The Savoy Ballroom is a large ballroom for music and public dance located at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140 and 141st Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Lenox Avenue is the main road through the Upper Harlem. Poet Langston Hughes called it Heartbeat of Harlem at Juke Box Love Song, and he arranged his work "Lenox Avenue: Midnight" on the legendary street. Savoy is one of Harlem's many entertainment venues along Lenox, but it is one of the so-called "Best Ballrooms in the World". It operated from March 12, 1926, until July 10, 1958, and as Barbara Englebrecht writes in her article "Swinging at the Savoy", it is "the building, geographical place, ballroom, and" soul "of an environment." Opened and owned by white entrepreneur Jay Faggen and Jewish businessman Moe Gale. It is managed by African-American business man and civilian leader Charles Buchanan. Buchanan, born in the West Indies of England, attempted to run a "lavish ballroom to accommodate thousands of people who wanted to dance in a tasteful sense of refinement, rather than in the small stuffy rooms and smelly and smoking nightclubs. "
Video Savoy Ballroom
Histori
Savoy is modeled after Faggen downtown, Roseland Ballroom. Roseland is a magnificent and most white swing dance club. With the increasing popularity of Swing and Harlem being a connected Black community, The Savoy opened at just the right time, giving talented and passionate Black Dancers, an equally beautiful place. The Savoy Ballroom, measuring 10,000 square feet, is on the second floor and one long block. It can accommodate up to 4,000 people. The interior is painted pink and the walls are mirrored. The colored lights danced on the wooden floor laid out. In 1926, the Savoy had a large lobby framing large glass chandeliers and marble staircases. Leon James is quoted in Jazz Dance as saying "My first impression is that I have stepped into another world.I've been to another ballroom, but this is different - much bigger, more glamorous, real class..."
Savoy is very popular from the beginning. The main title of the New York Age March 20, 1926, reads "Savoy Transfers 2,000 Guests On Opening Night - Multiple People Packing a Soccer Room All Week". The dance room does not get dark one night a week.
The Savoy is unique in having a constant presence of the best skilled elite Lindy Hoppers, known as "Savoy Lindy Hoppers". Sometimes, dance groups like Whitey Lindy Hoppers turned professional and performed in Broadway and Hollywood productions. Whitey turned into a fairly successful agent, and in 1937, the Marx Brothers movie A Day at the Races showed the group. Herbert White is a bouncer in Savoy who made floor manager in his early 30s. She is sometimes known as the Mac, but with her ambition to foster dancers in the ballroom to form her own group, she becomes better known as Whitey for white hair in the center of her head. He's looking for dancers who are "young, stylish, and, most importantly, they must have a knock, they have to swing". Savoy holds an annual dancing festival called Harvest Moon Ball featuring lindy dancers. The first ball was held in 1935, and the contestants introduced Lindy Hop to Europe the following year.
Unlike many ballrooms like the Cotton Club, Savoy always has a policy of no discrimination. Generally, clients are 85% black and 15% white, though sometimes there is a 50/50 division. Lindy hop legend, Frankie Manning, notes that customers are only judged on their dancing skills and not on their skin color: "One night someone came and said," Hey, Clark Gable has just walked home. "Someone else said, 'Oh, yes, can he dance?' All they want to know when you come to Savoy is, do you dance? ". The Virtuosic dancers, however, override others from the northeast corner of the dance floor, now referred to as the "Cat Corner", although the term is not. It is part of the floor where the professional Lindy dancers are in power on the side of the street and then referred to as "corner". Only Whitey Lindy Hoppers can dance and work there routinely. Competition is huge. "Angle" and every serious hopper waiting for the "night show". Other dancers will create a horseshoe around the band and "only the biggest Lindy-hopper will stay on the floor, to try to get rid of each other". On 140th street is the opposite, a popular mellow corner with dancing pair, the skilled Tango Dancers known as The Sheik often visit this corner.
Many dances such as Lindy Hop (named after Charles Lindbergh and dating from 1927) developed and became famous there. The city is known as the "Happy House of the Feet" but in the center of town, in Harlem, as the "Path" because the floor is long and thin. Savoy gets the nickname "Happy Foot House" from Lana Turner who says about the dancers, "What happy feet these guys have." The Lindy Hop is also known as The Jitterbug and was born of "the fusion of excitement and the 'hot' interaction of music and dance". Other dances contained in the Savoy are The Flying Charleston, Jive, Snakehips, Rhumboogie, and variations of Shimmy, Mambo, and more.
