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 whom I have considered, since I first became acquainted with his music eleven years ago, the most important of living composers, is now generally recognized as such. As for my plea that American popular music be taken more seriously, Eva Gauthier recently devoted an entire group on a recital program to jazz songs; a celebrated pianist has included Zez Confrey's Kitten on the Keys in his repertory; Paul Whiteman has given a series of concerts devoted to American jazz, which have created a sensation in musical circles (even Mengelberg has come forward with his word of commendation); more than all, George Gershwin has composed and performed his Rhapsody in Blue, a work in concerto form for piano and orchestra, in which jazz is utilized in a musicianly manner (as I predicted it would be in The Great American Composer) to create just the effect that Liszt got into his rhapsodies by a use of Hungarian tunes, or Albéniz into his Iberia suite, which is based on suggestions in melody and rhythm of Spanish popular dances. Jazz may not be the last hope of American music, nor yet the best hope, but at present, I am convinced, it is its only hope.

There remained to solve, however, the problem of my early books, most of which are out of