The Charleston in the 1920s: the Dance, the Composers, and the Recordings. By Albert Haim Introduction

jazz age symbols: flappers dancing frantically to the Charleston rhythm and drinking prohibition booze. The success of the Charleston was not confined to the U.S.: Europeans and South Americans went wild over it. We will see below that some of the first recordings of Charleston were made in Buenos Aires and Berlin. Part of the huge success of the Charleston in Paris was due to Josephine Baker’s doing the dance in 1926 at the Folies Bergère.

There is evidence that some of the dance steps used in the Charleston number of the Runnin’ Wild production were danced long before the show opened on Broadway. Golden and Grayton, a couple of white minstrel artists performing in blackface, claimed to have danced the Charleston in 1890 in their Patting Rabbit Hash dance number. According to Leroi Jones, the Charleston comes from an Anshati ancestor dance. Noble Sissle recalled learning the dance in Savannah in 1905. Rubberleg Williams stated that “The first contest I ever won was a Charleston contest. It was in Atlanta in 1920.” [1] Several productions in theatres and nightclubs had dancers performing some of the steps of the Charleston; examples are Liza (1922-1923), How Come (1923) and the Ziegfield Follies of 1923. One of the numbers in the production of Liza was called Charleston Dancy [sic]. It was composed by Maceo Pinkard (music) and Nat Vincent (lyrics). How Come included two numbers, Charleston Cut-Out and Charleston Finale. Garvin Bushell [2] traces the roots of the Charleston to a Geechie dance done in the Georgia South Sea Islands. James P. Johnson himself noted, “These people were from South Carolina and Georgia where the cotillion was popular- and the "Charleston" was an offspring of that. It was a dance figure like the "Balmoral." A lot of my music is based on set, cotillion and other southern country dance steps and rhythms." [3] In a letter to the New York Times dated December 19, 1926 and published on December 26, 1926, composer William Marion Cook stated that the Charleston rhythm was introduced by Thomas Morris in his 1923 composition Charleston Strut.

Although there may have been some steps similar to those in the Charleston before it was introduced in the production of Runnin’ Wild, it is clear that the extraordinary popularity of the dance came about as a consequence of the success of the song and the show. Harold Courlander wrote [4] “It is, of course, possible to perceive in the Charleston certain steps or motifs extracted out of Negro tradition, but over all it was a synthetic creation, a newly-devised conglomerate tailored for wide spread popular appeal.”


Josephine Baker dancing the Charleston at the Folies Bergère, Paris, in 1926

One of the claims for the origin of the Charleston seems a bit fanciful. In a full-page article in the August 8, 1926 issue of the New York Times, reporter Fred Austin titles his piece “The Charleston Traces Its Ancestry Back 400 years” with the subtitle “Its parents, so the experts say, was the Branle [6], a favorite dance for centuries at the Royal Court in France.” Austin continues, “Monarchs and princes, dukes and duchesses and courtiers of all degrees, clad in cloth of gold and precious stones, went through paces but slightly removed from the Charleston routine of a musical comedy hoofer of today.” This claim had been previously made by Leo Staats, director of the ballet at the National Opera in Paris. At the 48^th annual convention of the American Society of Dancing Teachers in New York in June 1926, Staats stated, “It [the Charleston] showed plainly the influence of the Moyen Age when Le Greves, pas tortilles, pas levees, ru de vache and the Bransles [6] were in vogue.”

The Charleston was also banned in several cities in the US and around the world ostensibly because of building safety considerations. After a roof collapsed in the Pickwick Dance Club in Boston, MA on July 4, 1925 during a Charleston dance and killed 44 people, dancing to the rhythm of the Charleston was viewed as too dangerous and was banned in several cities. As reported in the New York Times of August 30, 1925, the Charleston dance was banned in halls of Passaic, New Jersey by the Chief of Police with the backing of the Supervisor of the Bureau of Buildings. The supervisor claimed that “old type halls were not strong enough to stand up under the strain of the Charleston.” “The Charleston is all right morally, so far as I know,” added the chief.” In contrast, the Buffalo city inspector justified the ban on the basis of both safety and moral reasons: according to the Schenectady Gazette of November 21, 1925 the chief declared, “The physical being of the young upstarts may be shattered with their morals through the agency of the Charleston.” A ban was also implemented in Concord, NH because the dance halls could not withstand the “strain caused by the Charleston.” An exception to the ban on dancing the Charleston in Berlin was made for a restaurant built 365 feet above ground near the top of the radio tower of a German radio corporation. This was reported in the New York Times of September 8, 1926 with the headline “Charleston Tower to Immortalize Charleston.”

Fatal accidents and illnesses were associated with the Charleston. Sixteen-year old Arthur Tessier, a Charleston contest winner, danced the Charleston in a rowboat in the St. Charles River, MI while seven youngsters aged 13-16 in the boat clapped and sang. The boy lost balance, toppled, and caused the boat to capsize. Seven of the boys and girls drowned. [10] A physician blamed the death of Evelyn Myers, 17, of Seneca, KS to her “dancing the Charleston.” The physician declared that “the extreme physical exercise of the Charleston is particularly dangerous for young women and that it may easily induce inflammation of the peritoneum.” [11] In the case of Geneva Tully, 16, of Cincinnati, OH, who died of heart disease following her Charleston contest win, the headline in the June 6, 1926 issue of the New York Times proclaimed “Charleston Caused Death.” A Paris physician described the problems of thousands of patients, caused by bending the knees sideways, as “the Charleston Knee.” [12]

