No, what the statement said was very clear, and absolutely correct. That if you study the origins of jazz, you will be lead to American folksong. And that if you study the origins of American folksong, you will be lead to English folksong. Now, which bit of that statement do you find difficult to understand, or disagree with?

My difficulty, Greg, is understanding why, if what you say of the intention of the statement is really true, said enthusiast would be at all astonished. I also have a difficulty in understanding why (again, if you what you say... etc.) such a statement was made in the first place. No, reading it in context it would seem that the authors were letting themselves get rather carried away in their overestimation of the global influence of Traditional English Folk Song given its burgeoning status amongst the hip of 1959 that was already being slated as a revival, as oppose to the wholesale reinvention it actually was, complete with the historical revisionism that invariably attends such movements and their attendant, ahem, ideologies.