JAZZ
SWING: PURE PLEASURE (1935-1937)
EPISODE 5
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4 @ 7:00PM & 11:30PM
As the Great Depression drags on, jazz comes as close as it has ever come to being America’s popular music . Big band jazz – swing – becomes the most popular music in America. Some fans, disturbed by its popularity, start a movement to embrace “traditional” jazz. In the western “territories,” a blues-soaked big band style further transforms jazz.
“Swing: Pure Pleasure” (Part 5 of 10) recalls the years 1935 to ’37, when “jazz came as close as it ever came to being America’s popular music,” says narrator Keith David. The reason: swing. It “unleashed forces that people didn’t know existed,” says critic Gary Giddins.” The result: “pure physical pleasure.” Swing’s king: Benny Goodman, who’s profiled, as is Jimmy Lunceford, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Billie Holliday.
