Golden Age of Swing
Sunnybrook was home to the best of the big bands
The (Pottstown) Mercury/October 1, 2000
By C.D. Six
Mercury Graphics Editor
Like the rock and roll era which followed it, the big bands were synonymous with the era of the 20th century in which they dominated. Few could mistake the rollicking outgrowth of Dixieland which ushered in the popularity of early bands as the soundtrack of the 1920s.
This pre-swing era featured notables like Paul Whiteman, whose band's popularity led him to record the debut of Rhapsody in Blue with composer/pianist George Gershwin at the keys. It was a period which also saw the birth of groups which strayed away from structure and absorbed more of a jazz feel, allowing soloists the freedom to create and improvise -- groups such as those led by Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, as well as groups which would spawn some of the great bands, bandleaders and musicians of the 1930s -- the golden age of swing.
Music which had personified the high living of the roaring '20s gave way to a new kind of sound after the stock market crash which ushered in the Depression. This music, as Metronome magazine editor and Big Band aficionado George T. Simon describes in his book The Big Bands, "searched for security." It was this search that gave rise to the dance band, as the country searched for "romance, sentiment and escape."
Early bands like the Casa Loma Orchestra blended up-tempo tunes with well-arranged ballads that lured kids to the dance halls. In 1934, Benny Goodman put together a band that in 1935 secured a spot on a national radio show, introducing this brand of music to the country and clearing the way for other musicians who had manned the bands of the '20s to form their own groups.
From the early bands came Artie Shaw, Bunny Berigan, Count Basie and Glenn Miller. These groups gave birth to even more bandleaders with names like Gene Krupa and Harry James. Bandleaders with identifiable sounds became successful, and began traveling the country to play to their expanding audiences.
An 'A' room is built
It was with that in mind that Pottstown's Sunnybrook, which had been founded in 1926 by Raymond C. Hartenstine and Harry W. Buchert, opened up its famous ballroom, which dates back to 1931.
During the 1930s and 1940s, the Brook, as it was often referred, rose to prominence as one of the country's great dance floors. All the big name bands played the Brook, and fans flocked from all over the region to see the bands of Glenn Miller, the Dorseys and Benny Goodman.
"Sunnybrook was what was considered on the circuit as an 'A' room -- top level," said Jim Wardrop, a Reading radio personality and member of the Swing Fever Dance Band, a non-profit band of volunteers that frequents the ballroom. "They had the choice of the big name bands, and all the big bands played there."
That choice included all the major bands of the era -- not just the white bands.
"Raymond Hartenstine was very proud of the fact that they constantly featured the top black bands of the era," said Wardrop. "Basie, Armstrong, Lunceford, they all played there."
Legend has it that Tommy Dorsey's Pied Pipers first introduced "On the Sunny Side of the Street" with the orchestra on the Sunnybrook stage, complete with a young singer from Hoboken, N.J. who would go on to some fame of his own, Frank Sinatra. Sinatra had actually visited the ballroom in his pre-Dorsey days with Harry James.
"We saw most all of the bands," remembers Marie Maurer, who frequented the ballroom in its heyday. "I remember seeing Harry James and Vaughn Monroe. We would like to sit in the balcony, and I remember that the gentlemen would take off their jackets for us to sit on. We went down for many years. I was very fortunate. A lot of 16-year-old boys didn't have cars then, they would have to borrow."
The dance floor dominated the ballroom at Sunnybrook, and was made of Norwegian maple.
"The floor was hand-laid, strip by strip," said Wardrop.
The large floor was considered one of the rooms to attractions.
"That was a great dance floor," said Maurer. "It was always a neat dance floor."
In a story of the ballroom, "Let's Head for the Brook!", Wardrop described what one could expect at a night at Sunnybrook.
"No liquor was served -- just soft drinks and soda fountain treats. The dress code required a jacket and tie for the guys, and nice dresses for the girls. Zoot suits were often seen on the jitterbugs and gators around the bandstand."
The admission age for the ballroom was 18, with tickets costing around 75 cents for the big-name bands of the day. Dances usually ran from 8:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., with bands playing 45 minute sets.
"Everything was first class," said Wardrop. "They ran a first class operation."
Area musician and father of the Boyertown music program Arlen Saylor remembered some of traffic that Sunnybrook pulled in on Saturday nights.
