During the 1930s, swing bands combined jazz and popular music to create large-scale dreams for the Depression generation, capturing the imaginations of America's young people, music critics, and the music business. Swingin' the Dream explores that world, looking at the racial mixing-up and musical swinging-out that shook the nation and has kept people dancing ever since.

CONTENTS:
Part 1: From Jazz to Swing, 1929-1935: Just One More Chance: The Fall of the Jazz Age and the Rise of Swing, 1929-1935.
Part 2: Now they Call it Swing, 1935-1942: The Crowd Goes Wild: The Youth Culture of Swing; Swing Is Here: Benny Goodman and the Triumph of American Music; News from the Great Wide World: Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Black Swing Bands; Swing Left: The Politics of Race and Culture in the Swing Era; The City of Swing: New York and the Dance Band Business in Black and White.
Part 3: Culture Noir, 1942-1954: Swing Goes to War: Glenn Miller and the Popular Music of World War II; The War in Jazz; Coda and Conclusion: Red Scares and Head Scares.

"… an intelligent, provocative study of the big band era, chiefly during its golden hours in the 1930s." - JONATHAN YARDLEY, Washington Post Book World

LEWIS A ERENBERG is a professor of history at Loyola University of Chicago. He is the author of Steppin' Out: New York Nightlife and Transformation of American Culture, 1890-1930.

back to previous page