The Jazz Age Popular Music in the 1920s [Paperback]

F. Scott Fitzgerald named it, Louis Armstrong launched it, Paul Whiteman and Fletcher Henderson orchestrated it, and now Arnold Shaw chronicles this fabulous era in his marvelously engrossing book, appropriately calledThe Jazz Age. Enriching his account with lively anecdotes and inside stories, he describes the astonishing outpouring of significant musical innovations that emerged during the Roaring Twenties --including blues, jazz, band music, torch ballads, operettas, and musicals--and sets them against the background of the Prohibition world of the Flapper and the Gangster.
The Jazz Ageoffers an insider's view into the significant developments and personalities of the jazz age, including the maturation and Americanization of the Broadway musical theater, the explosion of the arts celebrated in the Harlem Renaissance, the rise of the Classic Blues Singers, and the evolution of ragtime into stride piano. It also contains a bibliography, detailed discography, and listings of the songs of the twenties inVariety's Golden 100 and of films featuring singers and songwriters of the era.

I am deeply moved by Arnold Shaw'sThe Jazz Age. --Quincy Jones, Grammy Award winner

A unique portrayal of the 1920s. --Library Journal

As one who grew up in the 1920s, and has been reading Arnold Shaw with admiration for some twenty-odd years, I readThe Jazz Agenot only nostalgically, but also with gratitude to one who tells us so much, and so knowledgeably, about what lay behind the music that I and many others of our generation simply took--at the time--for granted. --Henry Pleasants

Vastly detailed, all-inclusive. --Kirkus Reviews

[Shaw opens] a Pandora's box of musical memories, dispelling present ambiguities and inviting the reader to a nostalgic backward journey when life seemed less complex and more carefree. --America

Arnold Shaw