Search Results

This chapter details the life of Frans Boom and Will Gilbert after the war. After the war, their mutual differences—in origin, education, wartime past, substantive approach to the subject, social status, and ambition—all grew greater than that which united them. Boom graduated, became a Master of Fine Arts in art history, and then a diplomat. Gilbert did not rise any further than press chief and self-appointed musicologist. For Boom every sentence, every assertion made in the blues manuscript had to be scientifically reliable and provided with the proper acknowledgment of source materials. Gilbert did not see any benefit to statistical research and was fond of pouring a rich and liberal dose of musicological sauce on his argument.

This chapter focuses on Frans Boom as an avid collector of blues records and his correspondence with publicist, jazz critic, and musicologist Will Gilbert. By the end of 1940, an exchange of information arose between the expert Gilbert and the eight-years-younger Boom. The basis of their relationship was their mutual love of music. Gilbert was knowledgeable about things in which Boom was interested. Boom in turn had at his disposal an extensive collection of song texts that Gilbert could draw upon for his work as a publicist. Both of them sounded out the possibilities their relationship afforded. In the months that followed, at the beginning of 1941, Boom slowly extended his contact with Gilbert, both in terms of intensity and content.

At the end of 1941, Will Gilbert decided to accept a job at the Department of Public Information and Art (DVK). His decision was of crucial importance to Frans Boom's blues project and the course of events concerning his manuscript during and after the war. For that reason, this chapter focuses on the motives and attitude Gilbert undertook for his duties in the Music Guild. First and foremost in that regard, the question arises as to why he went to work for the institute that was pre-eminently entrusted with the task of formalizing the Nazification of Dutch cultural life. The second question is whether or not Gilbert assessed or was able to assess all the consequences of his taking on the DVK position.

This chapter details the circumstances that delayed the publication of Frans Boom's manuscript. Frans completed most chapters of his blues manuscript in the winter of 1943 and spring of 1944. Consequently, it already seemed at that time, and therefore even before the liberation of the Netherlands in May 1945, that the moment had presented itself when the manuscript could have been offered to a publisher. It is quite natural to suppose that the war with all its consequences would have been the greatest impediment to publication at that moment. However, the greatest barrier toward producing a blues manuscript together turned out to be Boom and Gilbert's mutual differences of opinion. They disagreed on practically every subject. Their methods of analysis, deduction, and reaching conclusions differed like day and night. Their ulterior motives (money, fame, or a good book?) were totally out of synch with one another.

This chapter details events that prevented the publication of the final completed blues manuscript The Blues by J. Frank Boom and Will G. Gilbert. Over a period of nearly thirty years, there were four occasions in which there had been serious talk of publishing the manuscript. The closest attempt at publication took place in 1970–71. The forthcoming release was even announced on the back flap of four monographs edited by blues expert Paul Oliver in his Blues Paperback series. Twenty years later Tony Russell, at the time editor of the publisher of the Blues Paperback series, declared the book by Boom a “famous desk-drawer manuscript”: it was as it happens completely irretrievable, and “unless by some near-miracle a copy of the MS should turn up again, this is a book we shall never read.”

This chapter considers why the letters that Will Gilbert wrote to Frans Boom from October 1940 to the spring of 1941 did not contain a single word about the fact the Netherlands had been occupied by the German Nazis all that time. It suggests that the war was not mentioned in their correspondence until July 1941 because their passion for music was of central importance, making any other personal or social involvement or interest irrelevant. Another reason is because up until that point, no direct or indirect consequences of the war had tainted their personal lives. Like the majority of the Dutch population, they did not find themselves daily in the middle of a military battlefield, suffered no great degree of poverty or famine, and were only incidentally and in that case only indirectly confronted with physical violence.

This chapter considers the reasons why Frans Boom did not abandon the idea of working with Will Gilbert in order to see his blues project through to completion. Gilbert was working for an organization run by the Nazis, and in that way became involved with the Nazification of Dutch music life through his authorship of the jazz ban. His chronic lack of time also meant his contributions to Boom's blues project were sporadic most of the time, and no longer than a memo or a few paragraphs in a letter to Boom. However, back in 1942, Boom kept faith in Gilbert and a positive outcome to his cooperation with him despite everything. In retrospect all that can be claimed is that Boom did so out of an unfortunate combination of naïveté, pressure owing to circumstances, and loyalty.