Looking Back At The Jazz Age By Alain Locke Summary

Alain Locke, author of “Looking Back at ‘The Jazz Age’”, and Anne Faulkner, writer of “Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?” both discuss the influence of jazz music on society. While both were writers, neither were actual musicians and therefore had outside perspectives on jazz music. Faulkner’s commentary on jazz is caustic as she declares that jazz music is an evil influence on the youth and society itself. Likewise in his essay, Locke admits that people like Faulkner who “violently condemn jazz and its influence” are partly correct and states that “its cult [jazz] does have a direct relationship to the freer sexuality of this age” (Walser 78).
However, Locke’s views begin to differ with Faulkner’s and argues that jazz is not really the