I got asked three times recently, where the name of our team The Killer Dillers comes from.

The phrase “killer diller” is jazz slang, in common use in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. To be a “killer” or a “killer diller” meant you were red hot, back in the day. So if you’re a Killer Diller you got chops, you’re gangbusters, you’re really the cat’s meow. Dig it?

The phrase can be heard in lyrics sung by the likes of Cab Calloway, Slim & Slam, Fats Waller, The Cats & The Fiddle, and Benny Goodman even played a tune called Killer Diller in his historic concert in Carnegie Hall in 1938.

Killer Diller was also the name of a film made in 1948 that, amongst other things, featured famed Lindy Hop troupe The Congaroos (including the late and great Frankie Manning) performing a fast and wildly acrobatic number that has gone down in swing dance history as one of the greatest ever. Here is that scene:

Oh, and the Urban Dictionary defines a Killer Diller as “Something so cool there are no other words to describe it.” That’s fine with us.

This weekend in Munich for the Rock That Swing Festival, Juan and I taught a class of moves from the Harvest Moon Ball. As promised, here is the footage I showed at the beginning of class. It’s a compilation I put together of a bunch of the surviving footage, overlaid with a recording of The Wolverines Big Band playing live for the Liberation division at the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown in 2004, neat huh?

If you’re not sure what the Harvest Moon Ball was all about, here’s a quick history:

The Harvest Moon Ball was an amateur dance contest held in New York City, in August or September each year from 1935 to 1974.  It was sponsored by the Daily News.

The very first Harvest Moon Ball contest was actually held in 1927 in the Central Park Mall, but when 75,000 people showed up to watch the contest, the organisers postponed future contests in the hope of finding a larger venue. Another attempt in 1934 was officially shut down by then Mayor La Guardia, for being a public safety risk. So the official first Harvest Moon Ball contest is considered to be the 1935 competition held in Madison Square Gardens.

The contest was not only a Lindy Hop contest, but included other dance divisions including Rumba, Foxtrot, Polka, Tango, Collegiate Shag, Viennese Waltz, a Serviceman’s Division, and later even the Hustle. There was also an “All Round Champions” prize awarded, which usually went to the winners of the Foxtrot division. However, the Lindy Hop division (later called the Jitterbug Jive division, and then the Rock ‘n Roll division), was the most spectacular and particularly popular with audiences and press.

To compete in the contest, there were preliminary rounds held in ballrooms starting in August, including the Savoy and Roseland Ballrooms. Contestants for the finals were selected by three judges.

The finals were held in Madison Square Gardens, where the 20,000 seats typically sold out within days of going on sale. Big name celebrities and famous Hollywood actors often attended, and Ed Sullivan was the emcee for most of the earlier contests. The winners were selected by a panel of five judges, and were awarded sponsored prizes and a contract to perform at one or more Loews State Theatres, thus making them professional dancers.

The contest was held in Madison Square Gardens from 1935 to 1974. When the Savoy Ballroom closed in 1958, Louise “Mama Lu” Parks promised the Savoy Ballroom manager Charles Buchanan, to continue to organise the Lindy Hop preliminaries, which were thereafter held in the Savoy Manor hall in the Bronx. In 1979 when the official Harvest Moon Ball organisers dropped the Lindy Hop division from the competition (in favour of dances like The Hustle), Mama Lu turned her preliminaries into the main Lindy Hop contest, which continued until 1989, in various venues. The final official Harvest Moon Ball contest was held in 1984, so the Lindy Hop division of Harvest Moon Ball outlasted the event itself, thanks to Mama Lu Parks.

Here are a few photos of the event program for the 1943 Harvest Moon Ball:

And here is an article in the October 2nd, 1950 issue of LIFE Magazine about the Harvest Moon Ball. Click on the image to see a larger version, or click here to read the full article.

