Various The Fabulous Big Band Collection (CD)

(RCA Victor) 15 tracks AAD (60:57) 1937-1976

Nothing beats a big band for making your fingers snap and your feet fly as you take to the dance floor. The sounds of trumpets, trombones and saxophones, all swinging and soaring together was the rock In' roll of its day. Teenagers flocked to dances, stayed glued to the radio and rioted at performances. This music also got people through hard times—the Great Depression and World War II.

Today, the big band beat swings on at jazz festivals around the world and concert halls, but also at dance halls like Irving Plaza, where hundreds of dancers line up for the New York Swing Dance society's weekly shim sham shimmy. At small clubs, like the Derby in Los Angeles or the Green Mill in Chicago, the first few notes of a tune by Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman still get dancers rushing out to claim space on the floor.

The fabulous music was only part of what drew thousands of couples to the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem or the Palomar in Los Angeles, and made hundreds of thousands of others roll up the rug to live radio broadcasts. So did the image these bands had: sophisti-cated and elegant, from the razor-sharp creases in the musicians' uniforms to their shining horns. Every young dreamer yearned to pick up a sax, leave home, and step on board a big band tour bus, with its name splashed in proud letters along the side.