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wingin' the Dreary
BIG BAND \PjM-
AND THE REBIRTH
LEWIS A. ERENBERG
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wingin' the Dream
LEWIS A. ERENBERG
The University of Chicago Press Chicago & London
lewis a. erenberg is professor of history and director of gradu
programs at Loyola University.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1998 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1998
ISBN: 0-226-21516-4
Title page photograph courtesy Frank Driggs Collection.
Erenberg, Lewis A., 1944-
ISBN 0-226-21516-4 (alk. paper)
1. Big band music—History and criticism. 2. Jazz—Hi*
and criticism. 3. Popular culture—United States. I. Titl
781.65'4'0973—dc21
©The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for Inform
ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xix
List of Abbreviations xxiii
Just One More Chance: The Fall of the Jazz Age and
the Rise of Swing, 1929-1935 3
The Crowd Goes Wild: The Youth Culture of Swing 35
Swing Is Here: Benny Goodman and the Triumph of American Music
News from the Great Wide World: Count Basie, Duke Ellington,
and Black Swing Bands 94
Swing Left: The Politics of Race and Culture in the Swing Era 120
The City of Swing: New York and the Dance Band Business
in Black and White ISO
Swing Goes to War: Glenn Miller and the Popular Music
of World War II 181
The War in Jazz 211
Coda and Conclusion: Red Scares and Head Scares 241
Notes 255
Index 295
Illustrations
Fletcher Henderson's Roseland Orchestra, 1924 / 9
Paul Whiteman's Symphonic Jazz Orchestra, late 1920s / 12
Bing Crosby, 1932 / 21
Ruth Etting, 1932 / 25
Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, 1939 / 28
Lindy hoppers, early 1940s / 49
Jitterbug dancers, 1937 / 52
Dancers and fans of the Benny Goodman Band at the World's Fair, 1939 / 57
Chick Webb vs. Count Basie, 1938 / 61
Benny Goodman Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, 1938 / 67
Benny Goodman Trio in rehearsal, 1937 / 83
Benny Goodman Sextet at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 1939 / 84
Helen Ward, 1937 / 87
Chick Webb Orchestra with Ella Fitzgerald, 1938 / 96
Duke Ellington Cotton Club Orchestra, 1932 / 100
Count Basie Band with Helen Humes, 1941 / 106
"King Joe” session, 1941 / 118
John Hammond and others, 1940 / 123
Benny Goodman Band at the Meadowbrook Lounge, 1941 / 131
Billie Holiday with the Hot Lips Page Orchestra at the Apollo Theatre, 1944 / 154
Nighttime on Fifty-second Street, 1940s / 158
Don Albert Band on the bus, 1938 / 175
Captain Glenn Miller, 1942 / 183
Glenn Miller's AAF Orchestra, 1944 / 192
Frank Sinatra, 1944 / 197
Eddie Durham’s Sweethearts of Rhythm, 1943 / 199
Betty Grable and Harry James, mid-1940s / 201
All-black U.S. Navy Band, 1943-44 / 205
Bunk Johnson and his New Orleans Jazz Band, 1945 / 219
Diz and Bird, 1945 / 224
Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band, 1947 / 234
Woody Herman's Second Herd, 1948 / 230
Preface
In 1943, when Metronome magazine celebrated sixty years of covering Amer¬
ican popular music, its editors took advantage of the occasion to express
their great pride in the accomplishments of contemporary musicians.
“Some day, when their music has been established for many years as the
magnificent thing it is, Americans will look back to Benny Goodman and
Duke Ellington, to the Dorseys and Count Basie, Benny Carter and Coleman
Hawkins, and all their associates, as the heroes of a Golden Age." Writing
during World War II, the editors allowed their patriotic rhetoric to soar. As
they examined the slow emergence of popular music in the United States
from under Europe’s long shadow, they maintained that American national
musical culture had reached a pinnacle, "for the final stage of this evolution
finds America with the most brilliant group of musicians of our time." Un¬
like classical musicians, these "musical giants" were unconstrained by the
"clumsy and narrow and twisted conventions which have straight-jacketed
classical music in the twentieth century." Indeed, these big band leaders
and musicians were part of a cultural rebirth that reached deep into the
popular arts and American democratic culture to create "an era as important
to American music as the time of Emerson and Thoreau and Whitman and
Hawthorne and Melville vyas to American literature."1
This book is a cultural and social history of that "golden age," more
conventionally known as the swing era, when from 1935 to 1948 big jazz
bands defined and dominated popular music. Despite the soaring hopes
exhibited by participants, by most accounts the music of the swing era of¬
fered only harmless fun or escapist release from the economic failures of the
Great Depression. In particular, studies of big band jazz treat this musical
expression as the commercial exploitation of black music and the delusions
ILLUSTRATIONS
of white middle- and working-class youth in an era that called for greater the Big Apple but to explore how this urban form came to influence the
radicalism. Musicologist^ continue to examine the era through the lens of rest of the country.
