Jazz, Tax, and Facts (What Killed the Big Bands?)
- Glenn
- Mar 27, 2013
- 11 min read
I don't usually use this blog to write about politics - this is a swing music blog, but sometimes the two intersect.

I'm the Taxman!
Recently, the Wallstreet Journal published the following article by Eric Felten, trombonist in the Washington, DC area, about a tax on cabarets that "made millions of Americans Say Goodbye to Swing Music"
You can also read another article, published around 3 years ago in the Examiner by professional Ballroom Dancer Patsy Holden that discusses issues in the same vein:
Patsy was kind enough to cite her sources, specifically: That Toddlin' Town: Chicago's White Dance Bands and Orchestras which I just ordered and am looking forward to reading! I didn't see any sources cited in Mr. Felten's WSJ article, but perhaps if his google alerts bring up this article this week he will post them as a comment. I'm always looking for good reading material on the swing era and would be curious to read more about the cabaret tax. Mr. Felton is a published author and I'm sure has some great resources. BTW you can check out an interview with him/review of his book in the National Review by clicking HERE.
Mr Felton's article has been quite a popular re-post on facebook lately amongst dancers, I think, largely in response to the tax problem the Century Ballroom has been facing here in Seattle. For those not up to date on the Century's problem, here's a quick rundown:
The Century's Situation...
The Washington Administrative Code has a tax on recreation, amusement, and physical fitness services. One of the types of places covered under that tax are places that provide the "opportunity to dance" in addition to places like bowling alleys, basketball courts, etc. However, as you can read for yourself, this code is kind of confusing, and when the Century Ballroom, a number of years ago asked for clarification as to whether they were required to pay this tax on the admissions to their dances, they were told they did not have to. In the last 2 years, the taxman has come calling and decided that the Century does need to pay the tax, in addition to back taxes owed. Burn Blue, a blues dance venue in Seattle, ran into a problem with this same issue a year or so back.
Had the Century been informed properly upfront, I imagine they'd have just paid the tax as they went along. Had the taxman come calling and said "well we told you you didn't need to pay this before but you do now," then probably the Century would have said, OK well we lucked out and found a loophole and now we have to pay the tax, but charging the Century a huge amount of back taxes is causing an unfair burden on the ballroom that could potentially shut it down if they're not able to raise the money needed to pay the 92,000 bill by May 1st.
The Century is the seat of the swing dance community in Seattle, as well as for numerous other types of ballroom dance. They employ instructors, dance performers, musicians, food service workers and more, as well as preserving one of the only remaining historic ballrooms (built 1909) that developers have yet to tear down to put up condos in place of on Capitol Hill. To donate to the Century's tax relief fund, go HERE. Every dollar helps.
The End of the Swing Era...
Mr. Felten's article brings up an interesting and important point about a federal cabaret tax that was detrimental to some small business owners that ran entertainment establishments. However it seems like what a lot of folks are taking away from the read is that the cabaret tax was the sole, or at least main, reason for the decline of the big bands and the dancing that goes with them. This is not the case.
So what killed the big bands? Well you could write a whole book on that, maybe someday I will. For now though, Dan Aldag, professor of music at Humboldt State Universit,y makes some great points in his Letter to the WSJ Editor, written in response to Mr. Felten's post and published on Sunday. Here are some of his points, with some of my own elaboration and explanation for our dance audience in italics:
• The "recording ban" of 1942-1944. Basically what what was was going on was that musicians were recording themselves out of work. The rise of the jukebox in smaller establishments made it tougher for musicians to get gigs as smaller establishments were putting in jukeboxes instead of hiring musicians. That was allowing them to be more competitive against larger spaces for people's entertainment dollars, hurting the business of spaces that had more room for dancing and bands. Think about how this happens in our dance scene today - 10 DJed dances a week can spread crowd thin.
Musicians, under the leadership of the American Federation of Musicians ( AFM Musicians' Union), instituted the strike because they felt that musicians should receive royalties for their recordings from record companies. The companies were able to profit on record sales to people that owned jukeboxes which were making it less possible for musicians to work on live gigs. Musicians were just paid a fee to record, and the record company kept all the profits. The AFM won out, and now established venues have to pay royalties to BMI and ASCAP if they play recorded music and the record companies must pay a share of their profits into a union fund for musicians. However most small dances, run by dancers, don't pay their share of these royalties even today.
