JITTERBUG DANCE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 40, 14 January 1944, Page 8

JITTERBUG DANCE

BANNED IN LONDON AMERICAN SERVICEMEN Jitterbug dancing—l 943 liotted-up version of the Charleston —has just been banned at Covcnt Garden, London's greatest dance hall. Notices have been put up in the hall : "No jitterbugging allowed." Hundreds of American soldiers used to go to Covent Garden every afternoon and evening to practise jitterbugging with English girls. ' They threw their partners around in such jitterbug frenzies that other dancers complained of bruises andinj,unes. That is the reason for the ban. West End restaurants have also turned jitterbug dancers, off the floors. Restaurant managers have approached men and women who started kicking their heels around, and told them to dance in normal fashion or leave the floor., I was told at Hammersmith Palais de Dansc, one of England's biggest popular dance halls, that they, too, have banned persistent jitterbugs, says a Daily Mail reporter. "We have given them several warnings and now Ave re J use them admittance,/' said the manager. He stated, however, that the "Jive," a milder form of the jitterbug, is to be allowed at Hammersmith. Suburban dance halls report that most of their customers are disgusted by jitterbugs. "We have had 600 protests about 10 couples who do it," the manager of one said. American soldiers in London protested against the ban. <Ther,c'?; no harm in it„ and there is a lot of healthy exercise in jitterbugging," they said. Jitterbugging started in America Avhcn Benny Goodman rose to fame. Just asi Red Nicholls and his Five Pennies. Mill' Mole, Eddie Lang, Dixie Biederbeck and Joe Venuti contributed to the. great Charleston wave of 1926, so the clarinet playing of Benny Goodman sent the New York boys and girls dancing in the theatre aisles whenever he appeared. There wasn't much room to dance in the aisles,, so they just stood still and threw their legs about. Since the war more sentimental music after the old-fashioned foxtrot style, with crooners like Frank SinaLra, have, led to a decline m jitterbugging in' America.