"I spent many an hour at Sunnybrook from the time that I could afford to get in. An awful lot of bands played here," he said. "Every Saturday they would have name bands. I remember as a kid watching them come in when I was at the pool, and I remember late at night hearing the long stream of traffic coming out and going down High Street."
It was not uncommon for people from as far as Philadelphia to pack into their cars or ride the rail to see their favorite bands at the venue.
"They would jam as many people as they could into cars and pool their gas money to get to the ballroom," said Wardrop.
In cold weather the crowds that packed the ballroom would throw their winter clothes into piles on the floor in the corners of the room. When Glenn Miller played the ballroom during his last civilian tour in 1942, the ballroom was so crowded that everyone stood in place for a lack of room to dance. It is rumored that on a crowded night, "crowd surfing" was invented so that patrons could use the restrooms, long before it became popular at rock concerts in the 1990s.
While the dance floor and ballroom itself had everything an audience could ask for, the amenities for the bands were not quite as enchanting.
"It certainly was not glamorous backstage," said Wardrop. "It was very much 'hang your suit on a nail' or change in the bus."
End of the big band's dominance
As the 1930s drew to a close and the 1940s began, swing bands like Goodman's and sweet bands like Kay Kyser's played the country's theaters, night clubs, and hotels and frequented ballrooms like Sunnybrook. They recording the sounds which remain today and dominated the major radio networks, but as war hit America, the bands suffered the first of several blows which would lead to their passing the popular music torch to vocalists.
Glenn Miller's famous enlistment into the service and death during the war is only one example of the contribution that the nation's bandleaders and musicians made to the war effort, as men like Shaw and Claude Thornhill donned military uniforms. Others played with USO units in civilian clothes.
But gas rationing and amusement taxes began to make it difficult for fans to go to venues to see the bands, and a shortage of musicians often led to inferior bands and music stateside. In 1942, a recording strike brought the industry to a standstill, and helped lead to the birth of vocalist, who stepped out from in front of the bands and developed personalities of their own. Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee led those who began to leave the band behind.
The end of the war brought back the good musicians, and the big bands enjoyed a resurgence, but the damage had been done. The population's taste had moved on to the new sounds, and musicians began to become more interested to the new, less-danceable, jazz-inspired sounds of the 1950s.
The rise of bands like Stan Kenton's, and the transformation of bands like Count Basie's, led to the end of the Big Bands' dominance of popular music a mere handful of years after it began. In one month in 1946, eight of the nation's top bandleaders broke up their bands. Few could afford the high cost of maintaining a band on the new playing field.
A reference for music history survives
The music and the public's tastes had changed, but the area continued to draw big-name bands.
"Hartenstine was very close to Benny Goodman, and in fact they had a joint venture in horse racing," said Wardrop. "When the movie came out about Benny Goodman, Goodman put a band together to tour. When the band played the ballroom during the movie, the state police wad to come to manage the traffic."
One of the famous features of the ballroom is the back stage wall which reveals so much history. Much of it is gone or covered over now, but the walls still reveal that the Kenton and James bands were among those that continued to appear at the Brook. Count Basie's band could still draw a crowd, and Louis Armstrong continued to appear at the ballroom until his death.
"Thank goodness they continued to book the bands that were still playing," saaid Saylor
Saylor had an orchestra for Sunnybrook that was formed in 1960. The house orchestra, it would alternate weekends with the name bands which continued to come to the ballroom and broadcast on live radio in Philadelphia.
Musicians spawned by and drawn to region
The area's contribution to music was not limited only to the ballroom. Musicians with roots to the region included Les Brown, and Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Goodman maintained a house in the area.
One of Pottstown's most famous sons, the late Al Grey, played with Count Basie as well as with his own groups.
"Al Grey and I went to school together," said Saylor. "We lost a giant in the business this year. Al was a close friend."
Today the region still supplies fine musicians. Boyertown's Dave Stahl has performed with notables like Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Mel Torme, and most recently served as Liza Minelli's lead trumpeter as well as leading his own band. Grey was considered one of the virtuosos of his instrument, the trombone, and can be heard on over a hundred recordings.
The big bands still exist and visit the region with regularity. "Ghost bands," which play the music of the leaders they were formed under, continue to travel the country, and young musicians like Pottstown's Dylan Schwab, who plays with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, fill the chairs.
