|
|
|
Review
| Music of the Great Depression, by William H. Young and Nancy K. Young. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 320 pages. $55.00, cloth.
|
| Edited by David J. Brinkman of the University of Wyoming, this volume is the fourth in a series, "American History Through Music," which strives to place an era's music within its larger societal context. Part reference work, part monograph, Music of the Great Depression both chronicles, and suggests, how and why swing became the dominant music of the 1930s. By the middle of the decade, swing seemed ubiquitous, aided by such technological breakthroughs as car radios, improved microphones, radio broadcasts over national and affiliated networks, and movie soundtracks. Writers and arrangers produced an unprecedented number of popular standards, crooners and instrumentalists performed them, and bands either barnstormed or achieved regular venues in hotels and theaters. Throughout the book, the Youngs include statistics, and lists of shows, films, radio programs, hit songs, and band sidemen; and for those they consider the leading or most representative creators or performers, mini-essays on their lives and output. |
1
|
|
While they do include briefer chapters on "classical," and "roots" music (folk, blues, labor and protest, gospel, and country), the authors demonstrate how swing dominated record sales, sheet music, radio, movies, and Broadway, in a manner that not even rock music would achieve in the 1960s. To this end, the book is centered upon a definition of swing and the evolution of big band music, including both African-American and white innovators, and an anatomy of the popular song of the period showing what became "standards" during a "golden age" for tunesmiths. They locate an offbeat etymology of the term "crooning", and trace a detailed if complicated narrative of record label mergers and changes during the 1930s. There are some intriguing surprises: for example, Bing Crosby considered Fred Astaire, not Rudy Vallee, his closest rival as a crooner, and Desi Arnaz debuted as a Latin swing bandleader during the decade. Most startling, for someone who has heard the demeaning back-alley "race records" made by 'Georgia Tom' during the 1920s, 'Tom' would become the Reverend Thomas A. Dorsey, who shaped the modern gospel song! |
2
|
|
Music of the Great Depression offers solid historical analysis as well as a cornucopia of names and statistics. I was happy to see extended discussion of the under-appreciated Fletcher Henderson, who attracted and trained some of his generation's most outstanding sidemen, and helped arrange some of Benny Goodman's hits. However, I did notice the omission of James P. Johnson, who integrated older jazz, swing, and classical forms into his compositions. Johnson may have been neglected because he does not fit into the authors' mutually exclusive distinctions between jazz and swing. Because swing was so dominant and popular, one should not be surprised to find musicians like Bob Wills, Johnson, Henderson, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington combining the tight arrangements and ensemble playing characteristic of swing, with the looser spontaneity and solo breaks of earlier "Jazz Age" music. |
3
|
|
The Youngs celebrate swing not only because it was dominant, but also because it was "in tune" with the spirit of the New Deal. Rather than being explicit about this, the book is full of strong inferences. Big bands with assured venues gave work and salaries to musicians; swing and Hit Parade standards suffused the media with music that the nation might share in common, both accessible and acceptable to the middle class majority. Swing and other popular music might straddle genres: Cajun bands recorded swing tunes, George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, William Grant Still and James P. Johnson introduced swing into classical music—Benny Goodman playing in Carnegie Hall. The Youngs do not over-argue swing's populism, however; they make room in their survey for niche music like country and gospel, labor and protest songs, and give special place to the folk music and lore compiled by the Lomaxes. And they also note how the Federal Music Project and radio broadcasts of classical music contribute to the New Deal era desire to locate or create a broadly experienced and shared, upbeat national culture. Perhaps as emblematic of Depression era music as the triumph of swing, is Gene Autry's transformation from eulogist of anarchist icon Mother Jones, in 1931, into the movies' genial singing cowboy. |
4
|
|
Music of the Great Depression is valuable both as an analytical survey and as a reference work, which is quite an accomplishment considering the constraints of a short volume intended for both the general reader and the student of popular culture. However, to make the book truly invaluable as a classroom text, an ear- as well as eye-opener, teachers must lead their students to the music itself. Compact disc collections abound, and the most exhilarating as well as instructional supplement to the book would be listening to Henderson's "Sugar Foot Stomp," Ellington's "Take the A Train," Count Basie's "One O'Clock Jump," the live concert version of Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing," and his racially integrated Quartet grooving on "Avalon"! |
5
|
| | |
| Bergenfield, New Jersey |
Kalman Goldstein |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|