Like the jazzmen and swell gals from the swinging late 30s she resuscitates with verve and moxie, Roxane Orgill is a kick--to read and to watch riffing on a whole era and its cool heroes. This book is danceable. — Raymond Sokolov
“A vivid and stirring panorama of America on the brink of World War II--an epic on the head of a pin.” — Daniel Mark Epstein, poet and biographer
“Roxane Orgill is a kick--to read and to watch riffing on a whole era and its cool heroes. This book is danceable.” — Raymond Sokolov, columnist, The Wall Street Journal Raymond Sokolov, columnist, The Wall Street Journal Raymond Sokolov, columnist, The Wall Street Journal Raymond Sokolov, columnist, The Wall Street Journal
“Orgill unleashes verve and rhythmic riffs to capture the mood of the pre-WWII years when ‘the radio was always on.’ … [A] rhapsodic time-travel tour guide.” — Publishers Weekly
[Orgill’s] evocative story line, with a running narrative centered on Basie’s struggles for national recognition in July 1938, gives a clear indication of life under the specter of Depression-era troubles…[it] resurrects more or less forgotten figures for a wide audience of readers” — Library Journal
“A firecracker of a book as tight, ebullient and raucous as a classic Basie arrangement” — Wall Street Journal
Roxane Orgill fully captures the spirit and truth of the era with a great, breezy style full of snazzy lingo and spot-on details. In the word of the day, the book is swell. Makes me want to wear a hat. — Kaenan Oliver, prize-winning author and co-screenwriter of a film-in-progress about Chick Webb
