The Big Band Years

Jazz critics Crowther and Pinfold here collaborate with Driggs, owner of a noted jazz picture archive, to produce, in words and photos, a history of big band music in the 20th century. From Jim Europe during World War I to Toshiko Akiyoshi, who combines East and West in her big band of the 1980s, they cover well-known personalities like Paul Whiteman, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and Stan Kenton, and the musicians with whom they performed. The dryly written fact-filled text is enlivened by sidebars with profiles of the artists, anecdotes and reminiscences by the musicians and their fans, which provide the collection's more entertaining moments. With its numerous photographs of the bands and the soloists, in black and white and color, this is a coffee-table book for those who enjoy nostalgia. (Nov.)