In this vignette about Ella Fitzgerald, we learn about her early career and the formative relationship she had with Chick Webb, who played the role of mentor and guardian, as well as bandleader. Using archival footage, new interviews, the words of those who knew her, as well as her own words, this clip gives you a glimpse into the early years of Ella’s career and the people who helped shape it.
THE SAVOY KING is a feature documentary from Floating World Pictures about the Swing-era drummer-bandleader Chick Webb, Ella Fitzgerald, and Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.
THE SAVOY KING is a feature documentary from Floating World Pictures about the Swing-era drummer-bandleader Chick Webb, Ella Fitzgerald, and Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.
Jeff Kaufman is the writer, director and producer of the film, The Savoy King, a feature documentary about Swing-era drummer-bandleader Chick Webb, Ella Fitzgerald, and Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom. In The Savoy King, Kaufman weaves together newly filmed stories from remarkable people who knew Chick Webb at every phase of his life, with quotes from some of the greatest figures in Jazz history. It features Bill Cosby voicing the words of Chick Webb, Tyne Daly as Jazz publicist Helen Oakley Dance, Ron Perlman as Gene Krupa, Andy Garcia as Mario Bauzá, and Danny Glover as Count Basie.
In addition to this project, Kaufman has produced eight short films for Amnesty International, including a video for AI/USA’s new Maternal Mortality campaign, and a profile of former Mexican prisoner of conscience Gen. Jose Gallardo (featuring Edward James Olmos).
Kaufman also produced-directed the feature documentary Brush With Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman. Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of The United States, wrote, “Brush With Life is fascinating . . . I was totally captivated by this film.”
In addition, he has produced, written, and/or directed programs for The Discovery Channel (including a special on the World Trade Center Recovery effort), The History Channel, The Learning Channel, and a documentary on the history of the series COPS. In addition, he produced a video on behalf of Iranian-American political prisoner Haleh Esfandiari (featuring Tyne Daly), the bio-film for the Howard Dean presidential campaign (with director Doug Liman), and a short pro bono film for the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic in New Orleans.
Prior to his documentary work, Kaufman hosted-produced daily political/cultural talk radio programs in Los Angeles and Vermont; contributed cartoons to The New Yorker and illustrations to The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times; wrote and illustrated several children’s books; and exhibited paintings in a number of galleries.
Frankie Manning was a swing-era dance pioneer, who became a master of the Lindy Hop and ultimately revolutionized it with his innovations, including the lindy air step and synchronized ensemble lindy routine.
He began his career in the 1930s in Harlem, as one of the featured dancers at the Savoy Ballroom, and was soon hired as a contract dancer at the famed Cotton Club. He was friends with some of the greatest jazz musicians and singers, including Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, Duke Ellington and Count Basie.
Manning was also a charter member of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, a dance performance team that performed all over and in movies, like Hellzapoppin’ (1941). His dancing brilliance took him on tours of Europe, New Zealand and Australia.
Frankie Manning & Ann Johnson in 1941
Frankie Manning was interviewed shortly before his death for the film THE SAVOY KING. We are grateful to have some wonderful footage of him to include in the final picture.
“If Chick Webb’s story had been a novel, filmmakers would have lined up to option it. Through genius and a fabled will, Chick became a true titan in American music. In telling this remarkable story of an indispensable man, The Savoy King promises to be one of the great musical documentaries of our time.”
~Jazz & Film Critic, Gary Giddins
A GREAT UNTOLD STORY THAT SPEAKS TO TODAY IN MANY WAYS
The Savoy Ballroom was the home of the amazing Lindy Hop dancers, and the first venue in America where Blacks and Whites could dance and socialize together. It had a huge, but largely unheralded social impact. Born fatherless and poor, Chick Webb broke his back, developed spinal tuberculosis, and was a hunchbacked dwarf in constant pain, yet he virtually invented modern drumming and built the hottest band of the 1930s (it was the Savoy Ballroom’s “house band”). Chick was mentored by Duke Ellington, toured with Louis Armstrong, argued with Jelly Roll Morton, jammed with Artie Shaw, married a beautiful dancer, discovered and practically adopted Ella Fitzgerald, beat Benny Goodman and Count Basie in legendary battle of the bands, befriended Mario Bauzá (“The Father of Afro-Cuban Jazz”), groomed and then fired Louis Jordan (the founder of Rhythm & Blues), encouraged a struggling Dizzy Gillespie, and helmed the first Black band to host a national radio show…all before drumming himself to death at age 30.
Chick’s brief, inspiring life illuminates the society-changing power of music, the life-lifting effect of mentoring, a hard-fought breakthrough in racial understanding that reverberates today in many ways, and the ability of everyone (with or without disabilities) to reach beyond their apparent limits.
FEATURING THE VOICES OF:
Bill Cosby as Chick Webb
Tyne Daly as Jazz publicist Helen Oakley Dance
Ron Perlman as Gene Krupa
Andy Garcia as Mario Bauzá
Danny Glover as Count Basie
Keith David as The Savoy Ballroom’s Manager, Charles Buchanan
New Orleans musician Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes as Barney Bigard
Billy Crystal as Mezz Mezzrow
Washington Post Columnist, Eugene Robinson as Teddy McRae
Rolling Stones Drummer, Charlie Watts as Jazz Journalist, Stanley Dance
NEWLY FILMED INTERVIEWS!
Drumming legend Louie Bellson (with his last filmed drum performance), drumming great Roy Haynes (among other things, he does a charming scat version of A-Tisket, A-Tasket), trumpeter / NEA Jazz Master Joe Wilder, playwright-actress Gertrude Jeannette, Swing dance masters Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, Harlem Rens basketball star John Issacs, composer-arranger Van Alexander, longtime Harlem physician Dr. Muriel Petioni, childhood friend Rev. Edward Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald’s son Ray Brown Jr., the son of the Savoy Ballroom’s owner – Dr. Rchard Gale, and Chick’s jazz-loving nephew Brad Rowe.
Stay tuned to learn more about the story of the Savoy Ballroom & its King, Chick Webb. Chick Webb (1905-1939) was one of the greatest jazzband leaders & drummers of the 1930s.
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