Enjoy Swing Music at the Portsmouth Library on Monday

Seventy years ago, mass broadcast music was just beginning to take over the country. For the first time, nearly every family had a radio in the home. Meanwhile, a global war was being waged that would change the course of history. We looked to music then, as now, for relief, morale, and connection.

Join us in September as presenter Kevin Comtois showcases American popular music from the World War II Era. Beginning with the Tin Pan Alley, Minstrel and Jazz music so popular in the 1920s and 30s, he’ll look at how the subject matter, style and purpose of American music changed with the eruption of war in Europe and Asia and the impact here at home. Through the lens of music, we can see the issues of race, gender, economics and religion that were just beginning to explode into the American consciousness.

At 6:30 p.m. on Monday Sept. 29, in the Portsmouth Public Library Levenson Room

Kevin Comtois is an educator, musician, and author of Troubadours & Troublemakers: The Evolution of American Protest Music. Find out more at kevincomtois.com.