From Schottis to Bonnjazz — Some Remarks on the Construction of Swedishness

Extract

During the latter part of the 19th century, many different dances such as schottis, rheinldnder and pas de quatre were commonly performed both in the cities and in the countryside in Sweden. The ways of dancing varied slightly, but the music was very similar for each dance. Some decades later, in the 1920s, people danced all over Sweden to a type of music that sounded bewilderingly similar to late 19th-century dance music. This style was in everyday speech called bonnjazz, i.e. “rustic jazz,” or to use a less pejorative term, “farmer jazz.” In this article I will give a survey of how this change came about, discuss the Swedishness of bonnjazz, and consider how this style was related to jazz and other types of foxtrot.