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‘Caught in a whirlpool of aching sound’: the production of dance music in Britain in the 1920s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Mark Hustwitt
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Extract

In the years between 1910 and 1930 there occurred a number of changes in the forms of popular music enjoyed in Britain, in the ways this music was produced and disseminated, and in its use for pleasure and profit. In this article I am concerned with mapping together themes which have hitherto been investigated in isolation; I focus on the relation of musical forms to their users, bandleaders, musicians, dancers, ‘jazz fans’, record companies, etc., rather than on any single aspect of popular music. I investigate the way in which the importation of new forms of music and dance from the USA, the social disruptions of the First World War and the more general trends in British society and its economy coalesce to re-orientate musical pleasures during the 1920s. I begin by examining changes in music and dance immediately before and during the First World War.

Type
Part 1. In the Past
Information
Popular Music , Volume 3 , January 1983 , pp. 7 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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