By the time twenty-five-year-old Edgar Sampson joined Chick Webb and His Orchestra, he had been playing professionally for seven years, including with the soon-to-be greats Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. But it was while performing as an alto saxophonist with Webb that Sampson came into his own as a composer and arranger. Success arrived in the form of “Blue Lou” (1933) and an arrangement of an instrumental he had previously written, “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” which became Webb’s second major hit after “I Can’t Dance (I Got Ants in My Pants),” a song with little endurance.

Benny Goodman is nearly always given credit for popularizing the song, but Goodman’s was not the first or second but the third recording to make the pop charts.

Chick Webb was first in 1934, and Ozzie Nelson was second, six weeks ahead of Benny Goodman.

• Chick Webb and His Orchestra (1934, #10)
• Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra (1936, #12)
• Benny Goodman and His Orchestra (1936, #11)
• Chick Webb and His Orchestra (1936, reissue of his 1934 hit, #18)
• Benny Goodman Quartet (1937, #4)

All of the recordings were instrumentals.

The title “Stompin’ at the Savoy” refers to the Savoy Ballroom in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. It was originally located at 596 Lenox Avenue, between West 140^th and 141st Streets. The Savoy opened in 1926 and featured a large 10,000 square foot dance floor which began to attract the best dancers in New York. In 1927 the Savoy began sponsoring jazz band competitions. Chick Webb’s Harlem Stompers participated in the first of these cutting sessions which was called the “Battle of Jazz.” Over the next several years, Chick Webb and His Orchestra would become the Savoy house band and with his triumphs over the likes of the Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, and Benny Goodman bands, he would be crowned “The King of the Savoy.”

A number of dance crazes began or at least were initially popularized at the Savoy, most notably the Lindy Hop, a partnered jazz dance that evolved into the “jitterbug” and subsequently East Coast Swing.

The Savoy Ballroom was torn down in 1958 to make way for a housing project. In its place today is a commemorative plaque with the text,

Here once stood the legendary Savoy Ballroom, a hothouse for the development of jazz in the Swing era. Visually dazzling and spacious, the Savoy nightly featured the finest jazz bands in the nation, and its house bands included such famous orchestras as those of Fess Williams, Chick Webb, and Teddy Hill. The great jazz dancers who appeared on its block-long floor ranged from professionals like Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers to everyday Harlemites. During a time of racial segregation and strife, the Savoy was one of the most culturally and racially integrated of institutions, and its fame was international. It was the heartbeat of Harlem’s community and a testament to the indomitable spirit and creative impulse of African-Americans. It was a catalyst for innovation where dancers and musicians blended influences to forge new, wide-spread, and long-lasting traditions in music and dance. Whether they attended or not, all Americans knew the meaning of ”Stompin’ at the Savoy.”