Midtown Stomp
This is Lindy Hop
Born in Harlem. Built for big bands. Still dancing every Friday night in West Sacramento.
Music from After Seben, 1929
Chapter one
Born in Harlem
Harlem, late 1920s
Black families who came north in the Great Migration built one of the liveliest neighborhoods in America. Young dancers took the Charleston, the Texas Tommy and plenty of their own ideas, and set them loose on hot new jazz. Nobody invented Lindy Hop at a desk. It grew on the floor, one Saturday night at a time.
The Savoy, 1926
In March 1926 the Savoy Ballroom opened on Lenox Avenue. It filled a whole block, with two bandstands so the music never stopped. Black and white dancers shared its floor when most of the country would not allow it, and the best Lindy Hoppers claimed a corner of their own.
The name, 1928
The story goes that at a Harlem dance marathon in June 1928, a reporter asked George “Shorty” Snowden what he was doing, and he answered with a nod to Charles Lindbergh. Papers that summer did tie his dancing to the “Lindbergh Hop.” The exact moment, though, rests on Snowden’s own memory, told thirty years later.
On film, 1929
A year later Snowden danced in After Seben, often called the earliest film of Lindy Hop. Watch the kick, the bounce and the swing. Then watch them land on a dance floor in Sacramento.
After Seben opens with its star, James Barton, a white vaudeville comic in blackface, a racist stage practice of the time. He also hosts its dance contest. Our clips show only the Savoy dancers, but the blackface is part of this film’s history.
Chapter two
The swingout
Break away, swing out.
At that 1928 marathon, Snowden and his partner Mattie Purnell showed off the breakaway: partners let go, improvise, then snap back together. Savoy dancers stretched that idea into the swingout, the elastic, circling move that is still the heartbeat of Lindy Hop. Many hands shaped it, and plenty of Harlem dancers later said they invented it.
Eight counts. Done right, it feels like a great connection between partners.
- 1, 2In The follower walks in as the leader rocks back, like a rubber band pulling tight.
- 3 & 4Together They meet close and start to turn.
- 5, 6Around A half circle, both leaning into the swing.
- 7 & 8Out The follower swings back out to arm’s length, ready to go again.
Chapter three
Air steps and Hollywood
By the mid-1930s a Savoy bouncer named Herbert “Whitey” White had gathered the sharpest young dancers into a professional troupe, Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. Frankie Manning remembered flipping his partner Frieda Washington over his back in a Savoy contest around 1935: the first Lindy air step, as he told it. Others recalled earlier tricks, and accounts differ on who flew first. Nobody debates the result.
Then the movies called
Whitey’s dancers lit up A Day at the Races (1937), Keep Punching (1939) and, most famously, Hellzapoppin’ (1941). They toured Europe and played Broadway, and a group of them was stranded in Brazil after the United States entered the war in December 1941. Black dancers built this art, even when the credits left their names off.
Chapter four
West to Hollywood
Harlem built it. Los Angeles gave it a new accent.
Los Angeles, 1935
In August 1935 Benny Goodman’s band, nearly broke after a long tour, played the Palomar Ballroom and the young crowd went wild. Many people date the swing era from that night. Southern California already had dances of its own: a local partner dance its dancers simply called Swing, and Balboa, a quick, close dance named for the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach.
Harlem comes to Hollywood, 1937
Lindy Hop arrived from Harlem. Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers came west to dance in A Day at the Races, then came back for more films. On Central Avenue, the heart of Black Los Angeles, the Club Alabam drew integrated crowds of jitterbugs. Across the city, Black, white and Mexican American kids were all catching the bug.
Dean and Jewel
In 1936 or 1937 (accounts differ), a young dancer from New Jersey who had trained at the Savoy came west to break into the movies. He called himself Dean Collins. He found a partner in Jewel McGowan, a local Swing dancer, and together they developed a smooth, elastic style, often danced in a straight line. Collins worked on nearly forty films.
