The dance form of jazz, popular during the 1920s and early 1930s (up until 1934), was characterized by a sweet and romantic melody and emphasized the use of strings. Orchestras tended to stick to the melody as it was written and vocals would be sung sweetly (often in a tenor voice) and in tune with the melody. Swing Music differed from what had previously been popular in a number of ways. The arrangements are simpler, more emphasis was placed on horn/wind type instruments and, most importantly, throughout the 1930s there was a complete lack of a string section. Moreover, there was an overriding tendency to improvise the melody. The music had more of an edge to it and vocals were sung in an improvised manner.

Swing, like several other styles of 20th-century popular music, has its origins in African rhythms. Traditional West African music brought to the USA and elsewhere by enslaved Africans hybridized with western music to eventually create a distinct style. The first recordings labeled race records date from the 1920s, and come from both the United States and the United Kingdom. They are characterized by an improvised style, a smaller number of musicians, a lack of strings and a distinctive lively style which is harder to define, now known as swing rhythm. Since these recordings were mainly produced by minorities with limited resources, the recordings were often made with sub-standard equipment such as the acoustic recording method. Many of these records are extremely rare, as they did not sell well with mainstream audiences. Although swing evolved out of the lively jazz experimentation that began in New Orleans and that developed further (and in varying forms) in Kansas City and New York City, what is now called swing diverged from other jazz music in ways that distinguished it as a form in its own right.

The styles of jazz that were popular from the late teens through the late 20s were usually played with rhythms with a two beat feel, and often attempted to reproduce the style of contrapuntal improvisation developed by the first generation of jazz musicians in New Orleans. In the late 20s, however, larger ensembles using written arrangements became the norm, and a subtle stylistic shift took place in the rhythm, which developed a four beat feel with a smoothly syncopated style of playing the melody, while the rhythm section supported it with a steady four to the bar. The overall effect is a more sophisticated sound than the styles of the twenties, but with an exciting feel of its own that really makes you want to dance. Most jazz bands adopted this style by the early thirties, but sweet bands remained the most popular for white dancers until Benny Goodman's famous appearance at the Palomar Ballroom in august 1935 when the audience there made it apparent that young white dancers favored the hot rhythms of his more daring swing arrangements. This event has loomed large in jazz history and is usually cited as the "Birth of Swing Era". Hot Swing and Boogie Woogie remained the dominant form of american popular music for the next ten years.

With the wider acceptance of swing music around 1935, larger mainstream bands began to embrace this style of music. Large orchestras had to reorganize themselves in order to achieve the new sound. These bands dropped their string instruments, which were now felt to hamper the improvised style necessary for swing music. This necessitated a slightly more detailed and organized type of composition and notation than was then the norm. Band leaders put more energy into developing arrangements, perhaps reducing the chaos that might result from as many as 12 or 16 musicians spontaneously improvising. But the best swing bands at the height of the era explored the full gamut of possibilities from spontaneous ensemble playing to highly orchestrated music in the vein of European art music.

A typical song played in swing style would feature a strong, anchoring rhythm section in support of more loosely tied wind, brass, and later, in the 1940s, string and/or vocal sections. The level of improvisation that the audience might expect at any one time varied depending on the arrangement, the band, the song, and the band-leader. The most common style consisted of having a soloist take center stage, and improvise a solo within the framework of her or his bandmates playing support. As a song progressed, multiple soloists might be expected to take over and individually improvise their own part; however, it wasnÕt unusual to have two or three band members improvising at any one time.

Swing jazz began to be embraced by the public around 1935. Prior to that, it had had limited acceptance, mostly among African American audiences. Radio remotes increased interest in the music, and it grew in popularity throughout the States. As with many new popular musical styles, it met with some resistance from the public because of its improvisation, fast erratic tempos, lack of strings, occasionally risquŽ lyrics and other cultural associations, such as the sometimes frenetic swing dancing that accompanied performances. Audiences who had become used to the romantic arrangements (and what was perceived as classier and more refined music), were taken aback by the often erratic and edginess of swing music.

Harsher conflicts arose when Swing spread to other countries; for example, in Germany it was forbidden by the Nazi regime on the basis of its connection to African and Jewish musicians (see Swing Kids). And, while jazz music was initially embraced during the early years of the Soviet Union, it was soon forbidden as a result of being deemed politically unacceptable.

In the U.S., by the late 1930s and early 1940s, swing had become the most popular musical style and remained so for several years, until it was supplanted in the late 1940s by the pop standards sung by the crooners who grew out of the Big Band tradition that swing began. Bandleaders such as the Dorsey Brothers often helped launch the careers of vocalists who went on to popularity as solo artists, such as Frank Sinatra.

