By Chris Bowling on Saturday, November 27, 1999 - 05:24 pm: EditHi people!! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!! I'm still eating left overs!! Surprised that I would have any left, but the food was so good I wanted it to last.
Last night, Friday 26, Shana and I met up with Tan, Valerie, and Melissa at the Jazz Festival at Town and Country Convention center. Not too bad, A lot of traditional jazz, Dixieland, and New Orleans jazz. Chicago Six were there to do the swing though. I happened by the memorabilia section and found many, many books on Jazz!! Art Tatum, Benny, Artie Shaw, The Duke, Hard Bop, Bebop, Swing, and the list goes on. Just amazing stuff, old out of print stuff. I was digging and found a book called "Jazz Dance: The story of American Vernacular Dance." Of course, I bought it and have been reading it ever since, (a wopping one day!!). Written by Marshall and Jean Stearns, released by DA CAPO PRESS, NY, copyright - 1968. The book begins with Africa and the West Indies, then moves all through the black influenced dances and Russian dances, up through the Jitterbug. They received a lot of there Jitterbug (Lindy Hop)info from extensive interviews from Shorty George Snowden, Leon James, and Al Minns. Wow!!
Whitey was the leader of a gang called the "Jolly Fellows" and most of all the dancers were a part of it, mainly for protection and the chance to dance at the Savoy Ballroom. The Jolly Fellows ran the Savoy, just as the gang called The Buffaloes ran the Renaissance Ballroom.
Shorty George worked with Paul Draper, a white dancer, in Washington. Paul was very impressed with the Lindy Hop and commented that "He wished he could move like George." George was interested in Paul's ballet influenced moves "and promptly adapted them to his own purposes." "I got a few things from Draper," Shorty recalls, . . . Almost anything was gist for the Lindy Mill." The book even makes a statement about the first air steps. Frankie's name is not mentioned but mentions Al Minns, Joe Daniels, Russell Williams, and Pepsi Bethel as the contributors of the air steps. Of course this is entirely from Shorty George, Leon James, and Al Minns.
The emphasis of the Lindy Hop, and what made it stand out amoung other dances, was the breakaway (6,7,8 of the swingout). Here is were individuals personalities came out, and no one would copy anybodies moves!! If the dancers saw this happening they would pounce the person and probably beat the living hell out of them (according to the book).
They even interview Ernie Smith, a white dancer, from Pittsburgh, PA. He hung out at this place called Hill City. This was in the black area of town and here is where he watched all the African-Americans dance the Lindy Hop in 1939. According to Smith,"The fundamental lesson of Hill City was to dance smoothly."
Other facts from the book:
-Lindy Hop was called the "Hop" untill Lindenburgh flew over the Atlantic.
-Whitey employed around 72 dancers adn went under the names of "the savoy hoppers", "the jive-a-dears",and "whitey'd lindyhoppers."
-Leon James remarks: "Dizzy Gillespie was featured in the brass section of Teddy Hill's screaming band. A lot of people had him pegged as a clown, but we loved him. Every time he played a crazy lick, we cut a crazy step to go with it. And he dug us and blew even crazier stuff to see if we could dance to it, a kind of game, with musicians and dancers challeging each other."
I'll keep posting little items I find while reading. This book is not a bible, so most of this stuff could be debatable. Yet, their bibliography is intense and long, referencing all sorts of people, places, etc. So I would conclude a lot of this stuff is factual. I'm posting it here for rebuttal and other takes on what I have read. I'm sure someone else has read or found conflicting information. Some of what I have read even contridicts "Swinging at the Savoy" by Norma Miller. What do you guys and gals think?