This was what it was like – a swingin band on stage, and people having fun, dancing. There is something about swing music that gets people off their feet. Jazz, back in the Swing Era, could not be divorced from dancing, and they both influenced each other in their development. It was how jazz became a part of popular culture and captured the imagination of the masses in the first place.
The band presented here was none other than Count Basie Orchestra, featuring Lester Young on sax, playing “I’ve Got Rhythm”. If only jazz engaged people like this today. Instead, jazz today conjures up the image of musty rooms where people mostly just sit around drinking, and applauding musicians after each solo, if they even paid attention to the music in the first place! There are of course many reasons as to why this has happened, both from the music perspective – with the evolution of the music from Swing to Bebop and Rock and Roll – and from the people’s point-of-view, with changing mindsets after the War, along with the development of different forms of entertainment, namely television…
