Let’s Dance: A Celebration of Ontario’s Dance Halls and Summer Dance Pavilions is a nostalgic musical journey, recapturing the unforgettable music of youth and lasting friendships, the days when the live mellow sounds of Big Bands wafted through the air – Louis Armstrong, the Dorsey Brothers, Bert Niosi, Art Hallman, Johnny Downs, Mart Kenney, Bobby Kinsman, Ronnie Hawkins … Throughout the 1920s to the ’60s, numerous legendary entertainers drew thousands of people to such memorable venues as the Brant Inn in Burlington, Dunn’s Pavilion in Bala, the Stork Club at Port Stanley, to the Club Commodore in Belleville and the Top Hat Pavilion in North Bay – and the hundreds of other popular dance venues right across Ontario. From the days of jitney dancing through the introduction of jazz and the Big Bands era to the sounds of some of Ontario’s best rock groups, people of all ages came to dance and some to find romance on soft summer nights.

Peter Young is a freelance writer and runs his own communications company. For many years he played Hammond B-3 organ with a number of Toronto-based rock bands and travelled extensively throughout much of Southern Ontario, performing in many of the province's popular dance pavilions.

Peter Young's profile page

If you love music, dancing and Big Band history ... be sure to put this book on your must buy list.

Big Band World

A job well done! ... a part of the lives of many families.

Mart Kenney

Here it is, everyone, and take my word for it, it's a humdinger! Peter Young's Let's Dance is an extremely well-written, well-researched and profusely illustrated sweep across a half century of Ontario's long-ago musical scene when dance halls and pavilions swayed and glittered with their unforgettable melodies, and the lives of people of all ages were touched by romance, dreams, and lost summer nights.

Elwy Yost