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Savoy Ballroom

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The Savoy Ballroom located in Harlem, New York City, was a medium sized ballroom for music and public dancing that was in operation from 1926 to 1958. It was located between 140th and 141st Streets on Lenox Avenue.

The Savoy was a popular dance venue from the late 1920s to the 1950s and many dances such as Lindy Hop became famous here. It was known downtown as the "Home of Happy Feet" but uptown, in Harlem, as "the Track". Unlike the 'whites only' policy of the Cotton Club, the Savoy Ballroom was integrated where white and black Americans danced together.

Chick Webb was the leader of the best known Savoy house band during the mid-1930s. A teenage Ella Fitzgerald, fresh from a talent show win at the Apollo Theater in 1934, became its vocalist.

The Savoy regularly staged "Battle of the Bands" promotions that usually occurred between a house and a guest band, although not necessarily. Sometimes the bands would trade numbers at the change-over point between sets. Invariably packed when these events took place, there was little room to dance, and the crowd would vote as to who was their favorite band, band leader, vocalist etc.

Two of the most famous "battles" happened when the Benny Goodman Orchestra challenged Chick Webb in 1937 and in 1938 when the Count Basie Band did the same evening it performed with Goodman at his famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert. The general assessment was that they both lost, to Chick Webb.

The ballroom was on the second floor and a block long. It 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 ready in position ready to pick up the beat, when the previous one had completed its set. The Savoy was unique in having the constant presence of a skilled elite of the best Lindy Hoppers. Usually known as "Savoy Lindy Hoppers" occasionally they turned professional, such as Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and performed in Broadway and Hollywood productions.

"Stompin' at the Savoy", a 1934 Big Band classic song and jazz standard, was named after the ballroom. Although its credits say its music was written by Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, and Edgar Sampson, and the lyrics by Andy Razaf, in reality the music was written and arranged for Chick Webb's band by Sampson, who was the band's alto saxophonist. It was recorded as an instrumental by both Webb and Benny Goodman, whose recording was the bigger hit. Lyrics were added by Andy Razaf, who wrote the lyrics to many popular songs. Goodman and Webb got their names added to the song when their bands recorded it.

(Non–writers getting songwriting credit for pop songs has a long tradition. Johnny Mercer, writing in his unpublished autobiography about beginning songwriters in New York when he started in 1930, says

Little did they (the prospective songwriters) dream of the . . . paylola that those sweeter–than–light vaudeville stars got; or of the cut–ins, the kickback of the music business where a big entertainer got his or her name on a song as co–writer and—forever thereafter—got a share of the royalties "either now in existence or yet to be invented." The lawyers had every contingency covered, then as now.

For years, Duke Ellington's agent, Irving Miles, was listed as a co–writer of Ellington's music, although he never wrote a note. And there are many other examples.)

On 26 May 2002, a commemorative plaque for the Savoy Ballroom was revealed on Lenox Ave between 140th and 141st Streets. The plaque was unveiled by Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, surviving members of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.

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Last updated on Friday February 29, 2008 at 16:19:42 PST (GMT -0800)
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