commercialism, arguing that most of the big bands lacked jazz artistry and In the 1920s, between the poles of Harlem and Broadway, black and
were influenced too much by commercial considerations. For some ana¬ white jazz musicians from across the nation created what Ann Douglas calls
lysts, the popularity of big bands represents the culture industries' imposi¬ a "mongrel," interracial musical vocabulary. Forged by blacks and children
tion of false values on unsuspecting youth. The best studies of big bands in of immigrants, the new music of the 1920s gained wide national acceptance
general and swing in particular have been written from the perspective of in the 1930s. Unmediated by moralist and governmental desires to uplift
bebop, which succeeded swing as the major innovative jazz form of the the music, black music and musicians gained new prominence in the na¬
1940s. As a result, they assume that little worthwhile occurred before the tional mass media of the swing era. A new mixed culture, formed by diverse
great bop explosion of the late 1940s. populations in the vernacular arts, came to the fore. No longer despised as
There is no denying the tremendous commercial appeal of swing or the un-American music, swing symbolized a major reorientation in American
economic dominance of white bands, but the paradigms of commercialism national culture. For many of its most devoted fans, the music expressed a
and cultural hegemony offer little insight into the music's appeal to a mass new model of pluralist democracy capable of challenging classical music for
youth audience. Nor do these models tell us how big bands evolved from the mantle of cultural legitimacy and American national identity.3
the 1920s—when they were only one of several competing forms of popular Of course, swing bands, like the dance bands that preceded them and
music—to become the dominant paradigm in the music scene of the 1930s the bop combos that followed, had deep roots in youth culture. Like big
and 1940s. In general scholars have not fully grasped the forces that pro¬ band jazz, youth culture was not "invented" in the 1930s, and its associa¬
duced this musical culture and encouraged its national diffusion, nor the tion with music, fashion, and dating displays continuities with the peer
intense hopes that went into swinging the American Dream. Equally impor¬ culture of the 1920s. But by moving forward from the 1920s, we begin to
tant, they have not examined the links between cultural expression and the discern subtle differences in the youth culture of depression and war. Fired
politics and culture of the 1920s through the late 1940s and early 1950s. by economic collapse, youth behavior and popular music registered the cul¬
How do we explain the renaissance of democratic cultural forms, which tural and gender crisis of the day. Not only did bands change, with their
Metronome noted, in the' middle of the Great Depression? Or, as Eric Hobs- particular representation of all-male musicians and female singers, to con¬
bawm puts it, how did music of such quality emerge in a commercial music vey new models of gender interaction, but music institutions evolved differ¬
system in a time of such massive economic and political crisis? On a larger ently as well. What did the decline of the nightclub and the rise of the
level, how do we take jazz out of the scholarly ghetto to which it has been ballroom, radio, or five-cent jukebox signify for depression youth? Why did
consigned by historians to trace some of the deepest issues of American these more inclusive musical institutions abandon jazz in the late 1940s?
culture?2 Most studies of popular music focus heavily on music and musicians and
To explore some of these questions, this study traces the development pay little attention to audiences. A major stream of analysis suggests that
of big band- jazz from the 1920s through the early 1950s as a vehicle for the content of popular music is and was determined by those who own the
understanding the history of American culture and society during these means of musical production. A more recent school argues that audiences
years. By moving forward from the 1920s rather than .backward from the are not passive, but reinterpret music at the point of reception to suit their
1940s, when swing seemed musically conventional, we can trace subtle but own purposes. My view i% that at key points in the history of musical cre¬
important shifts in American music and culture. Starting with Paul ativity and excitement, such as swing, the audience interacts with the cre¬
Whiteman's attempts to ''civilize'' African American music and Duke Elling¬ ators of music and the musical promoters to determine the music's form
ton's efforts to claim European technique for black jazz, this book reveals and content.4
how African American music became more central and visible in the bands There are numerous descriptions of crowd behavior in the 1930s, in part
of the 1930s and 1940s. I have situated this national musical culture in its because many people in and out of the music business were intensely con¬
commercial and creative capital, New York City, not to isolate big bands in cerned about whether mass culture was a harbinger of fascism, and in part
because fans behaved in such noticeable ways. To determine audience re- day radical, integration qf big bands. These challenges to white supremacy
ponse, I have examined several college newspapers (the Columbia Spectator, occurred a good decade before such changes took place in major league
the UCLA Bruin, and the Daily Ulint), and distributed questionnaires at fifty- baseball or the armed forces.6
year high school reunions of the class of 1939. I have also systematically As David Stowe's Swing Changes argues, what stands out in the 1930s and
read the music press—Down Beat and Metronome, especially—and the Com¬ 1940s is how the populist impulses of the day furthered appreciation of
munist and African American newspapers for the years 1934 to 19SS. My African American music and dance as the basis of a new American culture.