The Savoy Ballroom dominance is pretty easy to see! And that’s a great whos-who list of dancers. You’ll see some of our favourites, that Juan and I mention a lot, like Sandra Gibson, Blue Outlaw, and Tops & Wilder, and of course you know Leon James, Al Minns, and living legend Sugar Sullivan.

But there’s some names in there that just don’t get enough recognition in the swing world today. Like Edith Matthews, who won with Leon James in 1935, is the lady who (legend has it) invented swivels on counts 1 and 2 of a swingout. She was better known as the partner of “Twistmouth” George Ganaway, yeah that’s the guy that discovered the young Norma Miller on the sidewalk outside the Savoy Ballroom. And George Grenidge and Ella Gibson, the 1936 winners, you can see dancing in A Day At The Races.  Russell Williams & Connie Hill, the 1939 champions, are the dancers in that 1943 Cootie Williams & His Orchestra soundie, and Russell Williams dances with Willa Mae Ricker alongside Frankie Manning & Ann Johnson in the Congaroos performance in the film Killer Diller.

Anyway, my whole point was, if you want to learn to dance like that, check us out on iDance.net:

I just got pointed towards a snippet of footage of the late great Frank Manning, social dancing in the Savoy Ballroom in 1937!  I have so much vintage footage in my collection (over 2,000 short clips on my laptop alone), that sometimes it seems impossible that I could ever stumble across another gem.  Actually, it happens all the time, but rarely this wonderful. I know it’s only a few seconds of Frankie, but he looks so young and happy, and I was just delighted to see footage of the bandstand in the Savoy Ballroom (I’d only seen photos). And the girls swinging out, in full-length ballgowns!!  Wow, just so wonderful!

The footage is from Time Inc’s newsreel, The March of Time, on  February 19, 1937. This was a current affairs newsreel, shown in cinemas before the main feature (remember, this is before television). HBO is restoring all that archival footage, good for them! That particular ‘episode’ happens to be about swing music as a ‘current trend’. You can see Frankie dancing in “dark Harlem’s hot and noisy Savoy” at 0:46.

My new enormous 1920s Charleston compilation, with more vintage footage of the Charleston than you can shake a stick at (as we would say in Australia). See if you can spot these dancers: Joan Crawford, Leon James, Josephine Baker, Al Minns, Frankie Manning, Ginger Rogers, Pepsi Bethel, Betty Bolton, and plenty more…  Enjoy!

“The Charleston was the dance that captured the spirit of the 1920s. It was danced with wild abandon by a new generation of independent young Americans, to the new hot jazz that was flooding the country. The dance began in Charleston, South Carolina, the city from which it takes its name. In 1923, The Charleston was featured in the Broadway show Runnin Wild, one of the biggest hits of the decade. The song from the show – James P. Johnson’s tune The Charleston – spread the fad across the nation and onwards to the rest of the world. Josephine Baker became famous for performing the Charleston in Paris in the 1920s. The Charleston is both a solo and partnered dance, both wildly exuberant and exciting to watch. As the hot jazz of the 1920s gave way to the swingin jazz of the 1930s and 40s, the partnered version of Charleston evolved into Lindy Hop.“

A new compilation I just posted on YouTube, with that fantastic footage of the mad dance marathons of the 1930s that lasted for up to 6 months!

Below is the entire text of the book “Modern Dancing”, written in 1914 by the famous husband-and-wife ballroom dancing couple, Irene and Vernon Castle. They are credited with invigorating the popularity of modern dancing. They were inventors of a number of dances, including the Castle Walk that bears their name, and they also helped to popularize dances such as the Foxtrot, the Hesitation Waltz, the Maxixe and the early ballroom form of the Tango.  In the text below, you will find descriptions (from which you are expected to learn!) the Tango, the Maxixe, the Castle Walk, and other dances. There are also notes on grace and etiquette, Irene Castle’s take on proper dancing costumes for women (remember, Irene Castle was one of the most influential women in fashion leading up to the 1920s – she bobbed her hair more than a decade before it was fashionable for flappers!), the idea of modern dances as fashion reformers and beautifiers, notes on proper dance music, the dances of the past, and the effect of dancing on one’s health by “an Eminent New York Physician.”

