The Cowl

by Ian Gualtiere ’27 on November 20, 2025

A music craze originated nearly 90 years ago when Benny Goodman and His Orchestra performed at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on Aug. 21, 1935. This was the first injection of a style known as big band swing jazz into American radio waves. However, what seemed so polished, so delicately defined, and that which was easily received by diverse audiences by the mid-1930s, had its roots in the rich history of the 1920s African-American jazz scene. Established African-American jazz bands, such as the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, helped define a new musical practice of sound call-response interplay between brass and reed sections within large bands; this consisted of two phrases being repeated by both sections in succession and appeared to sound like a harmonized conversation. What emerged from this period were the solo interludes by big-time jazz players in their own right, such as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Buster Bailey. 

By the early 1930s, time signatures within these bands started to pick up a tempo that focused on rhythm over melody; a new term that attempted to hold this explosion of nearly 15 band members playing in harmonious unison would come to be called stomps. The transnational explosion of the radio during this period gave touring bands with heavy experience a chance to record and release these stomps onto the airwaves. Adopting these musical experiments were white band leaders, such as Paul Whiteman, who attempted to combine brass and reed with string sections to create a form of symphonic jazz that used a classical approach to branch jazz and classical music. 

American jazz orchestras soon started to appear regionally with defined sounds closely associated. The Earl Hines Orchestra largely dominated the Midwest; out of New York ballrooms were orchestras individually conducted by pianist Duke Ellington, saxophonist Jimmie Lunceford, and drummer Chick Webb; and what emerged from Kansas City was the “Moten Swing,” engineered by Bennie Moten and his pianist Count Basie, an up-tempo song title to describe the widely popular rhythmic sound. By the height of the Great Depression, however, many of these bands fell on hard times that forced many to disband and pick up solo careers. Some African-American bandleaders, such as Fletcher Henderson, stayed afloat by writing and selling musical arrangements to younger white bandleaders; it was with a full catalogue of Henderson’s arrangements that the Benny Goodman Orchestra performed on the radio show Let’s Dance and eventually premiered live at the Palomar Ballroom. By the end of 1935, the so-called “swing era” was underway, with millions of young Americans across multiple backgrounds and beliefs taking to the audacious rhythms that both Goodman and numerous recently formed orchestras tried to imitate. 

A traditional swing orchestra would consist of a musical dialogue between an incessant rhythm section of percussion and strings, and the previous invention of call-response interplay between the reed and brass sections. What defined orchestras, giving bandleaders such as Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, and Tommy Dorsey trademark sounds, were the alterations of arrangements and solo improvisations. Some orchestras used vocalists or instrumental soloists who would become the focus of the arrangement by the middle of the piece; most famously, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra held a young Frank Sinatra under contract, the Chick Webb Orchestra employed Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday was used by both the Count Basie and Artie Shaw orchestras. The epicenter of the swing scene within the United States was the Savoy and Roseland Ballrooms of New York City, where a constant carousel of orchestras was nationally broadcast live during primetime radio hours. These ballrooms held the “battle of swing bands” that were billed as competitions between two bands who attempted to outperform each other by playing back-to-back. It was during these competitions that battles such as Chick Webb versus Benny Goodman in 1937, Webb versus Count Basie in 1938, and Goodman versus Miller in 1939 at Carnegie Hall that swing music became the principal American cultural output before World War II. 

For nearly 10 years, until the end of World War II, the swing era dominated airwaves as boastful trumpets and shrieking clarinets of various orchestras supplied the American home front with a unified morale and cultural capital. The war, however, severely limited manpower in the swing scene; the traditional 12 to 25 person orchestras were cut, and many either enlisted or were drafted to serve in the war effort. Other band leaders made the jump from civilian life to military life by also taking their musical experiences into their service, most notably Miller, who joined the U.S. Army Air Forces, boosted morale by leading the Major Glenn Miller Army Air Forces Orchestra. His career was ultimately cut short when his transport plane went missing over the English Channel in December 1944. Solo vocalists who gained popularity and headline billing on these orchestras ultimately outgrew their roles and caused tension as contractual employees of the band leaders; it became strikingly apparent that many people came to see Sinatra perform “I’ll Never Smile Again” or “Stardust,” and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra just happened to be there. Record companies such as Columbia Records saw the value of the emerging status of soloists over bands, and by the end of the war, the age of big band swing was done. 

Occasionally, swing has emerged, albeit weakly, back onto American airwaves, seen in the 1960s in so-called “big band rock,” and the mid-1990s, when full big band orchestras intrigued the Y2K generations. Though a music style that has largely been irrelevant since 1946, the cultural influence that the swing era has had on modern music cannot be understated. The swinging, jumping rhythms that attracted younger generations would find a new home in the rock n’ roll scene of the 1950s and 1960s. The swing era reaffirmed that everyone, regardless of background or belief, wanted to unify under such a richly layered musical style that sent shockwaves across the nation. 

Personal favorites include: “Blueberry Hill” by Miller and His Orchestra; “I’ve Heard That Song Before” by Harry James and His Orchestra & Helen Forrest; “God Bless This Child” by Holiday and Her Orchestra; “The Breeze and I” by Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra & Bob Eberly; “Brazil” by Xavier Cugat & Xavier Cugat Orchestra; and “You Made Me Love You” by James and His Orchestra & Forrest.