The kids who followed
By the war years Jean Veloz, Irene Thomas, Lenny Smith and Arthur Walsh were winning contests and dancing in the movies. Wartime Swing Shift dances in Ocean Park ran from half past midnight until 5 in the morning for defense workers. Today dancers call this look Hollywood style, a name it got in the 1990s, and the Los Angeles swing of those years also helped shape West Coast Swing.
Carrying it forward
Some of those dancers were still on the floor decades later. Jean Veloz, born in Los Angeles and a dancer in those wartime films, taught into her nineties. John Mills, who lived from 1912 to 2011, danced Lindy Hop, Balboa and tap. His wife Anne was one of “the five bal gals,” a group of friends known for their Balboa in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
When swing dancing boomed again in the 1990s, younger dancers sought out John and Anne for their 1940s style, and they danced around Southern California for years. In 2007, Jean, in her eighties, and John, in his nineties, were still dancing together.
Jean kept going. In 2017, in her nineties, she danced with Mikey Pedroza at Lindyfest in Houston, Texas, and she’s still a joy to watch. This is the same Jean Veloz who danced in Groovie Movie in 1944, 73 years earlier.
Chapter five
Lindy Hop is thriving around the world
After the war, Lindy Hop faded from the mainstream, but it never stopped moving. In Harlem, Al Minns and Leon James kept performing, and Mama Lu Parks trained new generations of dancers. In the 1980s, dancers in California, New York, London and Stockholm learned from the people who had kept it going: Al Minns, Mama Lu Parks and her dancers, Norma Miller, who had joined Whitey’s troupe as a teenager, and Frankie Manning, who had spent decades working for the post office. The Swedish Rhythm Hot Shots invited Frankie to teach, and from 1989 he taught at the summer camp in Herräng.
Frankie taught around the world until he died in 2009, a month short of 95. Norma kept dancing and telling stories until 2019. The steps they had danced at the Savoy went everywhere with them.
From Harlem to Sacramento, a few of the cities on the map:
- Harlem
- Herräng
- Los Angeles
- London
- San Francisco
- Stockholm
- New York City
- San Diego
- Austin
- Seattle
- Chicago
- Boston
- Toronto
- Vancouver
- Washington DC
- Paris
- Berlin
- Barcelona
- Rome
- Amsterdam
- Prague
- Mexico City
- Bogotá
- Buenos Aires
- Istanbul
- Cape Town
- Mumbai
- Sydney
- Seoul
- Singapore
- Melbourne
- Tokyo
- Wellington
- Manila
- Sacramento
Today Lindy Hop lives in hundreds of cities, from Herräng, Sweden, home of a summer dance camp since 1982, to right here in Sacramento. Dancers of every age meet at local socials, weekend workshops and festivals around the world, and every swingout carries a little Harlem with it.
Chapter six
Lindy in Sacramento
Midtown Stomp brings Lindy Hop to Sacramento every Friday night at our studio in West Sacramento: a beginning swing lesson at 8 pm, then social dancing at 9, to a DJ or a live band. Some nights we take it on the road.
Your first step
The floor is open every Friday. Learn the basics in Lindy Hop 1, or start with the beginning swing lesson.
Lindy Hop 1
Start learning to Lindy Hop with us this Friday
Lindy Hop 1 teaches the basic moves of Lindy Hop over four Fridays. No partner needed.
Four Fridays at 7 pm
November 6, 13, 20 & 27
Starts Friday, November 6 at 7 pm
$60 for the series
You can join the whole series in week 1 or 2.
Any Lindy class plus the dance, $25, on any Friday, ahead or at the door. Buy the $25 pass, check in at the desk for your class, and the dance that night is included. Choose Lindy Hop 1, Lindy Grab Bag or Flavor of the Week, on DJ and band nights.
Every Friday, 8 pm
Beginning swing lesson
Included with dance admission. No partner and no experience needed. Social dancing starts at 9.
Sources
Early Lindy Hop history rests partly on dancers’ own memories, told decades later. Where accounts differ, this page says so.
