Best Sellers

The Jazz in the Charts series, which numbers 100 CDs, has all of the jazz performances that made the charts during 1917-54 and at least for one week ranked with the 20 top selling records of the moment. While there were some hits in the 1920s and the '50s, the majority of the discs in this very extensive series date from the Swing Era.

The Swing Era, which was from 1935-46, was a period when jazz and pop music constantly overlapped. Not only were vocalists with orchestras popular, but so were instrumental big band recordings and Dixieland. Volumes 41-50 consist of ten CDs that cover a very busy one-year period during 1938-39, 225 selections in all.

While some of these performances are the expected hits from the major bands, there are quite a few surprises. Who would have thought that Larry Clinton's "If it Rains, Who Cares," Wingy Manone's version of "Flat Foot Floogie," Benny Goodman's "What Goes on Here in My Heart" and Tommy Dorsey's recording of "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" would have made the charts?

Among the many other bandleaders who are represented are Gene Krupa, Louis Armstrong, Jan Savitt, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Dorsey, Andy Kirk, Cab Calloway, Bunny Berigan, Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, Jimmy Lunceford and Glenn Miller.

These ten CDs show listeners what jazz, swing and music fans of the late 1930s were listening and dancing to, and just how viable and exciting the music scene was at the time.

—Scott Yanow