It is estimated that the ballroom generates $ 250,000 in annual profits in its peak years from the late 1920s to the 1940s. Each year, the ballroom is visited by nearly 700,000 people. The normal entrance fee is 30 to 85 cents per person, depending on what time someone arrives. 30 cents is the base price, but after 6 o'clock it costs 60 cents, and then 85 cents after 8 pm. Savoy had made enough money at the peak of his business in 1936 so that $ 50,000 was spent on his overhaul.
The dance hall has a double bandstand that holds one big band and a medium-sized band runs against its east wall. Continuous music as an alternative band is always in position and ready to take a knock when the previous one has completed the set. The guard, who previously worked as a boxer, a basketball player, and the like, wore a tuxedo and made $ 100 a night. The floor was watched by a four-person security force at the time led by Jack La Rue, and no one was allowed in who did not wear a jacket with a tie. In addition to the security staff, Savoy is inhabited by "the most beautiful woman of Harlem": Savoy Hostesses. They will be fired for being accompanied by customers outside the ballroom, but inside the hostess will teach people to dance and become a dancing partner for anyone who buys a 25 cent dance ticket. Hosts Roseland Ballroom often visit the Savoy on the night they leave; this inspired Buchanan to create a Monday-Ladies-Free Nights. Other special events begin for a week, including new car deliveries every Saturday. The floor should be replaced every 3 years due to its constant use.
"Stompin 'at the Savoy", a classic and jazz standard 1934 Big Band song recorded by Chick Webb, was named for the ballroom. The song is featured in the episode of I Love Lucy where she performs Jitterbug.
Chick Webb was the leader of the popular band house Savoy during the mid-1930s. A teenager Ella Fitzgerald, who just got out of talent search at Apollo Theater in 1934, became his vocalist. Floating World Pictures recently made a documentary film entitled "The Savoy King" about Webb, Ella, and the ballroom. It was featured at the 50th New York Film Festival. Other bandleaders from the Savoy house include Al Cooper, Erskine Hawkins, Lucky Millinder (with Wynonie Harris on vocals), Buddy Johnson, and Cootie Williams.
Savoy is the site of many of the famous "Battle of the Bands" or "Cutting Contests", which began when Benny Goodman Orchestra challenged Chick Webb in 1937. Webb and his band were declared the winners of the contest. In 1938, Webb was once again challenged by Count Basie Band. While Webb is officially declared the winner again, there is a lack of consensus about who actually won that night. Earle Warren, alto saxophonist for Basie reported that they had been working on a song called "Swingin 'The Blues" for the purpose of competing and saying, "When we lowered our canon, it was the end". The "unbeaten" band Webb has been defeated.
The Savoy participated in the 1939 New York World Exhibition, featuring "The Evolution of Negro Dance".
The Ballroom was closed in April 1943 as a result of "allegations of representation filed by the police and army departments". The license was updated in mid-October of the same year.
Maps Savoy Ballroom
Demolition
The ballroom was permanently closed in October 1958. Despite efforts by Borough President Hulan Jack, manager of Savoy Ballroom and co-owner Charles Buchanan, clubs and organizations to rescue him, the Savoy Ballroom was demolished for the construction of the residential complex, Delano Village. between March and April 1959. The mayor was a target of protests by angry clubs and organizations. Ballroom equipment auctioned for "slum settlement" housing project. Count Basie was quoted in the newspaper as saying "With the passage of the Savoy Ballroom, part of the show business is gone, I feel the same as when I told me that Bill (Bojangles) Robinson had died." On May 26, 2002, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, still alive from members of Whitey Lindy Hoppers, announced a memorial plaque for the Savoy Ballroom on Lenox Avenue between 140 and 141st Streets. The swing tradition has been alive today and many dancers still alive from the Savoys still dancing when they can. As Norma Miller said in his memoir, "Even though Harlem created it, Lindy belonged to everyone".
See also
- List of jazz clubs
References
External links
- Savoy Ballroom
- Savoy Ballroom Plaque
- Recordings Chick Webb plays "Stompin 'in Savoy"
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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