Jazz legends still make frequent stops in the area as well, with the Count Basie Orchestra and Maynard Ferguson among those who often stop at local high schools and colleges to give workshops on today's big band jazz, and to play concerts.
Swinging into a new millennium
Swing, too, has made a comeback. Harry Connick Jr.'s big band stylings emerged in the late 1980s due largely to his involvement in the film, "When Harry met Sally...", and a recent television commercial featured the Brian Setzer Orchestra's big band cover of Louis Prima's smash "Jump, Jive an' Wail." Smaller bands playing swing, reminiscent of Prima's "wild, cool and swingin'" groups of the 1950s, have had kids flocking to small swing clubs around the region.
And ballrooms still put on old-time shows featuring comedy, music and dancing, with somewhat less frequency than it did in its heyday. At Sunnybrook, the dinner dances are often played by area non-profit bands, which use the procedes to maintain the band and support causes like music education and the National World War II Memorial. Bands including Swing Fever, as well as the latest band formed by Saylor.
Built through Boyertown alumni, Saylor's band is a non-profit organization that will soon have dancers turning on the Sunnybrook dance floor once more, all to help support music and music education.
"I formed the new big band in the Boyertown area to support the music department and the music league of Boyertown," he said. "Were playing in November to help the alumni marching unit on its trip to Disney World."
The Hartenstine family owned the ballroom, the pool that was built in 1926, and the surrounding acreage for some 200 years before selling the property in 1998.
Though the ownership has changed, the ballroom remains a window into the past.
"It is remarkably well preserved," said Wardrop.
Some of the surrounding property has been sold into development, and a new restaurant has been added to the facility, but the historic landmark which is the Sunnybrook Ballroom remains much the same as it was when the legends that signed its backstage wall played it.
"We are fortunate to have Sunnybrook," said Saylor. "We are lucky to have that facility so close. Sunnybrook is a big reference for music history.
Though popular music has passed the big bands by, it endures, whether it be through professional musicians coming into the schools to put on workshops for students, or non-profit band members who simply play for the love of the music.
Thanks to the efforts of these musicians, they still have the opportunity to play the Brook, and scribble their names next to those of famous bands from the Big Band era on the backstage wall, becoming part of the legacy they help to perpetuate.
Sunnybrook was home to the best of the big bands
The (Pottstown) Mercury/October 1, 2000
By C.D. Six
Mercury Graphics Editor
Like the rock and roll era which followed it, the big bands were synonymous with the era of the 20th century in which they dominated. Few could mistake the rollicking outgrowth of Dixieland which ushered in the popularity of early bands as the soundtrack of the 1920s.
This pre-swing era featured notables like Paul Whiteman, whose band's popularity led him to record the debut of Rhapsody in Blue with composer/pianist George Gershwin at the keys. It was a period which also saw the birth of groups which strayed away from structure and absorbed more of a jazz feel, allowing soloists the freedom to create and improvise -- groups such as those led by Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, as well as groups which would spawn some of the great bands, bandleaders and musicians of the 1930s -- the golden age of swing.
Music which had personified the high living of the roaring '20s gave way to a new kind of sound after the stock market crash which ushered in the Depression. This music, as Metronome magazine editor and Big Band aficionado George T. Simon describes in his book The Big Bands, "searched for security." It was this search that gave rise to the dance band, as the country searched for "romance, sentiment and escape."
Early bands like the Casa Loma Orchestra blended up-tempo tunes with well-arranged ballads that lured kids to the dance halls. In 1934, Benny Goodman put together a band that in 1935 secured a spot on a national radio show, introducing this brand of music to the country and clearing the way for other musicians who had manned the bands of the '20s to form their own groups.
From the early bands came Artie Shaw, Bunny Berigan, Count Basie and Glenn Miller. These groups gave birth to even more bandleaders with names like Gene Krupa and Harry James. Bandleaders with identifiable sounds became successful, and began traveling the country to play to their expanding audiences.
An 'A' room is built
It was with that in mind that Pottstown's Sunnybrook, which had been founded in 1926 by Raymond C. Hartenstine and Harry W. Buchert, opened up its famous ballroom, which dates back to 1931.
During the 1930s and 1940s, the Brook, as it was often referred, rose to prominence as one of the country's great dance floors. All the big name bands played the Brook, and fans flocked from all over the region to see the bands of Glenn Miller, the Dorseys and Benny Goodman.
