Month: July 2012

Pitch a Boogie Woogie and Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers

About 11 years ago when I was an undergraduate at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, I took a film class that had a research component, where we had to research a topic and write a paper on that topic. At the time (well, and even now) I was over the moon about swing dancing and wanted to do my research on something swing dance and film related. My friend Dave Fillmore once told me about a documentary he saw on a film made in Greenville in the 1940’s that featured some of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers and I knew that I wanted to dig into this topic and find out more.

How did a couple of Harlem Lindy Hoppers end up in a film made in a tobacco town in the 1940’s? Of course there’s a story. 🙂

In the years building up to the making of the film, Greenville saw a number of touring jazz musicians, who would hold big band dances in the tobacco warehouses nearby, including Louis Jordan, Lucky Millinder, Billy Eckstine, Andy Kirk, and Earl Hines. In addition to these national touring bands, there were local and regional big bands that would play dances – it seems that just about every larger town in North Carolina had their own band for dances: Jimmy Gunn from Charlotte, The Carolina Stompers from Wilson, the Blackhawks from Kinston, the Mud (if I noted this correctly) Stompers from Elizabeth City, the Rhythm Vets from Greensboro, and I’m sure there were others. There were other entertainers who traveled this circuit, including minstrel and variety shows. A favorite was Irving Miller’s Brown Skin Models from Harlem. All of this to say that Greenville had its share of jazz, dancing, and entertainment in the 1940’s.

The film is called “Pitch a Boogie Woogie” and it was made in 1947 by a man named John Warner who owned The Plaza Theater. The Plaza was located in the hub of the African-American community in Greenville, NC, an area called The Block. Warner, though a white man, was a part of the community around The Block, and fancied himself a filmmaker. He would shoot footage of people on The Block, local talent shows, and other local events, and would show these films at The Plaza Theater. It was a brilliant idea that kept people coming back to the theater, to see if they had made it into some of the local footage Warner shot.

Warner had bigger ideas about his filmmaking so he formed a corporation, Lord Warner Pictures, with his brother, William Lord, who worked on Broadway as a songwriter. Their first endeavor was a 30 minute documentary called “Greenville on Parade,” which was followed by the 1947 featurette, “Pitch a Boogie Woogie.”

“Pitch a Boogie Woogie” had a mostly local, all-African-American cast, including the stars of the film, Tom Foreman and Herman Forbes (incidentally, Herman Forbes went on to become the NC Teacher of the Year for 1975). Warner brought in a few ringers for his production, to round out the entertainment for his “backstage musical,” including some of Winstead’s Mighty Minstrels, chorus girl dancers, actress Evelyn Whorton, tap dancer Cleophus Lines, and a couple of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers named The Count and Harriet. The Count got his name because he loved to play Count Basie on the piano.

There is no direct information about how The Count and Harriet ended up in this film. The other performers had a connection and were specifically mentioned as performing as part of troupes that had performed in Greenville before. Did Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers come through Greenville to perform in earlier years? Or did other Harlem performers who had been through town recommend them? Did the theater patrons see films like Hellzapoppin and want something like that in their film? Or did William Lord know of them through his connections in New York? There are definitely still gaps in my research, but I like to think about the possibilities.

Also of note in this film is footage of local Greenville residents social dancing – you see some Lindy Hop and some solo dancing.

The soundtrack was written by William Lord and originally performed by Don Dunning’s Orchestra, but the original soundtrack had too many issues and was later overdubbed by the Rhythm Vets from Greensboro. I find it interesting that there were so many soundtrack issues, especially with Lindy Hop clips (Hellzapoppin’, A Day at the Races) – members of the Rhythm Vets noted that it was difficult to try to fit the music to the dancing in “Pitch a Boogie Woogie” post-production.

“Pitch a Boogie Woogie” premiered on January 28, 1948 at The Plaza Theater in Greenville, NC. It was a huge local and regional success, but never saw distribution outside of the South. Shortly after the premiere, Warner got into a disagreement with distributors and was blacklisted. Then, the African-American community boycotted the theater following an incident at The Plaza where the police arrested a disorderly patron, who was taken to the police station and beaten.

