In Search of the Perfect Elective

There are hundreds of courses in the catalog and only six days to shop. We've whittled the field down to 11 delectable electives.

Swing Into Class


Literature and Arts B-80: "The Swing Era" entices students with jazz, dance and merriment.

"People will leave the course being seriously addicted to this stuff," says Robert D. Levin, the course's instructor and Robinson professor of the humanities. "They will have a sense of when jazz advanced from something at research centers and became the national popular music."

The course will study the history of American jazz since the 1930s. Levin says he plans to discuss the presence of improvisation and the relationship of society and music that developed as a result of jazz--and the historical context of the jazz movement.

The course begins by answering the somewhat philosophical question: What is swing?

Levin will then lecture on instruments and style. The course will also focus on the differences between the "great black bands" like those of Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington as well as comparison with "the white bands," including Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw.

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