most rewarding mode of inquiry has been the letter I placed in approxi¬ An American identity based on whiteness was first questioned during the
mately two hundred newspapers nationwide seeking the experiences of fans swing era. Many saw the music as an opening wedge for greater equality,
of swing and bop. I received more than three hundred responses, many of although they might differ over how or what that meant. At the same time
them quite lengthy. From these sources it became clear to me that young a number of businessmen in the mass media tried to keep the music white
people were part of a populist youth culture that treated the music as partic¬ in order to ens'ure the largest possible "mass" market. These competing
ularly theirs. As John Gennari notes, swing youth culture helped democra¬ forces helped shape the limits of swing and set the stage for the bop revolt
tize connoisseurship and challenge the last vestiges of patrician, genteel that followed.7
cultural authority that had resided in the arts. If nothing else, this book Equally important, race was "in play" because black bands imbued the
should alert readers to a "missing era" of youth culture, which did not just entire popular music scene with greater populist energy. Historians and mu¬
emerge in the 1920s and then disappear in the depression, only to resurface sicologists operating from the perspective of bebop have emphasized the
in the prosperous 1950s.5 conservatism of black bands. Jones, for example, dismisses most black big
Most studies overlook music critics as well. This is unfortunate, for the bands as too middle class, "white," and assimilationist. This interpretation
writings of the 1930s critics shed much light on the political meanings of makes light of the efforts of bandleaders and musicians who aspired to rec¬
swing. During the 1920s jazz criticism was irregular, sporadic, and mostly ognition as professional musicians and American artists. Moreover, this
negative. In the early 1930s, however, American jazz magazines appeared, view provides little guidance in understanding the meanings the music had
thus placing the defense and definition of jazz in the hands of its friends. for its fans or the ways in which both blacks and whites exchanged culture
These young writers (primarily men) were intellectuals—often allied with and values through popular music. As Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison
the radical currents of the Popular Front and the New Deal. They not only point out, black swing bands played powerful roles in black communities,
appreciated the music's African American roots but also furthered its defi¬ and musicians served as popular heroes for African American youth. The
nition as a pluralist art form. For those who wanted to transform American music world underwent a populist regeneration during the middle years of
society, swing represented a cultural phenomenon that bridged the signifi¬ the depression, as the swinging Kansas City blues of Count Basie attracted
cant gap between races and classes. The influence of the critics was not fans on a national and interracial level. In their own way, swing musicians
limited to the printed word, either, for as impresarios, talent scouts, and served as models for racial pride and represented an assault on racial restric¬
recording supervisors they pushed the music industry to include black art¬ tions; they created a national black music that announced that African
ists. In the world of swing critics and the music press, politics and culture Americans had a rightful place in American life and culture.®
were often intertwined. All of these contesting forces helped pave the way for a musical renais¬
A key feature of big band swing was its synthesis of African American sance that appealed to ypung people, had interracial roots, and expressed
musical and dance styles for a white and black market. LeRoi Jones's Blues in cultural form many of the themes of the depression—and the New Deal.
People, the most sophisticated study of modern black music, holds that in At first glance, it might seem perverse to argue that a culture affirming per¬
white hands swing went from verb to noun, becoming a commodity to be sonal experimentation, affluence, and ethnic and racial pluralism came to
bought and sold for profit—primarily by whites. Yet, although black bands fruition within the context of the depression and the war. In fact, most
suffered commercial and racial disadvantages in the 1930s, it was then that historians assume that the depression signaled the decline of cultural values
black and white musicians first broke the color line in music, fraternized forged in big cities during the 1920s. Yet while many elements of urban
across the racial divide on a regular basis, and began the gradual, but for its culture did collapse, by the mid-1930s a regeneration of popular culture
and music occurred in which New York City’s influence reached a peak. In audiences and musicians attached to it. The history of the big band helps
the guise of swing, jazz became the foundation of American popular music. illuminate the sexual, racial, and political values in a youth and music cul¬
An exploration of the national appeal of urban music allows us to see that ture that developed in the prosperity of the 1920s and reached fruition
amid the crises of depression and war, there emerged a new vision of Ameri¬ despite the traumas of depression, world war, and cold war.10
can life. Swing music mirrored a new optimism about democratic culture, In studying music's role in the larger culture, 1 have sought to examine
an appreciation of ethnic and racial pluralism, and a delight in the utopian the many ways musicians, impresarios, critics, and audiences interacted to
promise of urban life. For a variety of fans in the 1930s and 1940s, dreams create meanings in the music. This dialogical or interactional approach dif¬
of new sexual relationships and new American identities came together in fers from the more impositional models of culture, which posit a hege¬
the throes of jitterbug dance. monic control of mass communications industries over the musical prod¬
As a key part of the growing consumer culture and as an expression of uct. In my view, the meaning of the music is contained not only in
cultural pluralism, swing also played an important role in the American particular musical styles or song lyrics but also in the performance of that
campaign against Nazism and racial supremacy during World War II. The music before particular audiences. It is for this reason that I have actively
war heightened and then exhausted the hopes engendered by swing as it pursued audience responses."
