NEW YORK SWING DANCE SOCIETY REMEMBERS

Bob Crease and Helen Clarke

The Savoy Ballroom opened on March 12, 1926, on Lenox Avenue between 140th and 141st Streets, and quickly became a landmark in the development of swing music and dance. A place where musicians and dancers inspired one another, it was a hothouse of rhythm, which gave birth to that distinctively American art form, the Lindy Hop. The Savoy was Harlem's most elegant ballroom and internationally famous as a showcase for jazz.

On June 7, 1990, as part of Ballroom Dance Week, the New York Swing Dance Society sponsored a panel discussion entitled, "The Savoy Ballroom Remembered," at the Hudson Park Library and was photographed by Hazel Hankin. Participants included Savoy hostess Helen Clarke, vocalist Charles Linton, instrumentalists Panama Francis and Lawrence Lucie, dancers Frank Manning and Norma Miller, and Conrad Gale, a member of the family that established and owned the Savoy. Highlights of the discussion - moderated by Robert Crease of the New York Swing Dance Society - follow:

Crease: What did the Savoy look like?
Clarke:From the street you'd see a marquee; you'd walk under it and down a flight of stairs to the check- room. Then you'd come back up to the main lobby and ascend another staircase -- there was one on each side -- and the ballroom entrance was at the head of the stairs. Booths lined the walls, and there was beautiful carpeting and wicker lounge chairs with cushions. A one-room office was stuck in a cubby-hole at the 140th Street side. Next to it was a soda counter; after Prohibition, they sold beer, but never wine or hard drinks. Most of all, the Savoy was known for its beautiful dance floor, which spanned the entire block from 140th to 141st Streets.
Francis: Every day someone would clean the floor and get down on hands and knees to remove any chewing gum with a putty knife.
Clarke: There were two bandstands one for the house band and another for a visiting band. For Paul Whiteman they extended the bandstand to the middle of the dance floor to accommodate all his pieces.
Crease: One famous Savoy tradition was the battle of the bands. What were they like?
Francis: They were very competitive. You and I could be best of friends, and I'd come to you before hand and say, 'I've been working on something, and I'm going to lay it on you tonight.' And you'd say, 'Yeah' What is it?' And I'd say, 'Don't worry. You'll know when it comes up!' It was thrilling; I'd be trying to show you how good I am and you'd be trying to show me how good you were.
Lucie: Back in 1927, I was a teenager studying to be a jazz musician at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and I went to the Savoy for the first time. I'll never forget going up those stairs and hearing that rhythm and seeing those dancers; the battle that night was between Fess Williams and Lockwood Lewis. The whole floor was shaking. You could go to the Savoy - whether or not you were a musician and be thrilled.
Francis: The people who didn't know how to dance were entertained as much as the dancers. They'd stand in front of the stage and watch the band, while the dancers would he doing their thing on the other side.
Linton: My first time at the Savoy was 1933. It was a fantastic place, but above all it was a thrill to watch the Lindy Hoppers.
Francis: They were something else. They made you dance. One of the big problems of jazz today, and the reason you can't even give it away, is that a basic ingredient has been lost. The melodies are European, the rhythms African. And the rhythm has been taken out. I, the drummer, as boss of the rhythm section, because I've got the loudest instrument. And, the rhythm is a pulsation between the bass and the bass drum, which can' be overplayed. That's hard to do, and takes years and years of practice which drummers don't want to do any more. As a result, people can't relate to the music.
Lucie: But Chick Webb and the Savoy Sultans had established a Savoy beat. They'd always win a battle of the bands, because they knew what the Lindy Hoppers wanted, and everybody'd get out on the floor.
Francis: Chick Webb was my idol. As a kid down in Florida I used to hear him broadcast live from the Savoy a 4 o'clock on Sunday afternoons.
Manning: Everybody's talking about Chick Webb, but I'm a Basie man [Cheers]
Crease: Another famous Savoy tradition was the Saturday night Lindy, Hop contest. What was that like?
Manning: The Savoy Lindy Hop contest was instrumental in making the dance what it was. Panama was saying that two musicians could compete while being friendly so the dancer were also friendly -- until the Saturday night contest. Then you hit the floor swinging to beat each other out,
Crease: In one such contest, you did the first air step. You've said that air steps were the turning point in the development of the Lindy Hop. Why?
Manning: The turning point was both air steps and ensemble dancing. Before, the Lindy Hop was considered amateur dancing; we'd do it in contests at the Savoy and Apollo and maybe at hotel benefits, etc. We didn't consider ourselves professionals, and nobody else did, either. But with ensemble dancing and air steps, the Lindy became so exciting that everybody wanted to see it. We began going onstage, in nightclubs and theatres, and became professionals.
Crease: What was the weekly schedule like?
Francis: Monday was Ladies' Night. Tuesday was for the 400 Club. Thursday was 'KM Night -- 'kitchen mechanics' night' -- for the sleep-in maids; women packed the ballroom., and the guys followed them. Saturday was like salt and pepper, with as many white kids as black. Wednesdays and Fridays were for private functions like clubs, fraternities and sororities. We'd start with waltzes and tangos, and then about the second set somebody'd come to the band- stand and say, 'OK, enough of that now. Let's get serious!'
Crease: I see the other panelist, Dr. Gale, has arrived.

