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About Dream Lucky:
The time: 1936-1938. The mood: Hopeful. It wasn't wartime, not yet. The music: The incomparable Count Basie and Benny Goodman, among others. The setting: Living rooms across America and, most of all, New York City.
Dream Lucky covers politics, race, religion, arts, and sports, but the central focus is the period's soundtrack—specifically big band jazz—and the big-hearted piano player William "Count" Basie. His ascent is the narrative thread of the book—how he made it and what made his music different from the rest. But many other stories weave in and out: Amelia Earhart pursues her dream of flying "around the world at its waistline." Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., stages a boycott on 125th Street. And Mae West shocks radio listeners as a naked Eve tempting the snake.
About Roxane Orgill:
Roxane Orgill is the author of a number of notable books for children and young adults, including the recent Footwork: The Story of Fred and Adele Astaire. She has also been an award-winning music critic whose reviews and articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Billboard. She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.
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The group: We Comment Back
Blessings ~
Rene
What does "Dream Lucky" refer to?
You didn't live through the era of your book. What has made you so passionate about it?
The music you talk about in your book has been around for decades. Do you ever get tired of listening to it?
Thanks to everyone who's come to chat with us today, too! If you have a question for Roxane, please post it in a comment and she'll get to it as time allows.
What made me passionate about the era was first of all, the music. I love the early Basie band for its spontaneity. I love the solos of the tenor saxes: Lester Young and Hershel Evans. I could go on, but no, I never tire of it.
What is your favorite old radio show and what do you like most about it?
That said, writing for children is excruciatingly hard because every word counts so much. There can be no sloppiness, no flat bits, nothing insincere.
Was it an intentional decision to do the book in that kind of prose, or did it just start to come out that way when you were writing?
Post them now so that Roxane can get to them before we run out of time.
Most writers who are covering another subject, say, music or anything, the development of the highway system, don't write enough about civil rights. It's a story we will go on telling for decades and decades, as we figure out how much it influenced American life. Because swing music started as Negro (to use the term of the period) music and was adopted and adapted by whites, it naturally called on me to dive into the issue of civil rights. Which by the way was just really beginning in the late 1930s.
I don't know whether swing could have cropped up any time. I'd have to go off and think about that for a good while.
Out of all the historical personages in the book, who was the easiest to write for/about , and who was the most difficult?
If so, keep us posted because I'd love to read more of your work!
Thanks for joining us for the live chat today here on Gather, Roxane - I hope you had as much fun talking to us as we did talking to you!
Thanks to everyone who dropped in to say hi, or to ask a question!
Thanks for bringing it back to me.
Rose
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