Swinging in Paradise: The Story of Jazz in Montreal

For almost half a century, more jazz was made in Montreal than anywhere else in Canada. This book is both a portrait of that creative era and an attempt to explain its birth, vitality and demise. Musicians migrated to Montreal from all over the continent, drawn by the city’s wide open night life and the abundance of work it provided. It is also the story of Montreal after dark, and the lives, the music and the concerns of the musicians who made the city swing, including Myron Sutton, Willy Girard, Oscar Peterson, Johnny Holmes, Maynard Ferguson, Louis Metcalf and Rene Thomas.