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Frank Manning
Frank Manning (May 26, 1914 – April 27, 2009) was an American dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founders of Lindy Hop, an energetic form of the jazz dance style known as swing. Biography Manning was born in 1914 in Jacksonville, Florida. After his parents separated when he was three years old, he moved to Harlem with his mother, who was a dancer. Manning began dancing as a child. Manning's mother sent him to spend summers with his father, aunt, and grandmother on their farm in Aiken, South Carolina. On Saturdays, farmhands and locals would come to the farm to play music on the front porch with harmonicas and a washtub bass. Manning's grandmother encouraged Frankie to dance with the others. In October 1927, Manning attended the Renaissance Ballroom & Casino. Watching from the balcony, he saw his mother dancing formal ballroom styles such as the foxtrot and waltz, having only seen her dance before in a much looser and casual style at neig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits. As of 2020, Jacksonville's population is 949,611, making it the 12th most populous city in the U.S., the most populous city in the Southeast, and the most populous city in the South outside of the state of Texas. With a population of 1,733,937, the Jacksonville metropolitan area ranks as Florida's fourth-largest metropolitan region. Jacksonville straddles the St. Johns River in the First Coast region of northeastern Florida, about south of the Georgia state line ( to the urban core/downtown) and north of Miami. The Jacksonville Beaches communities are along the adjacent Atlantic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth (lips and tongue) to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound. Reeds are tuned to individual pitches. Tuning may involve changing a reed’s length ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norma Miller
Norma Adele Miller (December 2, 1919 – May 5, 2019) was an American Lindy hop dancer, choreographer, actress, author, and comedian known as the "Queen of Swing". Early life Miller was born in 1919 in Harlem, New York City to mother Alma, a charwoman, and father Norman, a shipyard worker, both from Bridgetown, Barbados. Norma was named after her father, who died from pneumonia a month before her birth. She had an older sister, Dot. Even though her mother struggled to pay the rent, Norma was enrolled in dance classes from a very young age. At the age of five, she was performing at amateur nights in theaters. Miller knew she wanted to be a dancer very early on:"Black girls didn't have many outlets. You had laundry. You had hairdresser. Or teacher. Now, I didn't qualify for none of those. I could dance, I just could just do it naturally." When the Great Depression began in 1929, Miller and her family moved to a cramped and noisy tenement apartment on 140th street that overlooked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers was a professional performing group of exceptional swing dancers that was first organized in the late 1920s by Herbert "Whitey" White in the Savoy Ballroom and disbanded in 1942 after its male members were drafted into World War II. The group took on many different forms and had several different names and sub-groups, including Whitey's Hopping Maniacs, Harlem Congeroo Dancers, and The Hot Chocolates. In addition to touring nationally and internationally, the group appeared in several films and Broadway theatre productions. Dorothy Dandridge and Sammy Davis Jr. were among the group's celebrity regulars. History Beginning in the late 1920s, White, a bouncer at the Savoy Ballroom and former dancing waiter, began organizing exceptional dancers, first under the aegis of George Snowden and then under White himself. Although many members felt mistreated by White, many admired his promotion of the dance. In 1934, at the age of 14, Norma Miller became the youngest me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chick Webb
William Henry "Chick" Webb (February 10, 1905 – June 16, 1939) was an American jazz and swing music drummer and band leader. Early life Webb was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to William H. and Marie Webb. The year of his birth is disputed. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' and Allmusic indicate 1905, and this seems to be supported by census information. Other publications claim other years. During Webb's lifetime, a December 1937 ''DownBeat'' magazine article, "The Rise of a Crippled Genius", stated he was born in 1909, which is the year that appears on his grave marker. In 1939, ''The New York Times'' stated that Webb was born in 1907, the year also suggested in ''Rhythm on Record'' by Hilton Schleman. Webb was one of four children; the other three were sisters (Bessie, Mabel, and Ethel). His sister Mabel married Wilbur Porter around 1928. When an infant, Webb fell down some stairsteps in his family's home, crushing several vertebrae and requiring surgery, from which he nev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Snowden
