dancing – 1947 Project

Belshazzar only had a Thousand

January 26, 1927
Los Angeles

Scientists and composers, having long toiled in vain to produce color symphonies, have been bested by, of course, an ingenious Angeleno.

tomorrowtheworld Leo Geasland, an electrician at the El Patio Ballroom, has finally perfected the synchronization of color and music.

Geasland’s invention consists of a ten-key keyboard on his right, and a switchboard on his left. These he operate in rhythm to the orchtestra, throwing changing rhythmic combinations to 6,000 incandescent bulbs. With an unlimited combination of 280 major colors, he controls 1,800 rose, 1,500 red, 1,000 amber and 2,000 blue lights. (Green was omitted from Geasland’s color scheme because of its effect on the complexion; this we applaud.) The contraption’s 1,400 wires and 100 circuits is about adequate to light a city of 30,000. Writes the Times, “As the fingers of Geasland move over the keys, the colors flash and dance on the walls, ceiling and pillars of the ballroom in perfect synchronization to the music, producing an effect of beauty and harmony that is unusual.”

Because there were no contemporary accounts of what it was like to witness the spectacle of the “color piano,” I’m just going to go ahead and make one up:

Woodrow Harrelson, an employee at Imperial Valley Hemp, waxed rhapsodic about the new process. “It was swell, I’ll tell you. We heard—saw?—‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ and ‘Breezin’ Along with the Breeze’ and such, and some zorchy new rags like the ‘Kinkajou.’ But when they banged out that new Jelly Roll Morton jazz, we said, hotcha! Even the long-hair stuff was the berries, and how! Who woulda thought Busoni would make you all nutty?” Judging from Mr. Harrelson, it is apparent that a peculiar side-effect of the Color Piano is a glassy quality and "bloodshottedness" of the eye.

ElPatio1927 In a 1933 article about Geasland’s apparatus, it’s noted that the blind and deaf are admitted for free every Monday evening to the Rainbow Gardens (the El Patio became the Rainbow in 1930, and thereafter the Palomar Ballroom). The deaf would dance to the base and time beats of the music in rhythm to the lights, as other lights would carry on the harmony. The blind could just dance to the music, but Geasland declared that they, too, were noticeably affected by the lights they could not see. “They seem to feel them,” said Geasland. “Often a blind couple will get right under a circle of the base lights and keep dancing around and around right there. I have watched them many times, and feel sure they feel they rhythm of the lights they cannot see.”

Geasland goes on to say that in time, big orchestras everywhere will have light players as well as instrument players. “They make rhythm visible…so they help people feel and appreciate the music.”

Sadly, on October 2, 1939, the bass viol player dropped his resin rag on a 150-watt floodlight during Lionel Kaye’s “daffy auction,” and the Patio/Rainbow/Palomar burned to the ground, Gaesland’s invention therein.

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

Big Feet Headline

July 16, 1927
Hollywood

“You make me feel like dancin’
I wanna dance my life away…”
— You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, written by Vincent Poncia, Jr. and Gerard Hugh Sayer, recorded by Leo Sayer

Bad news ladies – your feet have grown larger over the past twenty years. The reason? Dancing! Your older female relatives may have danced the night away, but they were tripping the light fantastic to the sedate melodies of the waltz and the two-step. The kinder, gentler dances of bygone days made it possible for women to keep their petite size three tootsies from spreading out like flapjacks. Modern gals stomp around the dance floor gyrating to the tango, Charleston, and black bottom. As a result of all this vigorous activity, today the average girl wears anywhere from four and a half to a size six shoe!

“As athletics become more popular for women and modern dances become more violent feet will grow in accordance. Some day women will Olive Oyl have feet as large as men’s are now”, said Mr. Julian Alfred, a director of musical choruses at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Women of the future – beware! You are fated to have feet as big as Olive Oyl’s.

“Walkin’ with my baby she’s got great big feet
She’s long, lean, and lanky and ain’t had nothing to eat
She’s my baby and I love her just the same
Crazy ‘bout that woman cause Caldonia is her name…”
– Caldonia, written by Fleecie Moore

Brute Jealousy

May 31, 1927
Venice

If you needed proof of how the world has changed in 80 years, you need look no further than the news stories surrounding the police search for and arrest of Joe Hordeman, "elderly" war veteran and pipe murder suspect, and of Hordeman’s "December" romance with divorcee Victoria Woods, who he met at an "old folks dance" at the Sawtelle veteran’s home in late 1925.

Hordeman was enamored of Mrs. Woods and hoped to marry or go into business with her, but she found other men more fascinating. She enjoyed dancing, something Hordeman was not inclined to do with her, despite their initial meeting place. Recently she had befriended Emma O’Bell, who became her roommate and encouraged her friend’s active romantic life.

Hordeman couldn’t stand it. He bought a lead pipe and went to Mrs. Woods’ home at 109 Brooks Avenue when he thought two of her suitors would be in attendance. But he found only Mrs. Woods and Mrs. O’Bell, sitting on the porch. Incensed, he asked Mrs. Woods to go inside where they could discuss his concerns, and a raving argument erupted. Hordeman pulled out his pipe and beat her unconscious, then took a knife and neatly cut her Achilles tendons to ensure she would never dance again. He needn’t have bothered save for the symbolism; she died of her injuries. Mrs. O’Bell saw the attack through the window and rushed inside, and was herself badly beaten. Saved from injury was Mrs. Woods’ daughter, who had gone to Chicago the morning of the slaying to speak with her father about her parents reuniting.

The whole horrible affair was witnessed by 15-year-old neighbor Catherine Franklin through her kitchen window, but the dishwashing girl was so traumatized that she did not immediately cry out, and the killer walked down the alley and escaped. He turned himself in the next day after registering at a Los Angeles hotel and mistakenly crossing the d in Ford, when he had meant to use the pseudonym Fort; he was convinced this error would lead to his quick arrest. At his trial in August, Hordeman, who had once claimed he dare not confess lest "the Klan" kill him for harming Mrs. Woods, suddenly changed his plea to guilty after Mrs. O’Bell testified, and was sentenced to one year to life in San Quentin.

The decrepit Hordeman was variously reported as being 52, 60 or 62, old lady Mrs. Woods 55.