Music Of The 1920s And 1930s Essay

, Research Paper

Durring the nine-teen twentys and thirties the music scene wasas popular as ever. There was the Jazz Era durring the twenties and theSwing Era durring the thirties. Merging into the early twenties a type ofimprovised music , called Dixieland Jazz was being recorded. Famousartists includeing Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory were very popular tothe people. This music was a hit till nine-teen twenty three. Jazz musiwas the popular music durring this decade. Than durring the nine-teenthirties many types of music was popular. This decade of the thirtieswas the Swing Era. Swing is a Jazz style music that emerged at thistime. This type of music has a fast paced beat and included a band ofabout ten musicians or more.The swing era of the thirties dates back to the early twenties ,where the black community , while dancing to contemporary Jazzmusic , discovered the Charleston and the Lindy Hop. On March 26 ,1926 , the Savory Ballroom opened its doors in New York. TheSavory was an immediate success with its block-long dance floor anda raised double bandstand. Nightly dancing attracted most of the bestdancers in the New York area. Stimulated by the presence of greatdancers and the best black bands , music at the Savory was largelySwinging Jazz. One evening in 1926 , following Lindbergh’s flight toParis , a local dance enthusiast named “Shorty George” Snowden waswatching some of the dancing couples. A newspaper reporter askedhin what dance they were doing , and it just so happened that therewas a newspaper with an article about Lindbergh’s flight sitting on thebench next to them. The title of the article read , “Lindy Hops TheAtlantic , ” and George just sort of read that and said , “Lindy Hop”and the name stuck. In the mid 1930’s , a bouncy six beat variant wasnamed the Jitterbug by the band leader Cab Calloway when heintroduced a tune in 1934 entitled Jitterbug. With the discoverey of theLindy Hop and the Jitterbug , the communities began dancing to thecontemporary Jazz and Swing music as it was evolving at the time ,with Benny Goodman leading the action. Dancers soon incorporatedtap and jazz steps into their dancing.