When Michael Arenella brought his Dreamland Quarter from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Willow Lane Elementary School for a Friday afternoon program March 22, he brought more than just a musical presentation. Arenella brought a history lesson for the youngsters and an appreciation for music that in the 1920s and 1930s was labeled "dangerous" by many.

Their delivery, as well as their instruments, attire, and equipment are faithfully accurate to the era, and Arenella's musicians played their "hot and sweet" tunes in several variations, differentiating News Orleans Jazz, Dixieland and Tin Pan Alley.

Arenella transcribes by hand their entire repertoire from period recordings. He takes an antiquated template and infuses it with the immediacy of the present. Many of the youngsters took to almost unconscious swinging and swaying to the music that, for many, was as alien as rock 'n roll might seem to their grandparents.

A number of quests from Phoebe Home, invited by the school as a community outreach, also did their swinging and swaying, a sense of nostalgia for some who were there way back when. Willow Lane staffers served a pasta dinner arranged for that evening by the school's Outdoor Classroom Committee.