Swing Changes: Big-Band Jazz in New Deal America

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Introduction: Understanding Swing
1. The Tempo of the Time Song of the Jitterbug New Venues, New Audiences
2. Between Conjure and Kapital The Big Bringdown As American as Baseball and Hotdogs We Are All Americans Just Rich Men's Sons
3. The Incorporation of Swing Anyone Can Lead a Dance Band Broadcasting Swing The Jukes Take Over Are Colored Bands Doomed? Passing in Hollywood
4. The Conscription of Swing Soldiers of Music The Theater of Race The Gender Front
5. Swing and Its Discontents Tension Music and Concertitis Smothering the Market Crewcut, Jarb, Swixibop Swing Redux
6. Cracks in the Coalition That Modern Malice Jazz Is America's Own Epilogue: Shall We Dance? Notes Index

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Bands were playing, people were dancing, the music business was booming. It was the big-band era, and swing was giving a new shape and sound to American culture. Swing Changes looks at New Deal America through its music and shows us how the contradictions and tensions within swing—over race, politics, its own cultural status, the role of women—mirrored those played out in the larger society. Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, newspapers, magazines, recordings, photographs, literature, and films, Swing Changes offers a vibrant picture of American society at a pivotal time, and a new perspective on music as a cultural force.

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Stowe has written a fascinating social history of swing jazz, which dominated popular music from about 1935 to the late 1940s. He characterizes swing as the preeminent musical expression of the New Deal ethos... Explaining the social context that allowed swing to flourish, Stowe describes the importance of Down Beat magazine; the United Hot Clubs of America; booking agencies; live, commercially sponsored radio broadcasts; and the jukebox... This clearly written and well-researched social history of New Deal America through its popular music is highly recommended

This excellent book on the Swing Era, its music and meaning, is a model of interdisciplinary social history, combining music, business, economics, and politics in a seamless and fascinating chronicle... An intelligent and lively book, peppered with astute historical and musical observations

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