the Rhythm of the Engines, the Clamor of the
Mills, the Rock of the Oceans, the Roll of  the Drums in the Night, why
if one wish'd to give it a Name, --"

"'Surf Music!' Depugh cries."

Toby