Jazz and dancing on the outskirts of town

In a war-devastated Europe, people were searching for new hopes: the euphoria of the end of the conflict caused an explosion of desire to get out of the house and to vent long-repressed energy. After the hardships, there was an unstoppable need to dance and to indulge to the sound of a jukebox, partying in a way that would have been unthinkable in the past. Marco Innocenti, in L’Italia del 1945, writes: “People danced in homes, courtyards, squares, under garden pergolas. They danced till they were breathless. Hand-cranked phonographs blasted out the notes of boogie-woogie”.