But you cant hear them
A Trove of Historic Jazz Recordings has Found a Home in Harlem, But You Can’t Hear Them
The swing era lasted barely a decade—roughly the mid-1930s until the end of World War II—but it was a golden age for jazz.
Photo of Billie Holiday courtesy of William P. Gottleib Collection, Library of Congress
Photo of Coleman Hawkins with Miles Davis courtesy of William P. Gottleib Collection, Library of Congress
Photo of Count Basie courtesy of William P. Gottleib Collection, Library of Congress
Photo of Bennie Goodman courtesy of William P. Gottleib Collection, Library of Congress
It was the only time that jazz dominated American popular music. Legendary musicians who had helped invent the music—the likes of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, Bunny Berigan and Coleman Hawkins—still were in their prime. And they could be heard everywhere: swank hotel ballrooms, homecoming dances on college campuses, radio programs—but especially at cramped, smoky nightclubs in such musical hotbeds as Chicago, Kansas City and New York City. In those clubs, jazz musicians honed their craft during lengthy jam sessions, where a player might improvise on chorus after chorus of standards like George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm,” or on their own compositions or blues riffs made up on the stand.
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