The Transition Of Popular Music In The United States From Jazz To Swing In Swingin’ The Dream By Lewis A. Erenberg

Swingin’ the Dream by Lewis A. Erenberg is about the transition of popular music in the United States from jazz to swing. He describes the shift from the economic crash of 1929 to the big band scene, and how various audiences responded to the introduction of both white and black musicians during the solemn lull in between the vitality of jazz and swing. Erenberg’s Just One More Chance: The Fall of the Jazz Age and the Rise of Swing supports the argument that different forms of entertainment are dominantly molded by the economic and social trends of the period: from the Roaring Twenties, to the Great Depression, and through the birth of swing. This is significant because it clearly illustrates how society’s reaction to change is accompanied by song and that the historical trends of the United States can be traced through the popular music of the times.

The twenties were a decade full of energy exemplified by the party lifestyle and the popular music: jazz. People sought what was claimed as the ‘American dream’, and they lived out an overindulgent existence until the stock-market crash at the end of the decade. Erenberg indicated that, “jazz came to symbolize the 1920s decadence” (Erenberg 17), and musicians like Louis Armstrong popularized an improvisational type of jazz that “had a dangerous as well as liberating aura” (Erenberg 6), which complimented the period’s energetic dance styles. It musically-narrated a fantastical life for middle to upper class white Americans. Alongside this extravagant lifestyle, Joseph Vogel makes clear, “the 1920s was a decade preoccupied with delineating and protecting borders of identity” (Vogel 30). This was evident in the segregated society that Armstrong encountered, only being allowed to perform for black audiences, and was also representative of the exclusive separation elsewhere. The twenties thus played host to an environment for a select white American identity to dominate. This exclusivity is shaken by the economic downfall and the transition in the entertainment industry.

Jazz continued to be prominent in the early 1930s, but it carried a completely remodeled tone: one that reflected a regretful mood that Americans shared during the Great Depression. With the crash, people were forced to reduce their spending on entertainment, and there were fewer parties and performances. As Christina Baade describes in her article Airing Authenticity, “Thanks to the medium of radio, … enthusiasts would hear a satisfying dose of…jazz” (Baade 272) because it was a cheap pass-time. Melancholy music, now performed by the slow, deep voices of crooners and torch singers, served as a figurative place to apologetically mourn the guilty immoderation of the 1920s and lament the lack of direction and purpose that white Americans now had. At the beginning of this period, Duke Ellington and his band started touring with pieces that “blended black communal creation and improvisation with European art composition” (Erenberg 9). They also were hired to perform at the Cotton Club for white audiences, thus their dissonant harmonies marked a change in history. Though they still were not treated fairly, black Americans experienced a more even playing field in the depression, and this continued to carry forward through the decade.

Soon another powerful shift occurred in popular music, and this one reflected a positive difference in economics and society. The New Deal was a series of reforms put in place by Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933-1936 in an effort to recover the nation from the Great Depression. “African Americans had virtually no access to public relief before the New Deal” (Amsterdam 643), but with this political and economic transition, minorities were slowly exposed to minimal benefits, which was a notable change. Overall, the reforms and regulations began to have an optimistic influence on people, and the “dangerous” sounds of jazz were altered and popularized once again. In 1935, according to Erenberg, swing was born with Benny Goodman, in the Palomar Ballroom (Erenberg 1). The essential distinction between jazz and swing is heavily associated with the cultural shifts that accompanied the music’s development. However, while swing is a subgenre of the upbeat dance music of jazz, the musical difference is an uneven 8th note pattern that crafted the new dance styles that arose with the new ‘swung’ era. Swing influenced the trends of the 1920s and early 1930s providing another opportunity to be associated with these new constructive “central American values” (Erenberg 31). The new pop culture was representative of the optimistic future that both white and black Americans could begin to look forward to.

This Erenberg chapter in Swingin’ the Dream documents how the shift in the entertainment industry interacted with the Great Depression and was both caused by and influenced the economic and social trends of the nation through the 1930s. As people were devastated by the economic downfall, the parties halted and they bemoaned their current state through song. However, with the political reforms, people started to respond more confidently about their future, and in some way became more supportive of minorites. All of this development was traced and could be heard in the popular music of the time, which furthered an optimistic cycle and kept the growth and momentum going as the United States swung out from the depression. While the ‘American dream’ sought out in the twenties didn’t work out, the reforms provided a jumping off point for a new ‘American dream’ to swing from.