When Swing was the Thing


Book Description

Fifteen-piece swinging dance bands swept the country in popularity during the big band era of 1935-1946, the only time in America's history to-date when jazz was the most popular form of music. This book provides detailed profiles, many based on personal interviews, of the era's bandleaders, musicians, vocalists, arrangers, and contributors.--Publisher's information.




The Swing of Things


Book Description

When their Wednesday date nights get too predictable, Jayne and Eric Larsen encounter Theo and Mia Winters, the effortlessly cool couple of the neighborhood, who share their secret for keeping things spicy.




Swing


Book Description

In this YA novel in verse from bestselling authors Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess (Solo), which Kirkus called “lively, moving, and heartfelt” in a starred review, Noah and Walt just want to leave their geek days behind and find “cool,” but in the process discover a lot about first loves, friendship, and embracing life . . . as well as why Black Lives Matter is so important for all. Best friends Noah and Walt are far from popular, but Walt is convinced junior year is their year, and he has a plan that includes wooing the girls of their dreams and becoming amazing athletes. Never mind he and Noah failed to make their baseball team yet again, and Noah’s crush since third grade, Sam, has him firmly in the friend zone. While Walt focuses on his program of jazz, podcasts, batting cages, and a “Hug Life” mentality, Noah feels stuck in status quo … until he stumbles on a stash of old love letters. Each one contains words Noah’s always wanted to say to Sam, and he begins secretly creating artwork using the lines that speak his heart. But when his art becomes public, Noah has a decision to make: continue his life in the dugout and possibly lose the girl forever, or take a swing and finally speak out. At the same time, American flags are being left around town. While some think it’s a harmless prank and others see it as a form of protest, Noah can’t shake the feeling something bigger is happening to his community. Especially after he witnesses events that hint divides and prejudices run deeper than he realized. As the personal and social tensions increase around them, Noah and Walt must decide what is really important when it comes to love, friendship, sacrifice, and fate. Swing: is written by New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winner Kwame Alexander Features a diverse array of characters and perspectives tackles the biggest social issues of today, including racial prejudice and Black Lives Matter is perfect reading for the classroom or community-wide discussions is a 2020 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers contains original artwork tied to the story If you enjoy Swing, check out Solo by Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess.




Swing Shift


Book Description

The story, based on extensive individual interviews, of the women’s swing bands that toured extensively during World War II and after -- a kind of “League of their Own” for jazz.




The Swing Book


Book Description

Ten years ago a revival of swing took place, originating in San Francisco, snowballing into today's international resurgence. This book presents the complete history of swing music and dancing, then and now.




Swing, Swing, Swing


Book Description

Before Elvis and rock & roll, Benny Goodman--the King of Swing--ruled American popular music. In this intimate biography, Firestone illuminates Goodman's enormous impact on American music and culture, offering a mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes look at this complicated, difficult jazz superstar. Photos.




The Swing


Book Description

How do you like to go up in a swing? Beautiful illustrations by Julie Morstad bring new delight to this classic poem.




Welcome to Jazz


Book Description

AN INTERACTIVE, SWING-ALONG PICTURE BOOK—WITH 12 SOUND CHIPS! Are you ready to swing? Discover the wonders of jazz: How to get in the groove, what it means to play a solo, and the joy of singing along in a call-and-response. In this interactive swing-along picture book with 12 sound chips, you’ll hear the instruments of jazz—the rhythm section with its banjo, drums, and tuba, and the leads, like the clarinet, trumpet, and trombone. And you’ll hear singers scat, improvising melodies with nonsense syllables like be-bop and doo-we-ah! Along the way, you’ll learn how this unique African American art form started in New Orleans, and how jazz changed over time as innovative musicians like King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday added their own ideas to it. Press the buttons to hear the band, the rhythms, and the singer calling out: “OH WHEN THE SAINTS—oh when the saints…”




Swing Time


Book Description

“Smith’s thrilling cultural insights never overshadow the wholeness of her characters, who are so keenly observed that one feels witness to their lives.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “A sweeping meditation on art, race, and identity that may be [Smith’s] most ambitious work yet.” —Esquire A New York Times bestseller • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction • Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize An ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from North West London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty. Two brown girls dream of being dancers—but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live. But when Aimee develops grand philanthropic ambitions, the story moves from London to West Africa, where diaspora tourists travel back in time to find their roots, young men risk their lives to escape into a different future, the women dance just like Tracey—the same twists, the same shakes—and the origins of a profound inequality are not a matter of distant history, but a present dance to the music of time. Zadie Smith's newest book, Grand Union, published in 2019.




The Embassy of Cambodia


Book Description

A rare and brilliant story from Zadie Smith, taking us deep into the life of a young woman, Fatou, domestic servant to the Derawals and escapee from one set of hardships to another. Beginning and ending outside the Embassy of Cambodia, which happens to be located in Willesden, NW London, Zadie Smith's absorbing, moving and wryly observed story suggests how the apparently small things in an ordinary life always raise larger, more extraordinary questions. 'It's scale is superficially small, but its range is lightly immense; in the first couple of pages, the world from Ghana to London to Cambodia enters. It is a fiction of consequences both global and heartrenchingly intimate. This voice is global, plural and local, with a delicate grip on historic consequences...... Works on an awesomely global scale, and the relations of slavery and mastership are traced in both personal and international scale.' Philip Hensher, The Guardian 'Reading it is a bit like having a starter in a restaurant that is so good you wish you had ordered a big portion as a main course, only to realise, as you finish it, that it was exactly the right amount.' 'A perfect stocking-filler of a book that shows that short-form fiction can be as vibrant and as healthy as any densely realised full-length novel.' Louise Doughty, The Observer 'Smith serves up a smasher.' Leyla Sanai, The Independent On Sunday