Swing It!

Too jazzy for rock critics, too silly for jazz critics, the jovial gentlemen and women of jive are enthusiastically saluted in this history of jive. Jive, often known as jump or swing, has had a language, a rhythm and a style all its own - lively, celebratory, and quintessentially American. This volume follows the music's rich, raucous cultural heritage from the Georgia South Sea troubadours to the pioneers (Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Cab Calloway), and from the golden era (Louis Jordan, Slim Gaillard and Leo Scat Watson) to the white connection (Mezz Mezzrow, Dan Hicks and Joe Jackson). It also covers the women jivesters (Betty Boop, Annie Ross and Rickie Lee Jones) and the retro swingers (Brian Setzer, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Cherry Poppin' Daddies), as well as the Broadway musical Five Guys Named Moe in 1994 and Swing. A discography is included.