Jazz dancing is a worse evil than the saloon and scarlet vice. Abolish jazz music.
The road to hell is too often paved with jazz steps! Those moaning saxophones
and the rest of the instruments with their broken jerky rhythm make a purely
sensual appeal. They call out to the low and rowdy instinct.  
                                                                                                    
                                                          From a 1921 The Ladies'Home Journal article
                                                                              "The Jazz Path Of Degradation’  
Congressman T.S. McMillan of South
Carolina shows Misses Sylvia Clavans
and Ruth Bennett how to do the
‘Charleston’, with the U.S. Capitol
building in the background.
CHARLESTON
by Paul Whiteman & HIs Orchestra
James P. Johnson was the house pianist at the
Harlem night club called The Jungle. In 1913 he
wrote this song for the 'geechies" (Charleston
natives) who frequented the club and taylored
the rhythm to match their distinctive dance
steps. Johnson called it 'doin' the Charleston.'

Paul Whiteman was a white band leader who
helped bring the Harlem dance music into the
white culture. This version of Johnson's  song
was a HUGE hit.
No dance epitomizes the spirit  of the 1920's more than the Charleston. The Charleston was introduced  to the
public in the Ziegfield Follies of 1923 by the all black cast of a show  called "Runnin' Wild."  One of it's features
songs was James P. Johnson's 'Charleston'.

Almost immediately, the Charleston became  immensely popular all across America. Tin Pan Alley churned out
dozens of new  Charleston  tunes. Dance halls and hotels held so many Charleston contests that hospitals
reported increasing numbers of patients who complained  of "Charleston knee." Joan Crawford made her first big
splash as a flapper who won numerous Charleston contests.

Many ballrooms tried to discourage the frenetic Charleston dance all together,or they posted signs that read
"PCQ" - "Please Charleston Quietly."  

  • Did you know that Freddie Green of the Jenkins’ Band had the longest job in jazz music history - fifty years
    with the Count Basie Orchestra?
  • Did you know that during the 1920s Jabbo Smith of the Jenkins’ Band was considered to be the main rival for
    Louis Armstrong?
  • Did you know that Cat Anderson of the Jenkins’ Band is considered the greatest high-note trumpet player in
    jazz by Duke Ellington and Winton Marsalis?
  • Did you know that the dance called the “Charleston” was first
    popularized in New York by a group of rag-tag black orphans from the
    Jenkins’ Orphanage Band in Charleston, South Carolina?
  • Did you know that the Jenkins’ Band appeared on Broadway in the first
    production of the Charleston-based folk opera Porgy and Bess?
T h e  D a n c e  T h a t  D e f i n e d  a  G e n e r a t i o n .
All material © Mark R. Jones, 2008