James Robert Wills was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing.
Benjamin David Goodman was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing".
The Savoy Ballroom was a large ballroom for music and public dancing located at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Lenox Avenue was the main thoroughfare through upper Harlem. Poet Langston Hughes calls it the "Heartbeat of Harlem" in Juke Box Love Song, and he set his work "Lenox Avenue: Midnight" on the legendary street. The Savoy was one of many Harlem hot spots along Lenox, but it was the one to be called the "World's Finest Ballroom". It was in operation from March 12, 1926, to July 10, 1958, and as Barbara Englebrecht writes in her article "Swinging at the Savoy", it was "a building, a geographic place, a ballroom, and the 'soul' of a neighborhood". It was opened and owned by white entrepreneur Jay Faggen and Jewish businessman Moe Gale. It was managed by African-American businessman and civic leader Charles Buchanan. Buchanan, who was born in the British West Indies, sought to run a "luxury ballroom to accommodate the many thousands who wished to dance in an atmosphere of tasteful refinement, rather than in the small stuffy halls and the foul smelling, smoke laden cellar nightclubs ..."
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis of the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Musicians of the swing era include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Django Reinhardt.
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the 1930s and 1940s until a federal war-time nightclub tax in 1944 contributed to the genre's decline.
While the music of Oklahoma is relatively young, Oklahoma has been a state for just over 100 years, and it has a rich history and many fine and influential musicians.
Donnell Clyde Cooley, better known as Spade Cooley, was an American convicted murderer and former Western swing musician, big band leader, actor, and television personality. In 1961 he was arrested and convicted for the April 1961 murder of his second wife, Ella Mae Evans.
The Bowery Ballroom is a New York City live-music venue located at 6 Delancey Street in the neighborhood of Bowery in Manhattan. The Bowery Ballroom holds something of a cult status among musicians as well as audiences. Rolling Stone magazine has awarded it #1 Best Club in America. "It's both intimate and grand, with consistently great sound and sightlines, and touches of old-school class, like 84-year-old bronze rails." It has a capacity of 575 people. A detailed scholarly account of the venue and its place in the wider music and cultural history of New York City was published in 2020.
Jesse Edwin Davis was a Native American guitarist. He was well regarded as a session artist and solo performer, was a member of Taj Mahal's backing band and played with musicians such as Eric Clapton, John Lennon, and George Harrison. In 2018, Davis was posthumously inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame at the 18th Annual Native American Music Awards.
Deep Deuce historic neighborhood is a district in Downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was home to Zelia Breaux's Aldridge Theater and Dr. W. H. Slaughter's Slaughter Building his Cove Pharmacy and Slaughter's Hall in it. Author Ralph Waldo Ellison was raised in the area until after his father died, and wrote about the neighborhood. It now consists mostly of low-rise apartment buildings and formerly vacant mixed-use buildings and shops.
The Roseland Ballroom was a multipurpose hall, in a converted ice skating rink, with a colorful ballroom dancing pedigree, in New York City's theater district, on West 52nd Street in Manhattan.
Cain's Ballroom is a historic music venue in Tulsa, Oklahoma that was built in 1924 as a garage for W. Tate Brady's automobiles. Madison W. "Daddy" Cain purchased the building in 1930 and named it Cain's Dance Academy.
Ernest Lawrence Fields was an American trombonist, pianist, arranger and bandleader. He first became known for leading the Royal Entertainers, a territory band which was based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and toured along a circuit stretching from Kansas City, Kansas, to Dallas, Texas. In later years he led a band that recorded in Los Angeles.
Territory bands were dance bands that crisscrossed specific regions of the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1920s, the bands typically had 8 to 12 musicians. These bands typically played one-nighters, six or seven nights a week at venues like VFW halls, Elks Lodges, Lions Clubs, hotel ballrooms, and the like. Francis Davis, jazz critic for The Village Voice, likened territory bands to "the Top 40 cover bands of their day, typically relying on stock arrangements of other ensembles' hits." He said, "many historians give much credit to territory bands for popularizing modern ballroom dancing that began during the World War I era with the influence of Vernon and Irene Castle."
Crystal Ballroom, originally built as Cotillion Hall, is a historic building on Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon, United States. Cotillion Hall was built in 1914 as a ballroom, and dance revivals were held there through the Great Depression. Starting in the 1960s, the hall has also been host to many popular pop, rock, folk, blues and jazz artists, as well as beat poetry and other entertainment.
The Rivoli Ballroom is the only intact 1950s ballroom remaining in London, England. It is famed for its original decor and interior fittings, including red velvet, flock wallpaper, chandeliers, glitter balls and oversized Chinese lanterns. The venue is often used as a film location and plays host to many dance and musical events.
The Rainbow Ballroom, at 38 E 5th Avenue, Denver, was a dance hall that was one of the best known dance halls west of the Mississippi, according to a 1946 Billboard article. Its capacity of 3,000 made it the largest indoor dance hall in Colorado during its 28 years of existence — from its opening day on September 16, 1933, to its closing day in 1961.
The Col Ballroom is a historic building located in the West End of Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and on the Davenport Register of Historic Properties as the Saengerfest Halle.
Dan Terry was an American big band leader, arranger, and trumpet and flugelhorn player who appeared at Birdland, the world-famous jazz club, with Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Chris Connor, Johnny Smith, and other jazz luminaries.
Patricia Rooney was an American film editor, dancer, and actress who was active in the industry from the 1910s through the 1930s. She was sometimes credited under her birth name and was married to Broadway performer Pat Rooney Jr.