The book does bash a lot of dances I personally adore (like the Turkey Trot, the Grizzly Bear and the Bunny Hug), and no, the Castles were not jazz dancers (at best, some of their dances were performed to ragtime). But I love to watch them, and they laid the groundwork for the Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers style of Hollywood ballrooming that is still so influential today.

Although the Castles’ dances seem tame to modern eyes, reading the book reminds me of the Puritan, anti-dancing mentality they were fighting against at the time. It was the same mentality that Lindy Hoppers struggled against two decades later.

If you’re not familiar with the Castles, watch this clip first:

MODERN DANCING
By Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle
New York, March 1914

FOREWORD

WE feel that this book will serve a double purpose. In the first place, it aims to explain in a clear and simple manner the fundamentals of modern dancing. In the second place, it shows that dancing, properly executed, is neither vulgar nor immodest, but, on the contrary, the personification of refinement, grace, and modesty.

Our aim is to uplift dancing, purify it, and place it before the public in its proper light. When this has been done, we feel convinced that no objection can possibly be urged against it on the grounds of impropriety, but rather that social reformers will join with the medical profession in the view that dancing is not only a rejuvenator of good health and spirits, but a means of preserving youth, prolonging life, and acquiring grace, elegance, and beauty.

Read the rest of this entry

On 23rd August 1943, LIFE Magazine featured the Lindy Hop and declared that “a true national folk dance has been born in the USA”. It featured a short article and a 10 page photographic editorial (pages 95-103). The dancers were Leon James and Willa Mae Ricker (of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers fame), and Stanley Catron and Kaye Popp, teenagers who had been performing Lindy Hop in the Broadway musical, Something for the Boys.

Here are the famous photos from that editorial, that I see on t-shirts and posters in Lindy Hoppers’ homes all around the world (click to enlarge):

But here are some other photos from the shoot that I see far less often, and are just wonderful:

Download a PDF version of the article here: LIFE Magazine August 1943.

Or you can read the issue, in its entirety, on Google Books here.

You can also download all the Lindy Hop images from the magazine here.

1939 New York World’s Fair Savoy Ballroom Exhibit Souvenir Program

My boyfriend was in a vintage clothing store recently, and bought himself an antique souvenir tie clip from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933 (aka The Century of Progress Exposition). It reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write a post about the 1939 New York World’s Fair,  so here it is! What I wouldn’t give for one of the Savoy Ballroom exhibit souvenir programs (above)!

The whole idea of a World’s Fair is absolutely astonishing to me. Almost an entire city is built for the fair alone, which lasts from 3 months to a year or so, and is then demolished. Millions upon millions of dollars are poured into the World’s Fair, which showcases industry, science, culture, art, and even nations themselves. Countries build their own “national pavilion” to represent the nation at the exposition – an architectural manifestation of a nation?  Think about the international politics in 1933 or 1939 and then check out the photos of the national pavilions at those expos. Just amazing. Here’s the 1939 Russian and Italian pavilions, if that gives you any idea:

There’s just so much at these World’s Fairs, I don’t know how anyone could have seen everything. There were art exhibitions, the national pavilions, new inventions on display, carnival rides, theater, vaudeville and even girly shows, shops and stalls, restaurants, zoos and menageries, gardens and water fountains and huge installations, sporting events and balls, sideshows, scientific unveilings… ahh, so much!

