The big band sound will be celebrated as Wartburg College’s “America’s Music” discussion series continues with “Jazz: A Film By Ken Burns,” Thursday, Sept. 26.

Swing jazz, a groundbreaking genre in the 1930s, will be the focus of the session, 6:30-8:30 p.m. in McCaskey Lyceum in Saemann Student Center. Dr. Geoffrey Wilson, professor of music, will lead a discussion following the film. The session — the third of six in the series — is free and open to the public.

African-American artists like Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington developed swing jazz, using a “call and response” between the orchestra sections and leaders. Ellington’s hit, “It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing,” inspired white artist Benny Goodman, taking swing jazz into the mainstream. The comradeship among jazz artists ultimately led to the integration of African Americans into the music industry.

For more information about the series, a project of the Tribeca Film Institute in collaboration with the America Library Association, Tribeca Flashpoint and the Society for American Music, go to http://library.wartburg.edu/americasmusic.aspx. The Wartburg sessions were made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the ALA.