1939 - a year in music

"It’s a genuinely exciting time for music, and three and a half hours seemed, if anything, not enough to give a real feel of all these ideas in the air" - Centuries of Sound reads about its selection of music from 1939. The times were changing back then - "this is the year that swing starts to really split; band leaders were taking inspiration from blues to create an upbeat kind of stripped-down jazz, which would soon be labelled 'rhythm & blues', 'jump blues' and eventually 'rock & roll'. Then there were the swing pioneers, looking to break down ideas about rhythm and melody, big names like Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington who were kicking off what would soon become 'Bebop'".