In spite of all the negative press, composers, record producing companies, and music publishers made serious efforts to capitalize on the success of the Charleston. Several songs had the word “Charleston” in the title; for example, Charleston Mad, I’m Going to Charleston Back to Charleston, Charleston Stampede, Charleston Geechie Dance, Charleston Crazy, Charleston Clarinet Blues, etc. At least two songs were described as “Charleston Swing songs”: Sweet Georgia Brown composed in 1925 by Ben Bernie, Kenneth Casey and Maceo Pinkard, and Sweet Man composed in 1925 by Maceo Pinkard and Roy Turk. Thinking of You, composed in 1926 by Walter Donaldson and Paul Ash, was a ballad foxtrot; however, when Julian Fuhs band recorded it for Elektrola EG 457, the tune is described on the record label as a “Charleston.” Two legendary actresses started their careers as Charleston Dance Contest winners. Fourteen-year old Ginger Rogers won the Texas State Charleston contest in 1925 and Joan Crawford won her first Charleston contest in a café in Kansas City in 1924. A Charleston contest took place in front of the St. Louis City Hall on November 13, 1925.

In 1957, Thelonious Monk, while listening to one of his solos, remarked, “That sounds like James P. Johnson.” A year later, Dick Wellstood wrote, “Strangely enough, Monk does sound like James P. from time to time, and so do Fats, Basie, Tatum and Duke (as well as Willie Gant and Q. Roscoe Snowden). Since James P. has had such a strong influence on so many well-known pianists, it is amazing that most people have never heard of him.” [5] With Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson is one of the early, seminal jazz and ragtime pianists. James P. Johnson is known as “the father of stride piano” because he developed this style of playing in Harlem, New York in the 1910s. Willie “The Lion” Smith, Luckey Roberts and Fats Waller were other master practitioners of the stride piano.

Composer, author and publisher, Cecil Mack was described as a genius in an account of the success of The Blackbirds in the Moulin Rouge in Paris, France. [13] “We understand that the whole [the Blackbirds Choir] is the work and the design of Cecil McPherson. Mr. McPherson is a genius. A genius is one who, after intense study and effort of penetration into the very soul of things, evolves something new. One leading paper said that the Cecil Mack’s Choir opened new visions of Negro art.”

Several Broadway shows featured songs with lyrics written by Cecil Mack: The Southerners (1904), Mrs. Black Is Back (1905), Marrying Mary (1906), Bandanna Land (1908), His Honor the Barber (1911), Runnin’ Wild (1923-24), Kilpatrick’s All Time Minstrels (1930). The Cecil Mack’s Choir participated in Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds (1930) and Rhapsody in Black (1931). The latter, a Lew Leslie production, was a musical revue billed as a “jazz concert.” The lyrics and music were by J. Rosamond Johnson, Cecil Mack, W. C. Handy, George Gershwin, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. Cecil Mack made the vocal arrangements for the spirituals and folk songs and led his Cecil Mack’s Choir. [15] Two of the stars of the show were Ethel Waters and Valaida.

According to George Johnson, tenor saxophonist of the Wolverine Orchestra (that included Bix Beiderbecke), the Charleston began its popularity in September 1924 at the Cinderella Ballroom.[16]

I have not been able to find confirmation of George Johnson’s claim. But I will point out that Pee Wee Russell stated, “I remember they used to have a Sunday afternoon thing at the Arcadia Ballroom. Ordinarily, the band would complain about the extra work, but Bix would really look forward to it. He said he liked to see the kids dance. He liked to watch them do things like the Charleston. He said he liked it because the kids had a fine sense of rhythm. And in their way, the kids knew what Bix was doing. They knew he was doing something different because he made them want to dance.”[17]

[1] Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance by Marshall and Jean Stearns, Da Capo Press; 2nd edition, 1994. For a detailed report on several accounts as to how the Charleston was incorporated into Runnin’ Wild, see The Wicked Waltz and Other Scandalous Dances: Outrage at Couple Dancing in the 19th and Early 20th centuries by Mark Knowles, McFarland, 2009.

[2] Jazz From The Beginning by Garvin Bushell, Da Capo Press, 1998.

[3] Tom Davin, "Conversations with James P. Johnson," The Jazz Review, Vol. 2, No. 5 (June, 1959).

[4] Negro Folk Music U.S.A. by Harold Courlander, Dover Publications, 1992.

[5] Dick Wellstood, “Review of W. C. Handy Blues. Sung by his Daughter Katharine Handy Lewis. Accompanied by James P. Johnson. Folkways FG3540,” The Jazz Review, Vol 1, No. 2 (December, 1958).

[6] The dance is spelled “Bransle” or “Branle” in different sources.

[7] The New York Times, October 8, 1926.

[8] The New York Times, January 28, 1927.

[9] The New York Times, May 15, 1926.

[10] The New York Times, June 21, 1926.

[11] The New York Times, February 16, 1926.

[12] The New York Times, April 29, 1928.

[13] New York Amsterdam News, July 31, 1929.

[14] The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 79-112.

[15] A Century of Musicals in Black and White: An Encyclopedia of Musical Stage Works By, About, or Involving African Americans by Bernard L. Petersen, Greenwood Press, 1993.

[16] The Wolverine Days by George Johnson, in Swing Music, Fall 1936.

[17] Chapter by Charles Edward Smith in The Jazz Makers, edited by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Greenwood Press, 1957.