Sonny Allen’s Savoy Memories
Sonny Allen is a dance legend from the Savoy and Palladium ballrooms and one of the last surviving interpreters of the Savoy style of Swing. In a career spanning over six decades, Allen has mastered and created his own smooth, suave style of mambo, swing, foxtrot and tap dancing. He is also a consummate entertainer who can dance as well as play drums and sing, a rare combination of talents that have made him as much of a philosopher of dance as a great practitioner of the art form. Allen’s family came from Barbados to Harlem in the 1930s, where he grew up in the midst of an inescapable atmosphere of music and dance.
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is honored to share Sonny’s memories of the Savoy Ballroom and his unique first person account of what made the era, the place, the dancing, and the music so special. Sonny’s words paint a rich picture of what it was like to go to the Savoy in its final days.
Photo: Sonny Allen (left) and Talia Castro-Pozo (right) at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem during the Bring in the Jazz Artifact Drive.
Click items below for audio, video, descriptions and stories…
Sonny Allen & The Rockettes, "I Love You Sonny Baby," 1965. Written by George Bazemore.
b/w "Please Be My Love." REO Records 8878X.
Do the dancers follow the band or does the band follow the dancers?
What came first, the chicken or the egg? Now when you’re dancing do the dancers follow
the band or does the band follow the dancers? I did this with Bobby Sanabria when we were in
Massachusetts. We had twenty five musicians. Drummers, conga players, everything. I said, I
just want to find out one thing. What goes first? Everybody kept quiet. What are you talking
about? One’s gotta be before the other. That’s the thing. But you have to hear it.
1959 Apollo Theater Performance
This photo montage comes from Sonny Allen’s performance at the Apollo theater in 1959 just
after he won the 1958 Harvest Moon Ball. By the time of the Apollo performance Sonny Allen
had formed The Rockets with dancer Barbara Billups. Other artists on the bill were The Coasters,
The Falcons (whose lead singer was Wilson Pickett), and the comedians Stump and Stumpy. “We
had a ball,” recalls Allen.
What came first, the chicken or the egg? Now when you’re dancing do the dancers follow
the band or does the band follow the dancers? I did this with Bobby Sanabria when we were in
Massachusetts. We had twenty five musicians. Drummers, conga players, everything. I said, I
just want to find out one thing. What goes first? Everybody kept quiet. What are you talking
about? One’s gotta be before the other. That’s the thing. But you have to hear it.
Harvest Moon Ball
In 1957, Allen began dancing at the Savoy Ballroom just one year before its closing. In that short period
of cutting his teeth with the finest dancers in the world, Sonny Allen won the famous Harvest Moon Ball
Championship at Madison Square Garden in 1958, and began his lasting career as an entertainer, dancer and
musician. Throughout that time Allen has continued to evolve with fresh, new ideas, keeping
improvisation at the heart of his work.
Proclamation from New York State Senator Cordell Cleare
In October of 2023, New York State Senator Cordell Cleare issued a proclamation honoring
Sonny Allen, “Beloved Elder of the Harlem Lindy Hop Dance Community, upon the occasion of
his recognition by the New York Lindy Hop Exchange.”
Sonny Allen Promotional Headshot circa 1980s
If you can’t sing it, it ain’t gonna make no sense down there.
If you can sing it, it makes sense down there. If you can’t sing it, it ain’t gonna
make no since down there. You take Chick Webb Orchestra, as great as he was he played 4/4
time. He played four on the bass foot. Count Basie came along and changed it. He made it 2/4.
So instead of this here, when you do Swing it’s 2/4. Now you’re dealing with 2/4 time. See that’s
the difference between Swing and what they were doing with Chick Webb.
Sonny Allen and the Rockets Promotional Photo, 1960s
This photograph shows Sonny Allen and the Rockets, Allen’s touring group from the late ‘50s
until the early ‘80s. This photograph shows the four original Rockets: including Barbara Billups,
Sugar Sullivan, Marnie, and Lovey.
Sonny Allen Performing at Club Broadway, 1980s
The Club Broadway was one of the hot spots of New York City’s Latin dance scene in the 1980s
where Sonny Allen regularly performed.