Charles Linton and Conrad Gale

Gale: [Applause as he walks to the stage] I was a physician, and the Savoy had nothing to do with medicine, so I actually had no connection with its operation except as part owner. The Roseland Ballroom manager had suggested to an uncle of mine who was in real estate the possibility of building a colored ballroom in Harlem. But suddenly he went broke, and then they approached my father who was then in the leather business. My father knew nothing about running ballrooms, and gave the job to my brother Moe, who was out of a job. But it was my mother who kept putting money into the Savoy to keep it going when times were rough.
Crease: I remember your saying the Savoy was in particularly bad straight at the time of the 1939-40 World's Fair, when the Savoy Pavilion lost money and faced serious competition from the Golden Gate Ballroom.
Gale: I was seldom at the ballroom. I do have one strong memory of going there once when the Savoy was offering free frankfurters. Do you remember that?
Miller: [Suspiciously] I don't remember no free frankfurters. [Laughter]
Manning: Me neither.
Gale: Well, I remember my mother saying, 'They're serving frankfurters and I'm afraid your father is not buying a good enough quality.' So she sent me to the Savoy to taste the frankfurters. That's my strongest memory of the Savoy. I don't belong up here at this point. [Steps down; returns after protests from other panelists]. Sometimes dancers came to me with medical problems and I would treat them. But the thing that impressed me most was how the regulars at the Savoy felt about themselves. The colored people who went there, I believe, got the first feeling of themselves as free and accepted ...
Other Panelists: Yeah, definitely.
Gale: ... and the Lindy Hop was an expression of the liberation of the black soul. [returns to audience]
Miller: I think you said that perfectly. [applause]
Manning: Dr. Gale said that the Savoy had nothing to do with medicine I would like to disagree. Going in the Savoy was a medicine.
Francis: That's the truth.
Manning: If I was feeling low, as soon as I'd walk in and see that floor bouncing and the people dancing and the musicians on stage playing I'd begin to feel great! It was the best medicine in the world.
Clarke: Amen!
Crease: One hallmark of the Savoy was the interaction between dancers and music. What about that?
Lucie: I think jazz music is spiritual and when we'd play, the dancers got a spiritual feeling, and their motion affected the musicians, and made them play better.

