The time: 1936-1938. The mood: Hopeful. It wasn't wartime, not yet. The music: The incomparable Count Basie and Benny Goodman, among others. The setting: Living rooms across America and, most of all, New York City."Dream Lucky" covers politics, race, religion, arts, and sports, but the central focus is the period's soundtrack--specifically big band jazz--and the big-hearted piano player William "Count" Basie. His ascent is the narrative thread of the book--how he made it and what made his music different from the rest. But many other stories weave in and out: Amelia Earhart pursues her dream of flying "around the world at its waistline.

" Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., stages a boycott on 125th Street. And Mae West shocks radio listeners as a naked Eve tempting the snake.Critic Nat Hentoff praises the "precise originality" with which Roxane Orgill writes about music. In "Dream Lucky," she magically lets readers hear the past.