The Rightful King of Swing

The King of Swing in the 1930s wasn’t Benny Goodman or Count Basie. It was Chick Webb. The drummer fielded, managed and drove one of the best dance bands in the country and held court at New York’s Savoy Ballroom, at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in Harlem.

Webb’s band was built to keep people dancing, and the swing he produced to do so was imitated while he was at the peak of his fame and for years after his death in 1939 at age 34. When Count Basie arrived in New York to face off against Webb at the Savoy in 1938, dancers heard a cooler, more laid-back style of swing compared with Webb’s drum-driven forward-leaning and theatrical style. Goodman also wound up at the Savoy, with his more homogenized approach palatable with a mass youth market that liked to dance, just not quite as expressively or enthousiastically as those at the Savoy. 

Born in 1905 in Baltimore, Webb fell down a staircase as a child in his family’s home and crushed several vertebrae that required surgery. He never regained full mobility. His injury led to tuberculosis of the spine, resulting in his short stature and a deformed spine that made him appear hunchbacked.

As therapy, his doctor suggested he play an instrument to stay loose. Webb set to work as a paper boy and soon saved enough to buy a set of drums. His first professional gig came at age 11, in 1916. At 17, he moved to New York and led his first band in 1926. The Chick Webb Orchestra became the house band at the Savoy in 1931 and pioneered the swing style geared for keeping dancers on the floor. He began recording in the late 1920s, and by 1931, he was a national recording star.

Ella Fitzgerald joined Webb’s band in 1935, which raised the band’s popularity and demand. Despite his small stature, Webb would leave everything on the bandstand, which often left him gasping in pain at the end of each evening. In 1938, his health declined, and Fitzgerald took over management of the band.

Some of Edgar Sampson’s arrangements for Webb were routinely used by Goodman to reach young white audiences. For example, his charts for Don’t Be That Way (1934) and Stompin’ at the Savoy (1936) were released in nearly identical form by Goodman.

To give you a sense of the potency and tight power of Chick Webb in the 1930s, here are 10 clips:

Here’s Don’t Be That Way in 1934…

Here’s Sampson’s arrangement of Go Harlem in 1935…

Here’s Love and Kisses in 1935 with Ella Fitzgerald’s vocal…

Here’s Sampson’s composition and arrangement of Stompin’ at the Savoy in 1936…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgX5_waK—w

Here’s Wake Up and Live in 1937, with Fitzgerald, Charles Linton and Louis Jordan on vocal harmony…

Here’s That’s a Plenty in 1937…

Here’s Van Alexander’s arrangement of It’s Swell of You in 1937, with Louis Jordan on vocal…

Here’s Van Alexander’s arrangement of Everybody Step in 1938 with Fitzgerald on vocal…

Here’s Van Alexander’s arrangement of Poor Little Rich Girl in 1939…

Here’s Undecided in 1939, with Fitzgerald on vocal…