A set of 1930s-40s live radio swing from ‘The Home of Happy Feet’, the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York City is the feature on this week’s Phantom Dancer.

Every Tuesday, authentic jazz deco singer and actor, Greg Poppleton, brings you The Phantom Dancer.

The Phantom Dancer is your non-stop mixtape of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio, recorded live-to-air at 107.3 2SER Sydney, Tuesdays 12:04 – 2pm.

It’s re-broadcast on 22 radio stations of the Community Radio Network and online.

You can hear this week’s Phantom Dancer immediately after the 31 July broadcast online at 2ser.com. That’s the place where you’ll also find lots of past Phantom Dancer swing jazz mix tapes.

THIS WEEK’S PHANTOM DANCER MIX

– has a set Charlie Barnet from live 1957-59 radio, a set of jazz from the humorous 1940-41 ‘Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street’ radio series, a set of 1935 Claude Hopkins Orchestra radio transcriptions and the Savoy Ballroom feature. See the play list below….

SAVOY BALLROOM

‘The Home of Happy Feet’ was described by poet Langston Hughes in his ‘Juke Box Love Song’ as the ‘Heartbeat of Harlem’ – Harlem being the centre of the African-America community in New York City.

On this week’s Phantom Dancer, the 1938 CBS broadcast of ‘This is New York’, Fats Waller names it as the Harlem go-to place ‘where everyone’s hip to the jive’. He then launches into the 1934 song that has since become a jazz standard, ‘Stomping at the Savoy’.

Being in Harlem, and as the ‘soul of the neighbourhood’, the dance hall, billed at its opening as the ‘World’s Finest Ballroom’, had a largely black clientele and band roster. However, the club had a no-discrimination policy, the important thing was that patrons knew how to dance and could swing.

10,000 SQUARE FEET

The ballroom at the Savoy, on the second floor of the building accessed by a marble staircase, was 10,000 square feet in area and could hold 4,000 people.

The ballroom walls were painted pink and lined with mirrors. Coloured lights shone on the sprung dance floor. The floor was replaced every three years because of the amount of dancing that took place.

On opening night, 20 March 1926, the New York Age reported, “Savoy Turns 2,000 Away On Opening Night – Crowds Pack Ball Room All Week”.

LINDY HOPPERS

Herbert White was a bouncer turned floor manager at the Savoy in the early 1930s. He kept an eye out for the best dancers to form his own dance troupe. This made the Savoy unique in that it came to house the best Lindy Hoppers.

Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, as the cohort came to be known, turned professional in 1935 appearing on Broadway and in Hollywood including the 1937 Marx Brothers’ movie, ‘A Day at the Races’.

“The Savoy held a yearly dancing festival called the Harvest Moon Ball featuring lindy dancers. The first Ball was held in 1935, and the contestants introduced the Lindy Hop to Europe the next year.” (wiki)

As well as The Lindy Hop, other dances born in the Savoy dance hot house were The Flying Charleston, Jive, Snakehips, Rhumboogie, and variations of the Shimmy and Mambo.

‘The Evolution of Negro Dance’ was the Savoy’s contribution to the 1939 New York World Fair.

BANDS

The Savoy had a double bandstand so the music could be continuous for dancers with two bands playing alternatively each night. This also allowed the famous Savoy swing band cutting contests of the late 1930s.

Swing bands synonymous with the Savoy include the orchestras of Chick Webb, Erskine Hawkins, Lucky Millinder, Buddy Johnson and Cootie Williams who you’ll hear with Charlie Parker on this week’s Phantom Dancer mix.

The NYPD and Army shut the Savoy down in April 1943 on vice charges, despite the place having been run by gangsters since its 1926 opening. The ridiculous closure was reversed by mid-October that year.

TORN DOWN

The Savoy continued to operate until October 1958. Despite a big campaign to save it, the building was demolished for a housing complex.

“On 26 May 2002, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, surviving members of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, unveiled a commemorative plaque for the Savoy Ballroom.” (wiki)

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Dancing at the Savoy c 1950s

31 JULY PLAY LIST