Let's Dance (radio)
Encyclopedia
Let's Dance was a Saturday night radio music program broadcast by NBC
in the mid-1930s.
Sponsored by the National Biscuit Company
(initially to promote their new Ritz Crackers
), it aired for three full hours, starting at 10:30pm on the East Coast. This late-night timeslot gave the program a much larger audience on the West Coast when heard earlier in the evening. Let's Dance was a five-hour broadcast from New York, yet calculated so that all time zones heard three hours of music. The East Coast and Central Time zones got only the first three hours. Mountain Time zone listeners tuned into the second, third and fourth hours. Hours three, four and five were heard on the West Coast.
The series premiered December 1, 1934, showcasing three different regular bands. The mellow music of Kel Murray (a pseudonym for Murray Kellner) and the Latin rhythms of Xavier Cugat
made Benny Goodman
's group stand out as "downright thrilling," according to George Simon. It was a turning point for Goodman, who had more than 70 Fletcher Henderson
swing arrangements by the time Let's Dance went off the air May 25, 1935. Despite its popularity, the program abruptly ended due to a labor dispute involving Nabisco employees, with the company temporarily discontinuing all of their sponsored radio shows as a result. However, because of the expense involved in sustaining Let's Dance, Nabisco decided not to renew the series for another season.
Goodman based his theme song for this program on Invitation to the Dance
, a piano piece by Carl Maria von Weber
.
George Spink, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, described the crucial role of Let's Dance in launching Goodman as the "King of Swing":
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in the mid-1930s.
Sponsored by the National Biscuit Company
Nabisco
Nabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks. Headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey, the company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Kraft Foods. Nabisco's plant in Chicago, a production facility at 7300 S...
(initially to promote their new Ritz Crackers
Ritz Crackers
Ritz Crackers are a brand of snack cracker introduced by Nabisco in 1934. Outside of the United States, the Ritz Cracker brand is made by a subsidiary of Kraft Foods. They are circular in shape, salted lightly on one side, and have a small scalloped edge...
), it aired for three full hours, starting at 10:30pm on the East Coast. This late-night timeslot gave the program a much larger audience on the West Coast when heard earlier in the evening. Let's Dance was a five-hour broadcast from New York, yet calculated so that all time zones heard three hours of music. The East Coast and Central Time zones got only the first three hours. Mountain Time zone listeners tuned into the second, third and fourth hours. Hours three, four and five were heard on the West Coast.
The series premiered December 1, 1934, showcasing three different regular bands. The mellow music of Kel Murray (a pseudonym for Murray Kellner) and the Latin rhythms of Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...
made Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
's group stand out as "downright thrilling," according to George Simon. It was a turning point for Goodman, who had more than 70 Fletcher Henderson
Fletcher Henderson
James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast...
swing arrangements by the time Let's Dance went off the air May 25, 1935. Despite its popularity, the program abruptly ended due to a labor dispute involving Nabisco employees, with the company temporarily discontinuing all of their sponsored radio shows as a result. However, because of the expense involved in sustaining Let's Dance, Nabisco decided not to renew the series for another season.
Goodman based his theme song for this program on Invitation to the Dance
Invitation to the Dance (Weber)
Invitation to the Dance , Op. 65, J. 260, is a piano piece in rondo form written by Carl Maria von Weber in 1819. It is also well known in the 1841 orchestration by Hector Berlioz...
, a piano piece by Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
.
George Spink, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, described the crucial role of Let's Dance in launching Goodman as the "King of Swing":
- Willard Alexander, who died in 1984, was the band's booking agent in 1935. He had placed his job on the line at the Music Corporation of America (MCA) by representing Goodman. In 1978, Alexander spent an afternoon with me at his New York office recalling the problems Goodman faced during the summer of 1935... In early 1935, Goodman and his struggling band had been one of three orchestras featured on NBC’s Saturday night Let’s Dance radio program. Xavier Cugat’s Latin orchestra and Kel Murray’s society orchestra dominated the first two "live" hours; Goodman was not heard until the last hour, late in the evening on the East Coast.
- Other big bands such as Guy LombardoGuy LombardoGaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
’s and Glen GrayGlen GrayGlen Gray Knoblauch, better known as Glen Gray, was a jazz saxophonist and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra....
’s already enjoyed nationwide popularity. But they were patterned after the so-called hotel bands and played a pleasant, innocuous, "sweet style" of music... Between the end of the Let's Dance series in May 1935 and the band’s opening at the Congress, Benny Goodman and his orchestra suffered one defeat after another.In August, however, they scored a triumph at the Palomar in Los Angeles, a prelude of what was to happen at the Congress... The discouraged Goodman band opened August 21 for a three-week stay at the Palomar on Vermont and Third in Hollywood. Goodman started the evening cautiously, playing some stock arrangements he had purchased on the trip. The Palomar crowd seemed as indifferent to the band as the other audiences had been that summer. According to Alexander, Goodman's drummer, Gene KrupaGene KrupaGene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...
, said, "If we're gonna die, Benny, let's die playing our own thing." At the beginning of the next set, Goodman told the band to put aside the stock arrangements and called for charts by Fletcher Henderson and other "swing" arrangers who were writing for the band. When the band’s trumpeter, Bunny BeriganBunny BeriganRowland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan was an American jazz trumpeter who rose to fame during the swing era, but whose virtuosity and influence were shortened by a losing battle with alcoholism that ended in his early death at age 33. He composed the jazz instrumentals "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues"...
, played his solos on Henderson’s versions of "Sometimes I'm Happy" and "King Porter Stomp," the Palomar dancers cheered like crazy and exploded with applause! They even gathered around the bandstand to listen to this new music.
- Radio had made the difference. Earlier that year, the crowd at the Palomar had heard Goodman’s band on the Let's Dance program. The coastal time difference enabled West Coast listeners to hear Goodman beginning at 9pm, three hours earlier than listeners on the East Coast heard the show. And a West Coast disc jockey, Al Jarvis, had been playing Goodman’s recordings on his shows. The Palomar audience had been groomed for Benny Goodman and His Orchestra. Radio broadcasts from the Palomar sent the excitement from coast to coast--including Goodman's hometown, Chicago.