The French called them “Les Années folles”, the Germans “Die Goldene Zwanziger”, in England and the United States we called them “The Roaring Twenties”…those heady years of post-WWI economic recovery, social redefinition and cultural effervescence that, by 1922, literary types like F. Scott Fitzgerald were calling “The Jazz Age” and up into which seemingly everyone was swept. The 24th annual Oregon Festival of American Music reflects on the rich threads of American popular cultural during those years, using as our bookends (for convenience only) 1921, which marks the year the great Eubie Blake-Noble Sissle revue Shuffle Along opened on Broadway, and 1934, when Cole Porter’s paean to the age, Anything Goes did so. In between, lies…ah!, so much one hardly know where to begin! Early Ellington, Cab Calloway and the Cotton Club; the host of extraordinary vocal stylists like (but hardly limited to!) Al Jolson, Mildred Bailey, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, Cliff Edwards, Annette Hanshaw, Eddie Cantor, and so many more; the rise of the American musical comedy; the shaping of popular song and dance by jazz and the blues; the rise of swing; and the honing of a song craftsmanship in the hands of Rodgers & Hart, the Gershwins, Berlin, Porter, and so many more that has never been rivaled! We deeply love this period of American cultural history and are eager to return to its clubs, radio shows, and stages. Join us!