brought the central musical and cultural tensions of the 1930s to a head. While my book draws on the many excellent studies that portray the
Swing musicians served the war effort in a variety of ways, from entertain¬ era as a distinct cultural moment, I depart from the view of the 1930s and
ing troops to enlisting in the military. But even while bands were promoted 1940s as a conservative era of shame and insecurity in which Americans
as the representatives of American democracy in action, deep-seated con¬ sought the reassurances of a homogeneous culture from an older, Protes¬
flicts arose. Would swing promote democratic culture as racial pluralism, or tant, small-town past. Such a view leaves little room for those creators of
would it perpetuate images of a home front that was increasingly depicted popular music from black and recent immigrant backgrounds who pro¬
as white and private? Why were singers singled out as individuals rather duced a different sound for modern America, one bound up with both the
than as part of the larger group? How did black bands and musicians react rural folk and the city. The white, Protestant model of the era overlooks
to themes of racial inclusion as they endured increased incidence of segre¬ the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman, who earned
gation? How did the racial achievements and racial tensions of the war in¬ the excitement, freedom, and diversity of the big city jazz age into the
teract with fears over gender to blunt the advance of swing and its succes¬ 1930s and 1940s. For the major black and white big bands of the era, the
sors, bebop and modern jazz? city remained the realm of modem hopes of freedom, and New York City
The war was a turning point, as the musical culture that made up swing stood as the capital of those aspirations. Some studies show a split between
fragmented. By the late 1940s, new musical expressions appeared: bebop, radical intellectuals and popular culture, but in music a group of swing
which sought to reorder generational and racial power in jazz, and tradi¬ intellectuals initially supported swing as the herald of a new national cul¬
tional jazz, which sought to resurrect the music of the first two decades of ture. At several levels, the swing band explosion suggests that the preoccu¬
the century. Bop was new, to be sure, but it was not just a rebellion against pation with democratic cultural forms that marked the New Deal years was
swing. Instead, it emerged from and against the culture of swing and em¬ wider and deeper than we have previously realized.12
bodied both continuities and conflicts with its predecessor. Coming out of
the war, music expressed many of the soaring hopes and fierce conflicts that
embroiled American culture.9
As a cultural and social history of big bands, this study enters territory
long claimed by musicologists and music critics, from whom I have learned
an enormous amount. While not ignoring the contributions of individual
musical giants, this work is part of a new jazz history that analyzes the
music's historical and cultural context, exploring the ways in which the
music was performed and presented to the public and the meanings that
Acknowledgments
Over the course of researching and writing this book I have piled up more
debts than I can ever hope to repay. First and foremost, I wish to thank the
more than three hundred people who wrote to me of their fan experiences
and the many others who sat for interviews. My good friend Elaine Tyler
May graciously showed me the ropes of audience response research and
gave me copies of the model letters she used in Homeward Bound. My re¬
search assistant, Scott Newman, helped me handle the flow of correspon¬
dence and keep track of the most interesting responses. Many other people
made my task so much easier: the staffs of the Institute of Jazz Studies,
Rutgers University; the Yale Music Library; the New York Library of the
Performing Arts, Lincoln Center; Special Collections, Harold Washington
Branch of the Chicago Public Library; and the Duke Ellington Scrapbook
Project, Smithsonian Institution. Alan Cass at the Glenn Miller Archives,
University of Colorado, Boulder, deserves a special mention for his generos¬
ity. Without Lorna Newman and her Interlibrary Loan staff at Loyola Uni¬
versity's Cudahy Library it would have been impossible to complete this
book. J. Fred MacDonald placed his enormous Archives of Popular Culture
at my disposal, loaned me books and materials without question, and
shared some of his own research data with me. The staff of the FBI made
reams of material available to me. Erika Doss and Geof Thrumston housed
me in Boulder, while Peter Hobbes ably duplicated materials at the Institute
of Jazz Studies. Bill Adler arranged for me to interview members of the Ev¬
anston, Illinois, High School class of 1939.1 also wish to thank the Fulbright
Committee for making possible a delightful year in Munich and the Na¬
tional Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowship that enabled me
to launch this study.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