Frankie Manning, Norma Miller and Panama Francis

Francis: It all goes back to the rhythm. The rest of the music is secondary. I can go to the Rainbow Room and play the melody of a tune like Body and Soul, and every white person will get up and dance with the melody. [Hums a phrase] Then I can go uptown and start doing this -- [Slaps hands and stomps feet] -- and black people get up and dance. They don't need no melody. And the proof is, I went to church Sunday ...
Manning: [In mock disbelief] On Sunday?
Francis: [Nonplussed] ... on Sunday, and they were singing Rock of Ages. If Rock of ages was sung downtown, it would be sung like this: [Sings the melody sweetly] "Rock of Ages, Care for me ...... Sunday you know how they sang? [Sings while rhythmically stomping feet and clapping hands] [Clap] Rock of [Clap] Ages, [C lap] ...
Clarke: Well tell me, Panama, why was the biggest crowd the Savoy ever drew for Guy Lombardo?
Francis: Guy Lombardo had a helluva beat! [Begins to hum Lombardo's Blue,Room, clapping] It didn't swing, but it had rhythm. I love Guy Lombardo -- he had a great band.
Crease: What did the hostesses do?
Clarke: When I started there were about 50 girls. To be hired, Mr. Buchanan would check your background, family, schooling, everything. He kept an eagle eye on you, because he knew that one or two girls who created a scandal could have the place closed. We had rules and regulations. There was a ticket seller in a booth when you entered; 25 cents a dance; $I.00 for four tickets. One problem was that bands sometimes played numbers that were too long. I remember once Coleman Hawkins played Body and Soul with dozens of choruses; we could have killed him!
Miller: If you had dark skin you couldn't play the Cotton Club, for instance. But that didn't matter at the Savoy, where the hostesses were really colored.
Crease: What were some of the rules?
Clarke: You had to come on time. Buchanan would stand by the door; if YOU were five minutes late you'd be sent home. No fraternizing with musicians. No leaving the place with anyone. And a wardrobe mistress always checked our dresses to see if they looked alright.
Crease: Well take a few questions.
Q: Did the hostesses have to make the clothes themselves?
Clarke: Oh no. We wore beautiful evening clothes. We were making money, so we could buy anything.
Q: Why didn't the men dance with other women instead of the hostesses?
Clarke: The men felt safe and secure and not embarrassed with us.
Q: Were there male versions of the hostesses for women?
Manning: No, they didn't need them. As you know, wherever women go and dance, and fellas know it, the fellas follow. The hostesses were there for people who were shy and unsure about dancing. When I first went the Savoy, I took someone, because I felt that I would not be able to dance with the people there.
Q: How was it decided who won the battles of the bands?
Manning: The battles were just draws to get people to come to the ballroom. At the end, nobody said 'OK you've won.' It was simply a matter of one band playing their numbers and the other band playing their best numbers, and a friendly competition with no prizes. Ever body won.
Miller: My biggest night at the Savoy, was at the Goodman vs. Webb battle [on May 11, 1937]. John Hammond said Goodman played the best, but I thought Webb won.
Crease: People would make informal judgements; Downbeat, for instance, reviewing the event said that Webb won by a close margin.
Clarke: Chick didn't think it was close. His bandstand was right in front of our booth, and that night when he came down and passed by I heard him say, 'I cut him a new ass hole, didn't I?'
Q: Could you compare the quality of the dancing at the Savoy to what you see at the Cat Club? [Boos and jeers from audience at perceived unfairness of remark].
Manning: Let me say this. At the Savoy we had swing dancing every single night except Wednesdays and Fridays, so we got to be very good. You've only got the Cat Club once a week. And the people who come there try their best and do what they can. But since I've been going, they are much improved.
Miller: Also, people come to the Club to enjoy dancing, not to be in competitions. It's not whether they do the best or not that counts. The point is it's because of you at the Cat Club that the Lindy is alive today. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have even thought of Lindy Hopping again. I think it's the greatest thing in the world that you have done. [General applause]
Manning: In the 1930s, people could not only come to the Savoy every night, but were also raised to that music. When they walked out, they could hear the same music in the streets. Today, once you walk out of the Cat Club, what you hear is something entirely different.
Q: Where did everybody go when the ballroom closed?
Miller: We all went home to bed. [Laughter] The big bands got prohibitively expensive, and broke down into small groups. Music began to be for listening, and was done in places too small for dancing. Ballrooms shut down. So we had a generation that completely neglected dancing.
Francis: The next time you go to the Village Vanguard, look up near the bandstand and you'll see a dance floor. People used to dance to jazz even before it became swing. You danced to jazz. [Vigorous applause]
Crease: Frankie, you once said that those seven years that you were a member of the Lindy Hoppers were like a lifetime. Why?
Manning: Between 1935 and 1942, it seemed like something was always happening to me. I started dancing, went overseas several times, and got to meet the royalty -- people like Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. I was always coming and going someplace to perform. But all that time the Savoy was home.
Linton: [As panelists rise to leave, he begins to sing Song of Songs]
"Gone are the golden dreams with summer roses,
And all our dearest vows were made but to be broken.
Song of songs, Song of memories,
And broken melodies of love and life,
Never more to be
Can that melody
Fill my heart with the joy it once knew."

(Text reproduced by kind permission of Bob Crease, and photos reproduced by permission of Hazel Hankins. from FOOTNOTES - the former NYSDS newsletter.)