Swing : Third Ear - The Essential Listening Companion
The debut title in Miller Freeman's new "Third Ear" series ("designed to offer fresh perspectives on the breadth and depth of rich music genres"), this work encompasses the golden era of Swing (1935-46) in addition to the 1990s "Retro Swing" movement. Yanow, author of Duke Ellington and an editor of All Music Guide to Jazz, opted to class the more than 500 entries by musical specialty (Trumpeters, Guitarists, Female Vocalists, etc.) instead of using a straightforward A-Z organization. This approach effectively shows the threads of commonality and influence among the various performers in most of Swing's permutations. While he notes in his introduction the difficulty in choosing what and what not to include (Western Swing and 1950s Cool Jazz being the two genres that take the biggest hits), Yanow nevertheless offers excellent coverage, presenting reviews and ratings for 1500 recordings. A refreshingly non-verbose writing style and useful indexing make this a valuable reference. Besides showing Swing's importance in shaping American popular music, Yanow's book is also just plain fun to read. Recommended for all popular music collections.DDavid M. Turkalo, Suffolk Univ. Law Sch. Lib., Boston, MACopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.