• The popularity of Frank Sinatra and other singing stars who emerged in his wake. When the musicians' union (which did not include singers) went on strike, the record companies kept themselves in business by producing records with vocalist, often accompanied by a capella groups. This made a change in the face of popular music from that point forward - the singers became the stars, and music that wasn't big band dance music became the new fad.
• The loss of many big-band musicians to the war-time military. When half the country's musicians are laying in a ditch in Eastern France, it's tough to draft a quality band. Many musicians, like Kansas City Band Leader Jay McShann, were even drafted right off the band stand. It is extremely difficult to lead a big band that plays quality, swing-era music with players coming in and out of the band all the time. Musicians playing charts night after night together develop a group sound and nuance, and they know the charts cold.
Band leaders like Count Basie were forced to change their styles all together because of the draft. Basie's band had played many "riff arrangements" - arrangements that the band had worked out playing together each night that developed over time, and that had few written charts. If a musician left the band, a part would be missing until the other musicians could teach the replacement player the arrangements. With musicians being drafted left and right, Benny Goodman and John Hammond convinced Basie that he needed to hire some more arrangers and take his band in the direction of playing more heavily arranged music. The unique "riff band" style of music that Basie and other territory bands played in the 1930s would never return.
• Gasoline and rubber rationing during the war, which limited touring by big bands. This is pretty self explanatory, but it should be pointed out that it wasn't just touring supplies that were rationed - everything was rationed including food and drink that people might go to an establishment to enjoy as well supplies to make instruments or sound equipment, and supplies to repair dance floors, etc. People's finances were also severely limited as we were producing nothing but weapons. Everyone knows a soldier's pay is never what they deserve for it to be, and things like the cabaret tax were levied to pay for the war, including soldiers' salaries.
• The formation of BMI in 1940, which allowed songwriters in previously marginalized styles, such as rhythm and blues (R&B) and country music, to earn a living as songwriters for the first time, thus helping to spur a growth in the popularity of those styles. Today the record industry is all but dead - independent artists rule the day. however, during the swing era, songwriters mostly worked for film studios or record companies. They were professionals. The development of performing rights associations allowed anyone who was able to write a good song to make a buck on it - it helped to open the industry, much the way that affordable home recording equipment opened the door further for indie musicians in the early 2000s. This combined with the AFM recording ban allowed these lesser known artists, not affected by the ban, to have their music heard and to make money doing it.
• The migration of many Southerners, both white and black, to large Northern and Western cities to work in defense-related industries. Many of these Southerners favored R&B and country over the big bands. Along with the creation of BMI, mentioned above, the door swung further open in the big cities for more rural styles. This is much the way that jazz came to Chicago and New York during the great migration of the 1910s and 20s.
• The rise of independent record companies recording R&B and country, and the emergence of new radio stations that played these records to cater to the transplanted Southerners. Not much commentary here other than that it costs less to pay 4 musicians for a recording session than 17.
There are also some other points of my own, not mentioned above by Mr. Aldag that are worth noting.
Advancements in the Development of Sound Technology. One of the reasons that big bands developed in the first place was that a greater number of musicians were required to produce more sound to fill larger spaces with more people. The development of the electric guitar first made available in 1936 and later the solid body electric guitar which could be turned up louder in 1951 brought guitars to the forefront of popular music. Pick ups for the string bass were also created and made available in 1949, as well as better, louder and clearer mics, speakers, and amplifiers. While the jury is still out on the exact extent to which PA equipment was available to big bands in the 1940s, it is certain that smaller bands were gaining the ability to play nearly as loud as big bands. This combined with venues getting smaller due to decreased demand meant that a 5 piece band could fill a space that once required a big band. (For better or for worse).
No One to Attend. With all the service men overseas, and women working in munitions factories or volunteering, attendance severely dropped at ballrooms that weren't able to pull in service-men. Women didn't want to attend dances where there weren't any fellas to dance with and they were tired from working extra hours. The men were getting shot full of holes.
