Let's dance

by Arnold Shaw

Here is a colorful year-by-year chronicle of music in the '30s, blended with chapters on broader topics - the jazz clubs on Swing Street, the Big Band boom - and spiced with interviews with major figures (such as Burton Lane and Lionel Hampton), who bring a vibrant first-hand feel to the narrative. From Gershwin's Porgy and Bess to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, from Woody Guthrie to Ethel Merman, and from the Carioca to the Lindy Hop, here is an affectionate and informative account of this golden era of popular song.