The World’s Fairs have been held all over the globe, and each one has attracted millions and millions of people. Even at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, 50 million people attended! The legendary Crystal Palace was built in Hyde Park in London for the very first exposition, The Great Exhibition of 1851. The new invention of the telephone was unveiled at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by illuminating the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. That World’s Fair also unveiled the first Ferris wheel, introduced the hamburger to the USA, and showcased Scott Joplin playing ragtime. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 the diesel engine, talking films and escalators were all publicized for the first time. I’ve mentioned on this blog before, that it was at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, that Sally Rand danced naked with her feather fans in the ‘Streets of Paris’ exhibition, and was catapulted to burlesque stardom. And now that I think about it, it was at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair that Little Egypt showed belly dancing to America for the first time, influencing the course of burlesque for the next 60 years. Firsts at the 1939 New York World’s Fair included color photography, nylon and air conditioning. So many amazing things happened at these World’s Fairs!

Ok, so back onto topic… the 1939 World’s Fair is of particular interest to Lindy Hoppers, since a) it was in New York, and b) the Savoy Ballroom had its very own exhibit! Here are two amazing pieces of footage from the Prelinger archives showing – IN COLOR – the Savoy Ballroom exhibit at the World’s Fair, and another showing jitterbugs dancing to Glenn Gray and his Orchestra.

Gloriously, there’s a lot more footage (and yes, even more color footage) of the New York World’s Fair. You’ve got to see Salvador Dali’s surrealist funhouse, it’s flabbergasting! Visit Archive.org to see the other World’s Fair footage available as part of the Prelinger Archives. And here’s a Flickr set of the New York World’s Fair in Pictures.

What a gorgeous phenakistoscope animation of dancers!  From Wikipedia, via Morbid Anatomy. Click here to see more animations/images of the same phenakistoscope. Wikipedia gives the following information:

CREATOR Muybridge, Eadweard, 1830-1904, artist.
TITLE The zoopraxiscope* – a couple waltzing (No. 35., title from item.)
SUMMARY Images on a disc which when spun gives the illusion of a couple dancing.
MEDIUM 1 print : lithograph, color.
CREATED/PUBLISHED c1893 (14699Y U.S. Copyright Office). Copyright by Eadweard Muybridge (expired).
SUBJECTS Dance–1890-1900; Locomotion–1890-1900; Optical illusions–1890-1900.
FORMAT Optical toys 1890-1900; Lithographs Color 1890-1900.

Rusty Frank has written a short, but truly lovely biography of The Berry Brothers, for the American National Biography Online.  The Killer Dillers might just be The Berry Brothers’ biggest fans, as you may have figured out. So what a nice excuse to post a few videos. Here’s Rusty’s short history of the trio:

“The Berry Brothers consisted of Ananias “Nyas” Berry (18 Aug. 1913-5 Oct. 1951) and James Berry (c. 1915-28 Jan. 1969), both born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Warren Berry (25 Dec. 1922-10 Aug. 1996), born in Denver, Colorado, the sons of Ananias Berry and Redna Berry, whose occupations are unknown.

In 1919, Nyas and James first began performing together, touring the church circuit in Chicago as elocutionists reciting poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar. After the family moved to Denver, the two elder brothers branched out and began playing carnivals. Their father, a very religious man, had forbidden them to dance, but Nyas had memorized dances he had seen other performers do, and had built upon them himself. He persuaded his father to let him enter an amateur dance contest, in which he floored the audience. The theater manager offered Nyas $75 a week; the elder Ananias insisted that Nyas and James continue as a team.

They then put together an act based on the widely acclaimed Bert Williams and George Walker, the most famous African-American show business performance team of their time. Nyas and James named their act “The Miniature Williams and Walker.” In the mid-1920s the Berry family moved to Hollywood, California, where James danced at parties given by silent film stars such as Mary Pickford and Clara Bow. They also appeared in Our Gang comedies. Toward the end of the decade they opened as a duo, “the Berry Brothers,” with the already legendary Duke Ellington at Harlem’s Cotton Club. Although the famous nightclub would remain their home base for the next four and a half years, they toured and performed in other groundbreaking shows. In 1929 they traveled to London and were featured performers in Lew Leslie’s popular and highly acclaimed all-African-American revue Blackbirds of 1928. They were the first African-American act at the Copacabana in 1929. They appeared in “Rhythmania” at the Cotton Club and “Rhapsody In Black” in 1931. When Radio City Music Hall had its grand opening on 27 December 1932, the Berry Brothers were on the bill.

