Part 2, Sound and the Mainstream, Section 2 Summary and Analysis

"The Golden Age, Time Past" (published 1959). This essay, among the most poetically written of all the essays in Shadow and Act, evokes the experience of being at, and in the case of the jazzmen who played there, creating music at Minton's Playhouse in New York. The author describes Minton's as a home for musicians from all over America who came to New York to develop themselves and their careers, commenting that the influence of Minton's and the artists who played there has been mostly forgotten, but that the legacy of the music invented there lives on. He lists several important musicians who played there, defined themselves and their music there, and defined jazz culture there - Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Lena Horne. He...