The Block faded, The Plaza closed, another theater named The Roxy opened and closed near The Block, and in 1975 some people using The Roxy building discovered one of the remaining reels for “Pitch a Boogie Woogie.” The nitrate film was restored by the American Film Institute, and the film re-premiered in Greenville on February 8, 1986 with the living members of the cast and the Rhythm Vets in attendance. In 1988, the UNC Center for Public Television put together a documentary of the making of the film and the rediscovery of the film called “Boogie in Black and White.”

It has taken me a long time to get this information and video posted. I still had my research paper, but the copy of “Boogie in Black and White” I used belonged to ECU’s Joyner Library. A few years after I graduated I decided I wanted a copy of “Boogie in Black and White” and wrote to UNC-TV to try to obtain a copy. They wrote back that they could not locate any archived material on this program, but to call a number and speak with someone else. I called the UNC-TV number given to me and the person I spoke with said they had no idea what I was talking about.

I gave up on trying to obtain a copy until last year, when I thought about all the great Lindy Hop clips on YouTube and thought I’d search the Interwebs to see if any clips or information would come up on The Count and Harriet. The only hit was the Joyner Library archives at ECU. It was important to me that these clips survive because of my research, my love of dancing, and that this footage came from my home state and my mother’s home town.

I thought to email ECU professor Alex Albright, who was one of the people I interviewed for my paper, who was also a driving force behind the “Pitch a Boogie Woogie” restoration, conducted much of the research for the documentary, and wrote most of the content for the UNC-TV documentary. He was not surprised at UNC-TV’s response to my request and was as disappointed as I was at the possibility that this film might be forgotten. The only right he retained to the documentary was the right to make VHS copies of the documentary for a small fee. I was elated that I could finally, after 10 years, get my hands on a copy of this film. Dr. Albright also told me that Tom Whiteside, a technician at Duke University, still has a film copy of “Pitch a Boogie Woogie,” so there’s still hope for the film beyond the VHS copies.

I hope you enjoy the clips I have posted and this bit of background information. I’d like to give special thanks to Alex Albright for his initial research, assistance with my research, and for the VHS tape of the film. Additional thanks to Chris Owens for converting the VHS tape to digital format. I’d also like to thank Bobby White for suggesting that there should be a post on this topic and for offering to do a story on this for his Swungover blog. I believe that there are many things already on his plate, so I decided to play swing archivist for the day.

(Edited to add that Norma Miller has identified that these are not Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers; however, Peter Loggins and Harri Heinilä have posed possible theories that could place them as Whitey’s. I suppose we shall stay tuned to find out the answer to the question – who are The Count and Harriet? To tune into the discussion visit the Jassdancer Facebook page)

(Edited again to add that Harri Heinilä found verification that The Count and Harriet were members of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, or were at least trained by Herbert “Whitey” White: “Count & Harriet were former members of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers according to Willie Jones, who was possibly one of the oldest members of the group…you can find that from Robert Crease’s Willie Jones interview, which was published in New York Swing Dance Society’s Footnotes in Spring 1990.” Both Peter and Harri are checking their sources for information on Southern tours that might place them in or near Greenville, NC)

***The sources listed below are from my research paper, which focused more on the local theaters and the climate that gave rise to the film, but are also relevant to the information in my post.

Sources:

Albright, Alex. Personal interview, December 4, 2001.

Boogie in Black and White. Written by Alex Albright and directed by Susan Massengale. Videotape. UNC Center for Public Television, 1988.

John Warner Papers. East Carolina University Manuscript Collection. East Carolina University.

Kammerer, Roger. “The Movie Houses of Greenville: Part II.” Greenville Times, January 5-18, 1994.

McLawhorn, Melvin. Personal interview, December 7, 2001.

Pierce, Candace. Personal interview, November 30, 2001.

Shiver, Charles. Personal interview, December 9, 2001.

Windley, Gayle. Telephone interview, December 9, 2001.

Support It or Lose It

I suppose this will be the second in a series of rants about Triangle communities and this love letter goes out to the swing dance community. On any given Saturday night that the Triangle Swing Dance Society is hosting a dance, there will be between 100 and 200 dancers at one of these dances, which people will drive sometimes greater distances to attend (i.e. the very rural Murphey School, located between Durham and Hillsborough). There are 760 members of the Triangle Swing Dance Society Facebook group, which allows members to post updates about swing dance events going on in the Triangle. There’s a weekly newsletter that goes out to the TSDS email list, which probably numbers in the hundreds as well. All of this would seem to indicate that we have a thriving swing dance community that supports swing dancing to live music in the Triangle.

