Showtime at the Apollo /

With judicuous use of spirited interview material, Fox offers a clear, lively, unpretentious history of Harlem's Apollo Theatre--which, from the Thirties to the Sixties, led the way (as ""a legitimizer"" rather than a ""fomenter"") in the presentation of swing, bebop, rhythm and blues, modern jazz, gospel, soul, funk, comedy, and dance trends. After first sketching in the pre-Thirties state of N.Y.'s black entertainment, Fox focuses in on Apollo--a burlesque house that reopened with a jazz variety-bill (and a new name) in 1934, and was soon taken over by ambitious Harlem showbiz entrepreneur Frank Schiffman. (Schiffman--ruthless, paternal, crass, intuitive--comes across vividly in comments from both friends and enemies.) The vaudeville-variety format advanced tap-dancing, swing, and lowdown comedy (Pigmeat Markham, Moms Mabley) in the Thirties. In the Forties, bebop was encouraged, as was the ballad-singing of Billie Holliday and those who followed--though Lionel Hampton and Louis Jourdan continued the band tradition, while dancers (except all-'round entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr.) faded. The Fifties brought seminal rhythm-and-blues groups, topical comedy, the involvement of disc jockey--and, most influentially, the coming-together of gospel and soul performers that led to the black music of the Sixties. But, while the Apollo peaked in that decade (with James Brown, the Motown revues, etc.), ""the general acceptance of black culture into American popular culture was. . .the beginning of the end of the Apollo,"" exacerbated by social pressures on the theater's white owners. Complete with 150 photos, a chapter on the Apollo's legendary Amateur Nights, and evocations of backstage/onstage atmosphere: a pleasant, solid, balanced chronicle--without great depth but also without the pretensions (or the preachiness) of some other recent Harlem-culture studies. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.