Swing music began to decline in popularity during World War II because of several factors. Most importantly it became difficult to staff a "big band" because many musicians were overseas fighting in the war. Also, the cost of touring with a large ensemble became prohibitive because of wartime economics. These two factors made smaller 3 to 5 piece combos more profitable and manageable. A third reason is the recording bans of 1942 and 1948 because of musicians' union strikes. In 1948, there were no records legally made at all, although independent labels continued to bootleg records in small numbers. When the ban was over in January 1949, swing had evolved into new styles such as jump blues and bebop.

Many of the crooners who came to the fore after the swing era had their origins in swing bands. An example is Bing Crosby. Frank Sinatra used the swing-band approach to great effect in almost all of his recordings and kept this style of music popular even after the rock 'n' roll era.

In country music, artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican and Bob Wills introduced many elements of swing along with blues to create a genre called western swing. Like Sinatra did, Moon Mullican went solo from the Cliff Bruner band, had a successful solo career that included many songs that maintained a swing structure. Artists like Willie Nelson and Jerry Lee Lewis have kept the swing elements of country music present into the rock 'n' roll era.

Nat King Cole followed Sinatra into the pop music world bringing with him a similar combination of swing bands and ballads. Like Moon Mullican, he was important in bringing piano to the fore of popular music.

Rock 'n' roll era hitmakers like Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley also found time to include many swing-era standards into their repertoire. Presley's hit "Are you lonesome tonight" is an old swing standard and Lewis' "To make love sweeter for you" is a new song but in the old style.

Among the critically acclaimed band leaders of the 1930s and 1940s whose performances included elements of both "Sweet Band" music and traditional swing music was Shep Fields.

The Swing Revival was a 1990s and early 2000s-era period of renewed popular interest in swing and jump blues music from the 1930s and 1940s as exemplified by Louis Prima. Influential swing revival groups included Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and The Brian Setzer Orchestra.

Most swing revival bands were based around a rock and roll rhythm section of electric guitar, double bass, and drum kit, with a three or four instrument horn section, which usually consisted of trumpet, saxophone, and trombone. One of the revival bands, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, used a much larger horn section, with thirteen wind instruments, which more closely matched the size of the groups during the swing era in the 1930s.

Much of the swing revival drew on the style popularized by Louis Prima called jump blues. This use of the term "swing" is based more on orchestration and dance than strictly on musical style. The swing music in the 1930s and 1940s was part of the Big Band era, led by Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman. However, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a newer style, known at the time as jump blues, became popular in African-American nightclubs as played by such musicians as Cab Calloway, Big Joe Turner, Lowell Fulson, Louis Jordan, and Louis Prima.

Swing revival bands focused on the highly rehearsed and arranged sweet style rather than the hot style, which was more improvisational, and which focused on instrumentalist virtuosity.

Lindy Hop was revived in the 1980s by dancers in New York City, California, Stockholm, and the United Kingdom. Each group independently searched for original Lindy Hop dancers and, for those who lived outside of New York City, traveled to New York City to work with them. Al Minns, Pepsi Bethel, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller came out of retirement and toured the world teaching Lindy Hop, later to be joined by dancers such as George and Sugar Sullivan.

The 1990s saw the rise of popular neo-jazz bands such as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Cherry Poppin' Daddies in the swing revival, and many other artists moving on from ska and punk rock based music to a reworking of swinging jazz musical themes and standard songs. Almost overnight, neo-swing bands and clubs popped up in most large cities in the United States, with the music's popularity growing internationally, with bands such as The Louisville Sluggers in Australia and many others. Neo-swing music was a deviation from jazz and swing and instead was based on rock, rockabilly, jump blues and ska rhythms played with blazing horns and over-the-top presentation.

Film such as Swing Kids (1993) and Swingers (1996) capitalized on the popularity of neo-swing, with the former discussing youth resistance to the Nazi party in Germany through jazz and Lindy Hop, and the latter becoming a cult-hit story of love and misadventure in Los Angeles. The popularity of films such as Swingers (which featured the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and landmark Lindy Hop venue The Derby) prompted the American Gap commercial "Khaki Swing" in 1996 exploited the popularity of neo swing music with a sequence of swing dancing and the song "Jump Jive and Wail". Many swing dancers who came to Lindy Hop in the 1990s cite these films, advertisements and bands as key factors inspiring them to take up lindy hop. Neo-swing dancers often dressed up with fancy zoot suits and many accessories. The dance - in order to be made simpler and easy to sell - was mainly taught as a six-count form based on East Coast Swing.

Revivalist Lindy Hoppers such as The Rhythm Hot Shots in Sweden and Sylvia Sykes in the United States were able to offer classes in Lindy Hop and other swing dances to interested young people in the late 1980s and 1990s.

As the fad died towards to end of the 1990s, the numbers of dancers dwindled and Lindy Hop was taught again as a jazz dance, and dancers had turned back to jazz music and continued to develop their dance. The neo-swing era, with all its problems, had one important contribution to Lindy Hop - popularizing the dance revivalists were researching and learning, and bringing it once again to the general public and creating a popular basis that has been a firm foundation for the continuation of the art form into the 21st century.