"they are soldiers of music."

On the home front, the music industry found itself struggling again. Blackouts and late-night curfews darkened some nightclubs and dance halls. A 20 percent entertainment tax closed ballrooms all across the country. The rationing of rubber and gasoline eventually drove most band buses off the roads, and servicemen now filled the Pullman trains, making it difficult for musicians to get around by rail. A shortage of shellac, which was used in the manufacture of records, curtailed the recording of music, and companies stopped making jukeboxes and musical instruments altogether for a time because they were deemed unnecessary to the war effort.

The draft stole away good musicians, the producers lost dozens of men to the army in just months. Bandleaders were forced to pay their replacements more for less talent. "I'm paying some kid trumpet player $500 a week, and he can't even blow his nose."-was one descriptive comment. With so many male musicians in uniform, more than a hundred "all girl" bands were on the move across Europe, playing for dances, helping to sell war bonds.

Big Band Jazz

The Jazz music of the Big Band Era was the culmination of over thirty years of musical development. What is it that made Jazz so innovative and different that it could literally sweep the world, changing the musical styles of nearly every country? And what is it about big band Jazz that makes the feet tap and the heart race with excitement? Examples: Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington

African Music and Ragtime

The musical and cultural revolution that brought about Jazz was a direct result of African-Americans pursuing careers in the arts following the American Civil War. As slaves, African-Americans had learned few European cultural traditions. With increased freedom to pursue careers in the arts and bringing African artistic traditions to their work, African-Americans changed music and dance, not only in the U.S., but all over the world. For after the war, African-American dancers and musicians were able to create work that was not hidebound by hundreds of years of musical and dance traditions brought from the courts and peasant villages of Europe.

What was the European tradition? European music through the nineteenth century was melodically based, much of it with a square or waltz rhythmic structure.

Schlager music

When sound came to German films in 1929, popular songs - Schlager - came too. Previously Schlager had most often emerged from operettas and other live shows, but in the 30s and early 40s they were usually composed for movies and their stars. From 1933 to 1945 the Nazi government tightly regulated films and music and shut Jews out of both businesses, but nevertheless many still-popular Schlager were created. Examples: Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, ...

Can Can music

The cancan developed from the galop, a popular dance in the public dancing gardens and dance-halls of Paris in the early part of the nineteenth century. When it first appeared in 1830, the cancan was really an exaggerated form of the galop, with high kicks and other gestures with arms and legs, mostly initially performed by men, and later also by their female partners. It was viewed as shocking by "respectable" people because it implied a lack of self-control and involved more bodily contact between participants than was thought acceptable.

The cancan's history is surprisingly complex, and its evolution is unusual, in so far as it actually did evolve, changing gradually over the years from its initial appearance as ballroom dance for couples in 1830 to a choreographed stage spectacle which really only became "standardized" in the 1920s. Examples: Played mainly by theatre orchestras.