People Making Babies. Whereas there's typically a natural progression of people getting married and having kids as younger people come up into the social singles scene, the war lumped all the men of their generation together, putting their plans on hold. When the boys returned they and their gals were ready to settle down into something stable. This meant they weren't going out to dances at night. Americans were also becoming more socially conservative and this meant less going out to shady Harlem nightclubs or canoodling with young gentlemen at a dance hall.
Latin Music. Latin music invaded Harlem and grew in popularity throughout the 40s. Dawn Hampton has informed me that by 1952, when she started playing at the Savoy, there'd always be a swing band on one stage and a Latin band on the other, alternating sets.
Television. Prior to the war, entertainment meant spending time with your family, reading, or going out to dances, bars, soda shops, restaurants, amusement parks, etc. But after the war Americans began purchasing television sets. This provided family entertainment and it was streamed into the home. By the late 1950s the vast majority of American homes owned at least one TV set.
Blue Laws and Curfews. During the war many municipalities passed various blue laws and curfews. This was common practice during wartime but it did not help the sorts of businesses that operated in the evenings. Particularly of note was the closing of the Savoy in Harlem from April '43 to Sept '43 because of allegations by both the NYPD and the Army that the establishment was 'catering' to US service men. The Savoy being mixed-race at that time, this would have been looked on as an extra social no-no. Whether the allegations are true or not is immaterial: more restrictive "social" laws that affect who can go where and when are never good news for the entertainment business.
Bebop. Bebop needs to be thought of as something that isn't swing music, but that grew partly out of it, and partly in reaction to it. What's important in this context, without getting too musically heavy for a lay-audience, is that the hip young guys wanted to play bop. It's the direction that jazz was going - away from being popular music. When you attempt to elevate pop art to high art and get more experimental with what you're doing, you're going to lose some, or most of your audience along the way.
What the Cabaret Tax Was
First off, this was a cabaret tax. Not a dance tax. What did that mean? Being a cabaret meant that your establishment had to serve food and/or alcohol in addition to providing the opportunity to dance. While some ballrooms served booze at that time, others did not. Basically this was a vice tax. At this time, as I alluded to above, the female attendees at many ballrooms may have been there on "business." The US government wanted to discourage servicemen from patronizing places that might supply prostitutes as VD was running rampant during the war.
If you check out the December 13, 1946 issue of Billboard magazine, it discusses the news that they're considering adding ballrooms to the tax. This clearly points out that ballrooms were not initially taxed as part of the cabaret tax. The April, 8 1944 issue also claimed that musicians were not seeing particularly less work because of the tax.
I DO think this was kind of an exorbitant tax. I think it's unfair to small business owners because nitery owners (slang for cabarets at the time) were paying through the nose, and musicians were affected as well. However, to my knowledge, there was no exorbitant tax levied on record companies - much larger businesses than night clubs or indie musicians, and they were able to benefit from the tax through the growth of their record sales to places with jukeboxes. I suspect that execs at Victor and Columbia, who had still not settled with the AFM over the recording ban may well have thought they could put the squeeze on musicians this way. It's certainly funny that when the tax was left on the books in the late 40s it was during a time that the AFM was considered a similar strike over TV royalties.
I'm sure there's a lot of other great info in back issues of Billboard, which are largely free on google. I'm going to dig through them when I have a bit of additional time. I also plan to dig through the congressional record from June 9, 1944 when the tax was passed. It's available HERE (if you use the slider at the bottom it starts on page 1369) so if any of you are feeling ambitious and want to do some digging before I get to it, please report on your findings. I'm curious as to what the arguments were for and against and from which side of the aisle they came.
Summing It Up
So as you can see, if they asked me, I could write a book on this. There's a lot of research to be done, and a lot that is already written that needs needs to be brought together, fact checked, and cross referenced and I'm sure that I haven't even begun to touch on all of the complex factors that led to a change in the popular taste in music and entertainment during the late 1940s. However I feel certain in saying that the Cabaret tax was certainly not the sole, or even the prominent, reason that swing music fell out of fashion.
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