This past May, the Mint Julep Jazz Band performed a concert in Durham that was targeted at the swing dance community. Three dancers attended. Last year the Atomic Rhythm All-Stars played Motorco, a pretty significant concert venue in Durham. 30 dancers showed up and it wasn’t enough to pay the band. RDU Rent Party hosted a dance in Raleigh at the Velvet Cloak Inn, which is a historic hotel with beautiful ballroom, and around 30 dancers showed up and left the band and the event promoter short.

I have several theories about why dancer attendance fails to reach the potential of the community at live music events, but none of them really seem to encompass the issue. Is it apathy? Laziness? Money? Is it that dancers are not seeking live music opportunities other than TSDS? Do dancers only have time for one dance per month in their busy schedules?

Ultimately, the result is grim. Without dancer support for swing music in the Triangle, there will be no swing bands. If you only support the bands at TSDS events, those bands are only getting booked a maximum of 3 times per year. If the bands are only playing 3 times per year, where is the incentive to exist? How will we continue to build a fan base? How will we get gigs outside of TSDS without a fan base to support the bands? Where is the incentive for venues to continue to book these bands? How will bands grow musically and technically if they never play outside of TSDS events?

I am not saying that dancers should go to every live swing band event in the Triangle, but I am asking dancers to open their eyes and look around. There are other events in the Triangle with live swing music. TSDS even posts about them in their weekly email newsletter. Admission is usually $10.00 or less. It’s just that easy.

The number of bands on the TSDS roster is on the decline and if we don’t continue to support live music at other venues, we will lose the opportunity to swing dance to live swing music in the Triangle.

P.S. I would like to thank TSDS for their continued support in giving local bands the opportunity to perform and for paying the musicians a fair wage. I hope that the swing dance community will continue to support or even increase their support for TSDS. If there are 700+ people in the TSDS Facebook group, there is no reason why dancer attendance should not be 300 or 400 people for TSDS dances.

P.S.S. 7/25/12 – I’d also like to add Jason Sager‘s comment from the discussion thread about this post in the Triangle Swing Dance Society Facebook group – he says so eloquently what I have not been able to convey:

“Based on what I’ve seen in this thread, I think those of you who are arguing for advertising might want to consider the possibility that you’re not the target audience of Laura’s post. This, to me, is not so much a post about quantitative differences of how to get people out. It’s a post about the qualitative differences of stepping outside the box and the potential rewards that can bring both to your dancing experience and to the scene as a whole.

I recognize that the large majority of the dance scene is primarily looking for a known quantity when they go dancing. Most people here pick one or two venues they frequent and rarely stray from those. They’re a necessary part of a healthy scene, but if you tend to fall into that category, I don’t think Laura’s post was particularly written for your segment of the dance scene.

Our goal both with Rent Parties and with Lindy bombs has not been to provide a known quantity. It has been to provide and foster inspiration. I think one of the reasons we have been able to get some really great performances is because we treat the musicians and friends and as a show rather than as a backdrop for our dancing. And this, to me, is what Laura’s post is suggesting.

The simple fact is that none of these musicians are going to survive on swing gigs. Does that make it my sole responsibility to support them at other venues, of course not. But it also means that if I don’t go see a band anywhere other than at TSDS, I don’t have much room to complain if that band I like isn’t able to get enough gigs to survive.

From my perspective, the point that seems to be being missed in the arguing is that there are a lot of potential benefits to going outside of officially sanctioned swing events. For one, I get to have a different experience when I go somewhere that serves food or booze or whatever else. The “social” dance become social on a whole new level that it often doesn’t at your standard chairs along the wall dance. I also get to be an ambassador for the dance every time I go to a non-dance venue, both with the musicians and with the general “muggle” public who almost inherently view anyone who can dance as magical. And for those of us who are interested in this sort of thing, it can be a lot easier to actually talk to and meet the musicians at a small venue.

In essence, I think the things to take away from this are that most of us have more power than we think to support bands that we love and there are a lot of benefits (not just risks) to going out to a non-dance-specific gig once in a while.

And for those of you who actually took the time to read this whole post, thank you for your time and attention.”