George "Shorty" Snowden (July 4, 1904 – May 1982) was an African American dancer in Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s. He and his partner Mattie Purnell invented the Harlem Lindy Hop in the dance marathon at Harlem's Rockland Palace between June and July 1928. Snowden and Purnell's invention was based on the breakaway pattern which they practically rediscovered via an accident in the dance marathon. There existed various Lindy Hop dances around the U.S. since Charles Lindbergh's flight over the Atlantic Ocean in May 1927, which were not connected to the Harlem dance. The Harlem Lindy Hop was not the first of the Lindy Hop dances, but it was probably the only one which survived in the long run. Snowden is sometimes inaccurately credited with coining the name 'Lindy Hop' for a popular partner jazz dance of the day. As there is evidence for his role in creating the Lindy Hop, there is no proper evidence for the naming of the dance. The term ‘Lindy Hop’ in connection with Sn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aerial (dance Move)
An Aerial (also acrobatic, air step or air) is a dance move in Lindy Hop or Boogie Woogie where one's feet leave the floor. As opposed to a lift, aerial is a step where a partner needs to be thrown into the air and then landed in time with the music. Each aerial consists of a preparation ('prep'), jump or trick itself and the landing. The first Lindy Hop aerial was performed by Frankie Manning in 1935. Frankie Manning and George "Shorty" Snowden competed in weekly dance contests at the Savoy Ballroom. Shorty George and his partner Big Bea had a move, where they stood back-to-back; they locked arms; Big Bea bent over, picking Shorty George up on her back; and then she carried him off the floor, while he kicked his feet. Frankie Manning wanted to outdo Shorty George, so he convinced his partner Freda Washington, to flip over his back. Called the 'over the back', this flip is considered the first Lindy aerial. Aerials quickly caught on in Lindy Hop. In 1935, the troupe Whitey's Lind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Savoy Ballroom
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"."Swinging at the Savoy" by Barbara Engelbrecht, ''Dance Research Journal Vol 15 No. 2 Popular Dance in Black America, Spring 1983'' It was opened and owned by white entrepreneur Jay Faggen and Jewish businessman Moe Gale. It was managed by African-American bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victrola
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidiary called RCA Victor. Headquartered in Camden, New Jersey, it was the largest and most prestigious firm of its kind in the world, probably best known for its use of the iconic "His Master's Voice" trademark and the production, marketing, and design of the popular "Victrola" line of phonographs. After its merger with RCA in 1929, the company continued to make phonographs, records, radios and other products. History In 1896, Emile Berliner—inventor of the gramophone and disc record—contracted machinist Eldridge R. Johnson to manufacture his inventions.Gelatt, Roland, ''The Fabulous Phonograph: 1877–1977'', MacMillan, New York, 1954. Name There are different accounts as to how the "Victor" name came about. RCA historian Fred Barn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rent Party
A rent party (sometimes called a house party) is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. These parties were a means for black tenants to eat, dance, and get away from everyday hardship and discrimination. The rent party played a major role in the development of jazz and blues music, alongside forms of swing dancing. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that the term ''skiffle'' means "rent party", indicating the informality of the occasion. Thus, the word became associated with informal music. However, many notable jazz musicians are associated with rent parties, including pianists Speckled Red, Georgia Tom, Little Brother Montgomery, James P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, and Fats Waller, although rent parties also featured bands as well. The ''OED'' also gives ''boogie'' as a term meaning 'rent party'. Rent parties were often the location of so-called cutti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waltz
The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the waltz that date from 16th-century Europe, including the representations of the printmaker Hans Sebald Beham. The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote of a dance he saw in 1580 in Augsburg, where the dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Kunz Haas (of approximately the same period) wrote, "Now they are dancing the godless ''Weller'' or ''Spinner''."Nettl, Paul. "Birth of the Waltz." In ''Dance Index'' vol 5, no. 9. 1946 New York: Dance Index-Ballet Caravan, Inc. pages 208, 211 "The vigorous peasant dancer, following an instinctive knowledge of the weight of fall, uses his surplus energy to press all his strength into the proper beat of the bar, thus intensifying his personal enjoyment in dancing." Around 1750, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
