The expression "Jazz Age" was coined by novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald as a label for those guady years beginning shortly after the end of World War I, and the start of the great 1930s worldwide economic depression. It was the time of writers F. Scott Fitzgerald and his lovely wife Zelda, Anita Loos, H. L. Mencken, of actress Louise Brooks, and of composers such as Cole Porter and George Gershwin, and many others.

The excitement of that age still grips us today. It was a time when hedonism reigned supreme. Young women, called "Flappers" broke the bonds that an older society had placed on them. They cut their long tresses, hiked their skirts, rouged their cheeks, rolled their stockings down below the knee, and painted their lips into a "cupie bow" design. Young men eagerly grasped the new "Hot Jazz" coming from the Black and White bands in Chicago and New York. Young college boys, dressed in their long Raccoon Coats made every weekend a 3 day long party. America, with the advent of prohibition (selling liquor became illegal), saw "speakeasies" opening in just about every town in the land. These were establishments where "bootleg hooch" flowed like water, and young men and women were dancing to the music of the "Charleston" and other Jazz Age songs.

New Yorkers went "slumming" at Jazz clubs (read "speakeasies") that sprung up on the famed 52nd Street, and the nightclubs and Harlem, both underwent a 'golden age'' Brand new inventions, - the radio and the gramophone - were in every home. Hollywood introduced "All Singing, All Dancing, All Talking" pictures.

Author Kevin Rayburn, in his "Two Views of the 1920s" wrote "Hip flasks of hooch, jazz, speakeasies, bobbed hair, 'the lost generation.' The Twenties are endlessly fascinating. It was the first truly modern decade and, for better or worse, it created the model for society that all the world follows today."

On these pages, one may listen again to the sound that musically characterized that wonderfully exciting time. For music of the Flappers, visitors may wish to first visit our Flapper's and Their Music page. Other pages will offer the chance to again hear the wonderful Tangos of the era, Dixieland Jazz, and much more. The "Index" near the top of all the pages will help.

Return now to that tantalizing Golden era and 'All That Jazz'. --- Murray L. Pfeffer