- Marshall and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (1968), including Snowden’s account of the 1928 marathon: archive.org
- Frankie Manning and Cynthia R. Millman, Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop (Temple University Press, 2007): tupress.temple.edu
- Norma Miller with Evette Jensen, Swingin’ at the Savoy: The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer (Temple University Press, 1996): tupress.temple.edu
- Terry Monaghan, “George Snowden,” The Dancing Times (July 2004).
- Harri Heinilä, “The Creators of the Lindy Hop: George ‘Shorty’ Snowden and Mattie Purnell,” Authentic Jazz Dance (July 4, 2012), citing the New York World and the New York Amsterdam News, June and September 1928: authenticjazzdance.wordpress.com
- Rebecca D. Clear, Jazz on Film and Video in the Library of Congress (Library of Congress, 1993), on After Seben: Paramount, 1929, with James Barton in blackface, Savoy Ballroom dancers, and Chick Webb and his Orchestra: archive.org
- AFI Catalog, A Day at the Races (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1937): catalog.afi.com
- Bobby White, “Swing History 101” series, Swungover: swungover.wordpress.com
- Bobby White, “Mama Lu,” Swungover (December 21, 2023), on Mama Lu Parks and her dancers: swungover.wordpress.com
- Bobby White, Swungover: “SoCal Swings (1935 to 1939),” “Lindy Comes to SoCal (1937 to 1945),” and the articles on Jewel McGowan and Irene Thomas: SoCal Swings, Lindy Comes to SoCal, Jewel McGowan, Irene Thomas
- Hadley Meares, “Club Alabam Was The Center Of LA’s Jazz Scene,” LAist (August 25, 2020): laist.com
- Harrison Smith, obituary of Jean Veloz, The Washington Post (January 18, 2023): washingtonpost.com
- Wikipedia, on Al Minns, Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan, Jean Veloz, the Palomar Ballroom, Balboa, Hollywood-style Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing; World Swing Dance Council Hall of Fame, Dean Collins: Al Minns, Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan, Jean Veloz, Palomar Ballroom, Balboa, Hollywood-style Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing, WSDC, Dean Collins
- Anthony Macías, Mexican American Mojo: Popular Music, Dance, and Urban Culture in Los Angeles, 1935 to 1968 (Duke University Press, 2008): dukeupress.edu
- California Swing Dance Hall of Fame, on John Mills and on Anne Mills: John Mills, Anne Mills
- ATOMIC Ballroom, “John Mills 1912 – 2011” (March 1, 2011): atomicballroom.com/blog/2011/03/01/john-mills-1912-2011
- Film: Groovie Movie (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1944), a Pete Smith Specialty directed by Will Jason, with Jean Veloz, Arthur Walsh, Irene Thomas and Kay Vaughn-Smith; on YouTube from Connexion Swing. Credits from IMDb: youtube.com/watch?v=i_ENjos_PpE, IMDb
- “Lindyfest 2017: Jean Veloz Performance,” Houston Swing Dance Society on YouTube (March 2017), video by Brett Dahlenburg: youtube.com/watch?v=12gJN5xGc-E
- Rusty Frank, “93 Year Old Jean Veloz Does It Again!” on YouTube (March 2017), the same dance, naming her partner, Mikey Pedroza: youtube.com/watch?v=bj0UKoge_Gs
- “Jean Veloz & John Mills dance at Rusty’s Rhythm Club,” video posted by Rusty Frank on YouTube (May 2007): youtube.com/watch?v=8HCybx4LyDs
- Film: After Seben (Paramount, 1929), from Wikimedia Commons. The film and its music, “Sweet Sue, Just You” (1928), are in the public domain in the United States: commons.wikimedia.org
- Hellzapoppin’ (Universal, 1941), a scene from the film, on YouTube from docludi2: youtube.com/watch?v=ahoJReiCaPk
- Today’s footage: our studio in West Sacramento, and the California State Railroad Museum with The West End Stompers.