Swing ballrooms: The Savoy, The Palomar & The Harvest Moon Ball

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Extracts from the page Savoy Ballroom at Wikipedia:

The Savoy Ballroom was a medium sized ballroom for music and public dancing located at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in Harlem, New York City ^[1] . It was in operation from March 12, 1926 to July 10, 1958.^[2] It was owned by white entrepreneurs Jay Faggen and a reputed Jewish gangster, Moe Gale, who some say was a front for Al Capone. It was managed by African-American real estate business man Charles Buchanon.

The Savoy was modeled after Faggen’s downtown venue, Roseland Ballroom. The Savoy’s ballroom, which was 10,000 square feet in size, was on the second floor and a block long. It could hold up to 4,000 people. The interior was painted pink and the walls were mirrored. In 1926, the Savoy contained a spacious lobby framing a huge, cut-glass chandelier and marble staircase.

The ballroom had a double bandstand that held one large and one medium sized band running against its east wall. Music was continuous as the alternative band was always in position and ready to pick up the beat when the previous one had completed its set. The bouncers wore tuxedos and made $100/night The floor had to be replaced every 3 years due to its constant use.

The Savoy was unique in having the constant presence of a skilled elite of the best Lindy Hoppers, known as “Savoy Lindy Hoppers”. Occasionally, groups of dancers such Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers turned professional and performed in Broadway and Hollywood productions.^[4]

“Stompin’ at the Savoy”, a 1934 Big Band classic song and jazz standard, was named after the ballroom.

(above) Famous dancer, dance instructor and choreographer Frankie Manning with a partner

(above) Dancers engaged in a “Big Apple” Lindy Hop routine, with Manning at center. Photo from a memorial tribute to Frankie Manning at Lindyhopping.com (The Southern California Lindy Society website).

(below) Whitey’s Hopping Maniacs (“Hopper” in the inscription), a group of Frankie Manning’s top dancers from Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, led by Manning at far left. The dancers are identified at one site as (left to right) Frankie Manning, Naomi Waller, Jerome Williams, Lucille Middleton, Al Minns, and Norma Miller. On the page Frankie’s Performance Troupes the site Swing Patrol says, “In late 1936 Whitey’s top dancers worked a 6 month gig at the Cotton Club under the name of “Whitey’s Hopping Maniacs” officially making the big time.” [link fixed 10/13/2020]

(above) Frankie Manning with partners Naomi Waller (left) and Freida Washington (right)

(above) One of Manning’s elite groups of dancers from Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers in a signed, undated photo

(below) Frankie Manning, center, with the Harlem Congaroos performing in the 1941 film Hellzapoppin’

(below) Film footage from The Harvest Moon Ball finals at Madison Square Gardens

From the Wikipedia article on The Palomar Ballroom, adapted:

The Palomar Ballroom, built in 1925, was a famous ballroom in Los Angeles, California. Originally named the El Patio Ballroom, it was located on Vermont Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Street. The Palomar was advertised as “the largest and most famous dance hall on the West Coast.”

The building featured a large mezzanine, a balcony and a seventy-five hundred square foot patio. The dance floor could accommodate four thousand couples. Admission was 40 cents for gentlemen and 25 cents for ladies. Opening night was attended by 20,000, including many of Hollywood’s silent screen stars. Klieg lights illuminated minaret structures on the roof.^[2]

The dance hall was renamed Rainbow Gardens by real estate developer Raymond Lewis, who purchased the property, added an indoor miniature golf course and changed the name to the Palomar Ballroom. It soon became a prime venue for the well-known bands that were rapidly gaining popularity.

The Palomar was destroyed by a fire in late 1939.^[1]

Benny Goodman’s first engagement at the Palomar on August 21, 1935 is often cited as the beginning of the Swing era.

Here’s one for those who pine for the good old days of factual, unbiased, and insightful reporting.

A March of Time “newsreel” from 19 February 1937 on the phenomenon of Swing. The report takes as a premise a quite skeptical view of Swing music and of jazz, especially noting the cheapening of the terms “jazz” and “swing” by overuse and improper application. In it’s conclusion it finds that Swing is nothing but the old jazz originating in New Orleans 20 years earlier. But they haven’t put forth anything in the previous 6 and a half minutes to support such a statement. Some of the major early Swing bands and venues are mentioned and pictured in the short, but a reunion of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band — who return to reclaim their crown from the Swing upstarts — is the feature story. A short news film, or a topical short such as this, would be shown prior to a feature at cinemas.

According to this report, jazz, which had thrived for awhile after The Original Dixieland Band were “discovered” in 1916 playing at a café in New Orleans and brought to New York, had eventually been sunk by the shoddy practices of bands adding “Swing” to the title of every other “ordinary song,” and “jazz” to a band’s name whether or not it was merited. This had resulted in jazz being “synonymous with cheap music.”

But the “scholarly thesis” of a famous French music critic, Hugues Panassié, with some help from a group of jazz enthusiast Oxford scholars out to determine whether the music was originally Indian(?!) or African, rescues jazz, anointing it, and leaving it with the cachet of true art.

The ominous music that broods just prior to the mentioning of Panassie’s thesis and the Parisian push suggests just where the creators of the newsreel would like to lay a large portion of the blame for the present (1937) Swing epidemic.