Swingin' the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture [Hardcover]

Lewis A. Erenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 13, 1998

During the 1930s, swing bands combined jazz and popular music to create large-scale dreams for the Depression generation, capturing the imagination 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.

"Swingin' the Dream is an intelligent, provocative study of the big band era, chiefly during its golden hours in the 1930s; not merely does Lewis A. Erenberg give the music its full due, but he places it in a larger context and makes, for the most part, a plausible case for its importance."—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

"An absorbing read for fans and an insightful view of the impact of an important homegrown art form."—Publishers Weekly

"[A] fascinating celebration of the decade or so in which American popular music basked in the sunlight of a seemingly endless high noon."—Tony Russell, Times Literary Supplement

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Few musicologists give much acknowledgment to musical styles popular before the bebop explosion of the late 1940s. Mindless commercial entertainment for the masses seems to be the consensus of most serious critics. But Erenberg (Steppin' Out, Greenwood, 1981) makes the case that the era between 1935 and 1948, when big bands dominated popular culture, was a golden age when American music finally shed the constraints of European influence. Making its greatest impact during the stormy periods of the Great Depression and World War II, this music, a collaboration between African Americans and the children of immigrants, changed not only culture but American society as a whole. The effect of the fans shaping the course of the music hints at the influence young people continue to have on popular culture to this day. This book is a thorough chronicle of a vibrant music that provided the soundtrack for some of our most troubling times, and along the way changed our country's view of itself. Recommended.?Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, PA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In many ways, the swing era of the 1930s and 1940s ignited a cultural revolution more significant than the celebrated transformations of the 1960s. Erenberg concentrates on the social and political forces that the great swing bands and much of their audience embodied. Instead of practicing musical analysis (fine sources of that are cited in his notes), he considers how such bandleaders as Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Artie Shaw were crucial in breaking down racial stereotypes, heralding integration, and championing American folk culture. Erenberg also spiritedly surveys how a cross section of the American population responded to these musicians. The fans' enthusiasm for popular music helped build the youth culture still active today, and radio stations and publications arose at this time to nurture that culture, a development Erenberg treats humorously as well as informatively. Today's fans and jazz writers may find themselves longing for the days when, Erenberg says, Down Beat critics displayed "a nonsectarian leftist populism that fit with the magazine's screwball democratic ethos." Aaron Cohen

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (May 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226215164
• ISBN-13: 978-0226215167
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An admirable work!, January 15, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Swingin' the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture (Paperback)

Swing was the only truly popular jazz style: starting in 1935, in the now legendary Benny Goodman digression, the swing style lasted for about a decade and during that time it was the American pop music style, its bandleaders and musicians enjoying a public recognition and popularity in most cases higher than movie stars, and only comparable to what would happen with rock artists some decades later. This brilliant book traces the history of swing in its political, social, and cultural aspects, analysing what it represented for youths in the America of the Great Depression. In its radical cut with the "sweet music" bands of the early 1930's, swing was adopted by young radicals as the expression of a more democratic and unprejudiced way of life. It embodied a move (although modest by present day standards) towards racial integration and equality that was several decades ahead of the same type of movement in society at large, and most of its more important personalities lend their support to New Deal and progressive politics, left wing causes, and the Popular Front movement. All this, and more, are described and discussed in a masterly way in this book. Besides, it also puts meat into the backbones by discussing at length concret cases, such as Benny Goodman, the Duke, Basie, and Gleen Miller. The change in swing brought about by the War, as well as the wars within Jazz in the second half of the 1940's between traditionalists, swing, and bebop fans, culminating in the abrupt end of the swing era and of the classical big band jazz scene is brilliantly analysed in the last chapters of the book. A truly admirable and engaging work.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Swingin' the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture, August 5, 2006

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geneo (NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Swingin' the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture (Paperback)

Author Erenberg's historical research is well documented and scholarly. Primary criticism is that the author appears to editorialize political leanings to the far Left. It is asserted in the book that specific musical artists of the 1930's and 1940's were socialist (Communist implied) activists, when their associations with Leftist individuals and organizations may have been more business based rather than of any real political substance.