Savoy Ballroom, 1941
Since the closing of the Savoy Ballroom over 65 years ago, memories of dancers like Sonny Allen transport us to
the bygone era of the Savoy, Harlem’s “Home of Happy Feet.” From 1926 to 1958, the Savoy was Harlem’s pride and joy,
a palatial ballroom that stretched an entire city block from 140th to 1941st streets. At the Savoy, audiences
from around the world came to dance to some of the greatest bands of all time including those of Fess Williams,
Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Teddy Hill, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lucky Millinder, Benny Goodman, Jay
McShann, the Savoy Sultans and so many more.
The Savoy was like something you can never understand.
The Savoy was like something you can never understand. You had no fights in the
Savoy. They had a guy by the name of Speed, he was the manager. Anytime a guy tried to start
something, he would go up to them and next thing I know the guy would be tip toeing down the
stairs. I asked what happened? He said, I’ll show you what we do. We don’t hit nobody. You
know what we do? We go up there and see these guys, take this hand, put it between there legs
and just tip them down the stairs. They did have no problems. Charles Buchanan made sure that
you had no problems.
The Savoy was the first place that had continuous music.
The Savoy was the first place that had continuous music. When the band played the last
number, the next played a number. Like that. You set up downstairs. You didn’t set up on the
bandstand. The Savoy was known for that. People from all over the world came to Savoy. When
you talked about the Savoy, that was it.
Promotional Portrait of Sonny Allen, 1980s
They never moved sh*t!
They said they were going to move the Savoy on the other side of the street. They never
moved sh*t. They tore it down and said they were going to move it. Never happened.
Club Broadway Spectacular Flier, 1982
This flier comes from Sonny Allen’s birthday show at the Club Broadway at Broadway and 96th
streets on August 27, 1982. Also performing was Jose Alberto aka El Canario
Sonny Allen dancing with Margaret Batiuchok at Club Broadway, circa 1980s
Sonny Allen Certificate of Recognition from the City of New York
In 2023 Mayor Eric Adams presented Sonny Allen with a certificate of recognition for his
“contributions to our dynamic cultural landscape.”
The Rockets Promotional Photograph, 1970s
"The Rockets" (not to be confused with The Rockettes) became a trio by the late 1960s. The
members in this photograph are (left to right) Sugar Sullivan, Barbara Billups and “Little Bit.”
Each of the members of The Rockets made their own costumes.
We used to call them Kitchen Mechanics.
The best night at the Savoy was Thursday. We used to called it Kitchen Mechanics night.
See in those days, a lot of your girls came to the Savoy came from down south, Georgia,
Virginia. They came up north to get a job. The jobs they had was working out in the houses in
Long Island. We used to call them Kitchen Mechanics. They only had one night off. So what
they did, they used to take the train into Grand Central, and then come to Harlem. Now, if you
had a little thing and you had a car, you would go downtown, see them, put them in the car, and
take them to Harlem. They didn’t go no place, so they had money and they wanted to party. On
Thursdays they had more women than others, because Kitchen Mechanics nights.
Esquire Show Bar, Montreal, 1960s
In the 1960s, the Esquire Show Bar was one of the most popular nightclubs in Montreal where
acts like the Isley Brothers and the Supremes regularly appeared. Sonny Allen played there in the
same period.
Sonny Allen and the Rockets at the Esquire Show Bar, 1960s
This photograph shows Sonny Allen and the Rockets working at the Esquire Show Bar in
Montreal. Allen’s versatility as a dancer and entertainer made him fit into the R&B scene as
seamlessly as he fit into the Lindy Hop and Latin dance scenes.
Sonny Allen dancing with Margaret Batiuchok at Club Broadway, circa 1980s
When you went to the Savoy there was only one thing they said: ‘Can you dance?
They didn’t want too much integration. See, when you saw all the white people
and black people dancing at the Palladium they weren’t too happy. Same thing at the Savoy. You
had people from Europe, all of them wanted to come to the Savoy. They didn’t want to go
downtown, they wanted to go to the Savoy. When you went to the Savoy there was only one
thing they said: “Can you dance?” If you can’t dance - other than that, they don’t care. One of the
best white dancers I know was a guy by the name of Lucky from Australia. Hell of a dancer, he
didn’t win the Harvest Moon Ball, but he was a hell of a dancer.