"Sunnybrook was what was considered on the circuit as an 'A' room -- top level," said Jim Wardrop, a Reading radio personality and member of the Swing Fever Dance Band, a non-profit band of volunteers that frequents the ballroom. "They had the choice of the big name bands, and all the big bands played there."
That choice included all the major bands of the era -- not just the white bands.
"Raymond Hartenstine was very proud of the fact that they constantly featured the top black bands of the era," said Wardrop. "Basie, Armstrong, Lunceford, they all played there."
Legend has it that Tommy Dorsey's Pied Pipers first introduced "On the Sunny Side of the Street" with the orchestra on the Sunnybrook stage, complete with a young singer from Hoboken, N.J. who would go on to some fame of his own, Frank Sinatra. Sinatra had actually visited the ballroom in his pre-Dorsey days with Harry James.
"We saw most all of the bands," remembers Marie Maurer, who frequented the ballroom in its heyday. "I remember seeing Harry James and Vaughn Monroe. We would like to sit in the balcony, and I remember that the gentlemen would take off their jackets for us to sit on. We went down for many years. I was very fortunate. A lot of 16-year-old boys didn't have cars then, they would have to borrow."
The dance floor dominated the ballroom at Sunnybrook, and was made of Norwegian maple.
"The floor was hand-laid, strip by strip," said Wardrop.
The large floor was considered one of the rooms to attractions.
"That was a great dance floor," said Maurer. "It was always a neat dance floor."
In a story of the ballroom, "Let's Head for the Brook!", Wardrop described what one could expect at a night at Sunnybrook.
"No liquor was served -- just soft drinks and soda fountain treats. The dress code required a jacket and tie for the guys, and nice dresses for the girls. Zoot suits were often seen on the jitterbugs and gators around the bandstand."
The admission age for the ballroom was 18, with tickets costing around 75 cents for the big-name bands of the day. Dances usually ran from 8:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., with bands playing 45 minute sets.
"Everything was first class," said Wardrop. "They ran a first class operation."
Area musician and father of the Boyertown music program Arlen Saylor remembered some of traffic that Sunnybrook pulled in on Saturday nights.
"I spent many an hour at Sunnybrook from the time that I could afford to get in. An awful lot of bands played here," he said. "Every Saturday they would have name bands. I remember as a kid watching them come in when I was at the pool, and I remember late at night hearing the long stream of traffic coming out and going down High Street."
It was not uncommon for people from as far as Philadelphia to pack into their cars or ride the rail to see their favorite bands at the venue.
"They would jam as many people as they could into cars and pool their gas money to get to the ballroom," said Wardrop.
In cold weather the crowds that packed the ballroom would throw their winter clothes into piles on the floor in the corners of the room. When Glenn Miller played the ballroom during his last civilian tour in 1942, the ballroom was so crowded that everyone stood in place for a lack of room to dance. It is rumored that on a crowded night, "crowd surfing" was invented so that patrons could use the restrooms, long before it became popular at rock concerts in the 1990s.
While the dance floor and ballroom itself had everything an audience could ask for, the amenities for the bands were not quite as enchanting.
"It certainly was not glamorous backstage," said Wardrop. "It was very much 'hang your suit on a nail' or change in the bus."
End of the big band's dominance
As the 1930s drew to a close and the 1940s began, swing bands like Goodman's and sweet bands like Kay Kyser's played the country's theaters, night clubs, and hotels and frequented ballrooms like Sunnybrook. They recording the sounds which remain today and dominated the major radio networks, but as war hit America, the bands suffered the first of several blows which would lead to their passing the popular music torch to vocalists.
Glenn Miller's famous enlistment into the service and death during the war is only one example of the contribution that the nation's bandleaders and musicians made to the war effort, as men like Shaw and Claude Thornhill donned military uniforms. Others played with USO units in civilian clothes.
But gas rationing and amusement taxes began to make it difficult for fans to go to venues to see the bands, and a shortage of musicians often led to inferior bands and music stateside. In 1942, a recording strike brought the industry to a standstill, and helped lead to the birth of vocalist, who stepped out from in front of the bands and developed personalities of their own. Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee led those who began to leave the band behind.
The end of the war brought back the good musicians, and the big bands enjoyed a resurgence, but the damage had been done. The population's taste had moved on to the new sounds, and musicians began to become more interested to the new, less-danceable, jazz-inspired sounds of the 1950s.
