• From around 1935 through World War II, as the national economy began to recover from the Great Depression, the music business expanded and underwent certain important transformations.
• Musical styles and cultural themes that had first emerged in clear form after World War I were updated by a new generation of performers.
• These musicians, in adapting to new social and historical circumstances, elaborated the longstanding conversation between northern and southern, urban and rural, and white and black musical traditions, and created a style of dance music (and a cultural movement) called swing.
• The swing era represented the peak of jazz’s influence on popular music.
• Elements of swing also began to appear in country music.