Swing It!

A guide to jive describes its history and notable performers.

Milkowski focuses on "outrageous, outlandish entertainers . . . too 'jazzy' for rock scribes, too 'silly' for jazz scribes," in this popular history of a phenomenon that, he explains, is not just snappy patter or a kind of music but rather an ethos, an attitude, a way of looking at things. Take Harry "the Hipster" Gibson, "a wild boogie-woogie keyboarder" who took his surname from his favorite libation, whose frenetic style anticipated Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, and who, between incarcerations for drug offenses, found time to ask, "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?" Maybe jive is a way of life. Milkowski limns plenty of other jive stars, too, sorting his biographical-discographical sketches into thematic chapters titled "Godfathers of Jive" (Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, etc.), "Golden Era of Jive" (Louis Jordan, Stuff Smith, etc.), "The White Connection" (Gibson, Louis Prima, etc.), and "Retro Jivesters" (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Brian Setzer, etc.). Complete with a jive lexicon, this is a find for hipsters, pop music fans, and with-it linguists alike. Mike Tribby
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