Back in the 1930s and 1940s - when New York City was the capital of the jazz world - you could hail a cab, ask the driver to take you to "the Street," and find youself on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Musicians, jazz lovers, college students, big businessmen - everybody knew taht this was "The Street That Never Slept," the Street that Variety editor Abel Green so aply dubbed "America's Montmartre." Here, for the price of a drink or two, you could walk through the whole history of jazz.

Hot jazz was born and raised on the Street, as were the big swing bands of the 1930s and the modern 'cool' jazz combos of the 1940s. Comics like Alan King and Joey Adams got their start on the Street, as did musicians like Erroll Garner, Jack Teagarden and Coleman Hawkins. Bessie Smith performed on the Street, and so did Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Sarah Vaughan, the Dorsey Brothers, Artie Shaw, and many others of the jazz greats.

Arnold Shaw was there - as musician, composer, PR man, and just plain listener - and he recreates for us the three swinging decades that were the history of the Street: its birth in Prohibition-era speakeasies, where musicians jammed for gin or just for the fun of it; its post-Repeal blossoming as the centre of the jazz universe, lined up and down on both sides with tiny, smoke-filled rooms where musicians, black and white, played to capacity crowds; its post-war decline when it became a tawdry collection of strip and clip joints.

CONTENTS:
(foreword by Abel Green)
Speakeasy Street : John Hammond
Jack & Charlie's 21 : Sherry Britton
Sherry, Shenanigans and the Saloon Caruso : Joe Helbock
"The Music Goes 'Round" : The Onyx Club Review; Johnny Mercer
Stuff and Swing : Maxine Sullivan
Swingin' At the Famous Door : Red Norvo
The Big Bands and the Famous Door : Woody Herman; Benny Carter
Hickory-Broiled Steaks and Jazz : Shelly Manne; Marian McPartland; Billy Taylor
Tony's and the Yacht Club : Frances Faye
They Came To Be Insulted : Billy Daniels
Cats In A Stable : Ralph Watkins; Mary Lou Williams; Slim Gaillard
Two To The Bar : Milt Gabler
War Comes To 52nd St. : Dizzy Gillespie
They Flatted Their Fifths : Leonard Feather
The Three Deuces : Erroll Garner
Onyx III : Johnny Guarnieri
Cracks In the Door : Arthur Jarwood
Wartime and Postwar Clubs : Sherman Edwards
Stripty-Second Street : Ahmet Ertegun
Death Of A Street : The Dorrman of 52nd St.

(This book was published originally as The Street That Never Slept.)

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