"Chick Webb Had Cut Me To Ribbons."

On May 11th, 1937, Benny Goodman - known as the "king of swing" - took his world-famous band to the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. It was indeed a special occasion, a battle of the bands unlike any other.

Goodman had accepted a challenge to "compete" against the house band of the Savoy, headed up by Chick Webb. The event was billed in the advertisements as "The Musical Battle of the Century" between "America's Two Greatest Swing Masters." The two orchestras would play the same arrangements of the same music, and the crowd would ultimately decide. The admission price was $1, a steep cover charge in those days.

It was a moment that Chick Webb had been pointing toward his whole life.

"Fellas, this is my hour," Webb told his band. "Anybody misses notes, don't come back to work."

William Henry "Chick" Webb was born in 1905 (or 1909) in Baltimore, Maryland. In early childhood, he developed Pott Disease (known then as "tuberculosis of the spine"). It left him with very stunted growth and a deformed spine. He was referred to, in 1937 parlance, as a "hunchback dwarf," although I'm not sure he met the medical definition of either. Regardless, to those who saw him play, it was quite a sight.

Drummer Steve Levy remembers: "I'm looking for a drummer, and all I see is a gigantic base drum, with a head sticking over the top of it, and these two arms flailing around, playing the greatest stuff I ever heard in my life."

Webb moved to New York in 1922 at the age of 17, and was fronting his own band by 1926. In 1931, he landed the gig of being the house band the famous Savoy Ballroom. Buddy Rich, perhaps the most famous drummer in American history, cites Webb as a tremendous influence on his career, calling Webb "the daddy of them all."

In 1935, his band featured an up-and-coming teenage singer named Ella Fitzgerald, with Webb even leading the press to believe that he had legally adopted her as his own.

Webb's health began to decline in 1938. Against doctor's orders, he continued to play and tour with the band, knowing that the men needed the work during the throws the Great Depression. He died on June 16th, 1939, and his last words were reported to be: "I'm sorry. I've got to go." He was buried in his hometown of Baltimore.

So, who won "The Musical Battle of the Century"? According to witnesses Norma Miller and Frankie Manning, once Webb's band began to play, members of Miller's band just sat in silence, shaking their head left to right in resignation. Miller's drummer Gene Krupa, one of America's all-time greats, bowed down before Chick Webb, acknowledging his defeat.

"Chick Webb," he said, "had cut me to ribbons."

Please enjoy "Harlem Congo" from the great Chick Webb and his Orchestra.