In 1934 Nyas Berry left the act and married Valaida Snow, a popular African-American entertainer. It was during this time that Warren Berry, the youngest brother, was pulled out of school and formal dance classes and drafted into the act. James Berry taught his younger brother every move of the Berry Brothers’ act, and soon this new duo was performing steadily. When Nyas’s marriage dissolved, he talked his brothers into forming a Berry Brothers act with three Berrys. Nyas also persuaded them to move back to Hollywood. The Berry Brothers enjoyed tremendous success in their newly formed trio and appeared extensively throughout the United States on stage, in clubs, and in film, as well as throughout Europe. The brothers possessed three distinct personalities and styles: Nyas was the king of the strut, James was the comedian and singer, and Warren was the solid dancer/acrobat. Their act remained virtually unchanged for over twenty years. In addition to their work in the 1941 musical film Lady Be Good, the Berrys also appeared in Panama Hattie (1942), Boarding House Blues (1948), and You’re My Everything (1949). Their club engagements over the years included the Apollo Theatre, the Zanzibar Café, and the Savoy Ballroom in New York, the Moulin Rouge in Paris, and the Rio Cabana in Chicago.

In 1938, at the downtown Cotton Club, a legendary competition took place between the Berry Brothers and the Nicholas Brothers, another great dance act. The Berrys devised a memorable finish in which Nyas and James ran up side stairways onto an elevated balcony and took a flying leap twelve feet out and over the heads of the entire Cab Calloway orchestra, while Warren, on the stage below, completed a flip-flop twist. On the last note of the music, all three landed simultaneously in splits. “People talked about that for a long time!” recalled Warren Berry (Frank, 1990/1995).

The secret of the Berry Brothers’ success was timing, precision, and dynamics. They were masters of the “freeze and melt,” the sparkling contrasts between posed immobility and sudden flashing action. The act that the three brothers perfected stayed their act for over twenty years. This repetition was common throughout vaudeville, when acts toured the country year after year. During that time, audiences wanted to see exactly the same familiar act with no changes. When the Berry Brothers contemplated using a new song or creating a new dance routine, the bookers dissuaded them. Resigned, the Berry Brothers kept their act intact until Nyas’s death of heart failure at the age of thirty-nine, in New York. Warren and James performed together and then as solo acts individually for a time. But then Warren’s hip injury that he had suffered as a teen finally disabled him. In 1969 James Berry died in New York of complications of arteriosclerosis. Warren worked for over fifteen years as a film editor for Screen Gems in New York City. During his last years he worked in Los Angeles on several unpublished scripts; he died in Los Angeles.

The Berry Brothers are remembered as one of the greatest dance acts in the history of the American stage and cinema in the twentieth century. At a time when tap dancers were “a dime a dozen,” these brothers combined their talents to form a unique act that remains unsurpassed. Ironically, they never wore taps on their shoes because the work that they did with the canes and acrobatics required leather-soled shoes for safety. Their mixture of the Cakewalk’s Strut, tap dancing, thrilling acrobatics, and amazing cane work was a winning and lasting formula.

Bibliography

For further reading on the Berry Brothers, see Jean and Marshall Stearns, Jazz Dance, The Story of American Vernacular Dance (1968/1994), which provides information on the content of their dance act. Rusty E. Frank, TAP! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories 1900-1955 (1990/1995), contains the last published interview with Warren Berry. Obituaries for Ananias, James, and Warren Berry appear respectively in the New York Age, 13 Oct. 1951; the New York Amsterdam News, 8 Feb. 1969; and the Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 1996.