The rise of bands like Stan Kenton's, and the transformation of bands like Count Basie's, led to the end of the Big Bands' dominance of popular music a mere handful of years after it began. In one month in 1946, eight of the nation's top bandleaders broke up their bands. Few could afford the high cost of maintaining a band on the new playing field.
A reference for music history survives
The music and the public's tastes had changed, but the area continued to draw big-name bands.
"Hartenstine was very close to Benny Goodman, and in fact they had a joint venture in horse racing," said Wardrop. "When the movie came out about Benny Goodman, Goodman put a band together to tour. When the band played the ballroom during the movie, the state police wad to come to manage the traffic."
One of the famous features of the ballroom is the back stage wall which reveals so much history. Much of it is gone or covered over now, but the walls still reveal that the Kenton and James bands were among those that continued to appear at the Brook. Count Basie's band could still draw a crowd, and Louis Armstrong continued to appear at the ballroom until his death.
"Thank goodness they continued to book the bands that were still playing," saaid Saylor
Saylor had an orchestra for Sunnybrook that was formed in 1960. The house orchestra, it would alternate weekends with the name bands which continued to come to the ballroom and broadcast on live radio in Philadelphia.
Musicians spawned by and drawn to region
The area's contribution to music was not limited only to the ballroom. Musicians with roots to the region included Les Brown, and Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Goodman maintained a house in the area.
One of Pottstown's most famous sons, the late Al Grey, played with Count Basie as well as with his own groups.
"Al Grey and I went to school together," said Saylor. "We lost a giant in the business this year. Al was a close friend."
Today the region still supplies fine musicians. Boyertown's Dave Stahl has performed with notables like Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Mel Torme, and most recently served as Liza Minelli's lead trumpeter as well as leading his own band. Grey was considered one of the virtuosos of his instrument, the trombone, and can be heard on over a hundred recordings.
The big bands still exist and visit the region with regularity. "Ghost bands," which play the music of the leaders they were formed under, continue to travel the country, and young musicians like Pottstown's Dylan Schwab, who plays with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, fill the chairs.
Jazz legends still make frequent stops in the area as well, with the Count Basie Orchestra and Maynard Ferguson among those who often stop at local high schools and colleges to give workshops on today's big band jazz, and to play concerts.
Swinging into a new millennium
Swing, too, has made a comeback. Harry Connick Jr.'s big band stylings emerged in the late 1980s due largely to his involvement in the film, "When Harry met Sally...", and a recent television commercial featured the Brian Setzer Orchestra's big band cover of Louis Prima's smash "Jump, Jive an' Wail." Smaller bands playing swing, reminiscent of Prima's "wild, cool and swingin'" groups of the 1950s, have had kids flocking to small swing clubs around the region.
And ballrooms still put on old-time shows featuring comedy, music and dancing, with somewhat less frequency than it did in its heyday. At Sunnybrook, the dinner dances are often played by area non-profit bands, which use the procedes to maintain the band and support causes like music education and the National World War II Memorial. Bands including Swing Fever, as well as the latest band formed by Saylor.
Built through Boyertown alumni, Saylor's band is a non-profit organization that will soon have dancers turning on the Sunnybrook dance floor once more, all to help support music and music education.
"I formed the new big band in the Boyertown area to support the music department and the music league of Boyertown," he said. "Were playing in November to help the alumni marching unit on its trip to Disney World."
The Hartenstine family owned the ballroom, the pool that was built in 1926, and the surrounding acreage for some 200 years before selling the property in 1998.
Though the ownership has changed, the ballroom remains a window into the past.
"It is remarkably well preserved," said Wardrop.
Some of the surrounding property has been sold into development, and a new restaurant has been added to the facility, but the historic landmark which is the Sunnybrook Ballroom remains much the same as it was when the legends that signed its backstage wall played it.
"We are fortunate to have Sunnybrook," said Saylor. "We are lucky to have that facility so close. Sunnybrook is a big reference for music history.
Though popular music has passed the big bands by, it endures, whether it be through professional musicians coming into the schools to put on workshops for students, or non-profit band members who simply play for the love of the music.
Thanks to the efforts of these musicians, they still have the opportunity to play the Brook, and scribble their names next to those of famous bands from the Big Band era on the backstage wall, becoming part of the legacy they help to perpetuate.