Dream Lucky When FDR Was in the White House, Count Basie Was on the Radio, and Everyone Wore a Hat... |
|
| Author:
| Orgill, Roxane |
| ISBN: | 978-0-06-089750-5 |
| Publication Date: | Apr 2008 |
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers
|
| Imprint: | Smithsonian |
| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | USD $25.95USD $25.95 |
Book Description:
|
The time: 1936-1938. The mood: Hopeful. It wasn't wartime, not yet. The music: The incomparable Count Basie and Benny Goodman, among others. The setting: Living rooms across America and, most of all, New York City.
Dream Lucky covers politics, race, religion, arts, and sports, but the central focus is the period's soundtrack--specifically big band jazz--and the big-hearted piano player William "Count" Basie. His ascent is the narrative thread of the book--how he made it and...
More Description
The time: 1936-1938. The mood: Hopeful. It wasn't wartime, not yet. The music: The incomparable Count Basie and Benny Goodman, among others. The setting: Living rooms across America and, most of all, New York City.
Dream Lucky covers politics, race, religion, arts, and sports, but the central focus is the period's soundtrack--specifically big band jazz--and the big-hearted piano player William "Count" Basie. His ascent is the narrative thread of the book--how he made it and what made his music different from the rest. But many other stories weave in and out: Amelia Earhart pursues her dream of flying "around the world at its waistline." Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., stages a boycott on 125th Street. And Mae West shocks radio listeners as a naked Eve tempting the snake.
Critic Nat Hentoff praises the "precise originality" with which Roxane Orgill writes about music. In Dream Lucky, she magically lets readers hear the past.