The “Swing Era” of the 1930’s, through the embodiment of Swing music, germinated unprecedented musical thirst that spanned the entirety of the American population.  This new fiery form of jazz got people moving, “but would also cause them to fall over in a heap if the music stopped unexpectedly.” (Henderson 112) Through the gradual necessitation of the household radio, this “swing fever” became a national pop culture phenomenon. (Gioia 137) In the 1930’s the increased popularity of integrated ensembles increased accessibility of Swing music, and fundamental values of swing music propagated racial discussion.

The works of bandleader and clarinetist Benny Goodman, the broadcasted “King of Swing”, and his integrated ensembles demonstrated the intertwined nature of race and swing music. Goodman played hotter music than the Henderson orchestra and his music, combined with his prickly personality, eventually brought swing to the center stage.  Many jazz enthusiasts praised the upbeat change, while others saw Goodman as exploiting black musicians for the fame. (Gioia 132) Inversely, another important bandleader, Duke Ellington, was set on transforming jazz into a “serious art form”  (Gioia 170) and was criticized for showing racial insensitivity by directing his music towards white culture. John Hammond, a jazz critic, commented that Ellington, “disguised a willingness to tolerate racial indignities for the sake of commercial success.” (Stowe 51)

The commercial success of jazz musicians in the 1930’s began with the conclusion of the Great Depression. A nation-wide market force was propelled by the invention of the radio, which allowed for a certain kind of integration to occur amongst the American people. The radio provided an imagined space in which people couldn’t see the color skin of the musician recording, but nonetheless the listener could feel the musician playing. (Stewart 02/12) The public acted as “passive receptors of entertainment” and was coincidentally soaked in the racial impartiality of the hot music to which they moved. (Gioia 129) Thus, the radio subliminally encouraged listeners to rearrange any prior white-over-black hegemonic ideologies in which they may have partook.  A new idea, that black jazz musicians maintained undeniable rhythmic aptitude, spawned in its place.

The Swing Era denoted a musically derived national paradigm shift. Before the coming of swing music jazz was associated with and sustained a sense of low culture, often being the featured music in brothels and gangster run nightclubs. (Stewart 02/12) Swing music however stormed through households across the country and imbued the American people with its ideologies of liberty, tolerance, and equality. (Stowe 41) During the Swing Era jazz music transformed from having a sense of low culture to dominating American pop culture and in the late 1930’s swing even served as a unifying morale booster of World War II. Swing music disregarded skin color and epitomized a more widespread feeling of both rebellion and equality compared to the previously severely white hegemonic America. (Gioia 136)

Therefore, race was explicitly discussed throughout the Swing Era as a direct result of monumental hegemonic paradigm dissolutions, commercialization of an essentially “colorless” music, and propagation of a new ideology of what it meant to be American.

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