SWINGIN" THE DREAM is about big band jazz and the rebirth of American culture, and it is definitely one of the finest jazz histories written during the past twenty years as it concentrates on the time in American history when jazz was revealed as art music as well as the most popular music of its time for what has become defined as the Big Band swing music era. It is a look at the 1930s and the 1940s which is memorable, sad, funny, sexual, political, and racial, and it reveals the United States during this expansive era of innovation. Through Lewis A. Erenbergs crisp accurate writing the reader can see what it was like and feel the intensity of the times. Erenberg is professor of history at Loyola University of Chicago and also wrote the book Steppin" Out: New York Nightlife and the Transformation of American Culture 1890 - 1930.

SWINGIN" THE DREAM shows how swing bands were able to successfully combine jazz and popular music to capture the interest of the Depression era generation and to help build dreams that could be shared by all in a musical sense. The book is 312 pages long and contains an excellent index for easy reference plus many photographs. Among the many interesting historical archive photos rarely seen are pictures of Fletcher Henderson's Roseland Orchestra Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra Ruth Etting Benny Goodman Helen Ward Billie Holiday with the Hot Lips Page Orchestra at the Apollo Theater Frank Sinatra Eddie Durham's Sweethearts of Rhythm Betty Grable and Harry James Bunk Johnson and his New Orleans Jazz Band Bing Crosby Dizzy Gillespie and Woody Herman among others.

Part One of the book details the fall of the Jazz Age and the rise of the Swing Age 1929 - 1935. Part Two details the Swing era from 1935 - 1942. Part Three the section dealing with Culture Noir 1942 - 1954 details the emergence of individual singers and the effect of the 1950s decade leading to the decline of the big band. In the 1950s some jazz musicians were often arrested on drug or moral charges and it stimatized jazz for a time. Accompanying the book is a section of "notes" which makes for fascinating reading between the lines and well worth the time to review them along with the pages referenced to.

This book is also a remarkable look at how jazz was dominated to a large degree by white musicians yet was underpinned made stronger and given extra artistic boosts by the black musicians. A good hard and solid look at racism and racial tension is also given and the reader can readily see the tensions in the background of the jazz music world. In a sense the jazz music world of the 1930s is a story of race and this marvelous remarkable book pulls no punches and tells it exactly and precisely the way it was.

SWINGIN" THE DREAM is one book that should be in every jazz listener's home library and an excellent reference for the Public Library. It is literate enjoyable insightful and an honest look at how the jazz music world was in America during the 1930s and the effects it had on the decades following the 1930s. A fine reading experience.'SWINGIN" THE DREAM is about big band jazz and the rebirth of American culture, and it is definitely one of the finest jazz histories written during the past twenty years as it concentrates on the time in American history when jazz was revealed as art music as well as the most popular music of its time for what has become defined as the Big Band swing music era. It is a look at the 1930s and the 1940s which is memorable, sad, funny, sexual, political, and racial, and it reveals the United States during this expansive era of innovation.