Harringay in the Jazz Age - the Salon Bal

The Salon Bal was a dance hall that opened in the premises above what is today Tesco (formerly Woolworths) in 1926.  This was at the peak of the jazz age.

On another post, I mentioned its latter fame in another guise as one of the places George Michael first came to notice. This led me to check out a little on its history and I found more than I thought I'd be able to. Here's what I found.

Originally called Salon Bal Palais, Harringay's Salon Bal opened on October 12 1926, with the Billy Mayerl Salon Syncopators led by pianist Ron Gray.  The celebrity Billy Mayerl was present on opening night and played some of his ‘party pieces’ for the occasion. His appearance proved to be the start of an ongoing relationship with association with the establishment. His dance school sponsored various events there and the resident band for the first season was supplied by his agency. (Billy Mayerl was also the chap who played the biggest piano in the world, made in Harringay in the 1930s.)

After the first season the resident band for the first three years at Salon Bal was run by Fred Elgar. The salon quickly became a very well known high street dance hall, hosting high profile dances and dance band contests.

The Jazz Age conjures up all sorts of romantic notions for me and the evidence doesn't disappoint. Here's a picture of the band that won the 1927 dance band competition that was held in the Salon Bal, Harringay and three other leading London dance halls (Brixton Palais de Danse, East Ham Palais de Danse, Kew Palais de Danse):

In his history of British Jazz, which also cites the Salon Bal as a notable London Dance Hall, Harry Francis had the following description of Twenties dance bands:

The bands varied in size according to the size of the hall, but the largest rarely exceeded ten or eleven players. These usually consisted of three brass, three saxophones, four rhythm and a leader who often played the violin. When I entered the profession in 1926, good saxophone players were still in short supply outside the West End of London, and in many of the suburban dance halls the instrument was often played as a double by players of other instruments, particularly violinists, who brought their saxophones into use only for numbers they had been practising! Nevertheless, such players would often get booked merely because they owned this fashionable instrument! The fashionable bass instrument was then the sousaphone, another instrument of which there were not too many good players available. I can remember deputising with a band at the previously mentioned Stanley Hall, called I think the Delphians, which was considered to be really something, consisting as it did of four rhythm, including sousaphone, trumpet, trombone, alto saxophone doubling clarinet and tenor saxophone doubling violin. All were excellent players and the alto player I recall could whip off an occasional "hot" chorus that was better than many to be heard at the time! Incidentally, during those years we never talked of "jazz." Dance music was either "hot" or "straight"!

By all accounts what was happening so successfully at Harringay was part of widespread fashion. This inevitably bred competition and the hunt for novelty. The Stage on August 2nd 1928 gave an idea of what this meant, illustrated by one example at Harringay:

The premises had an unplanned makeover in the early 1930s, according to this article from the Belfast Newsletter on 21 July 1932:

Another newspaper report of the same incident tells us that the dance hall was "burned out". The refurb did apparently take place since on 18th November 1939, the Band Wagon was reporting that 

Good business is reported from the Salon Bal, Harringay, where Ron Carlton's band is still in residence. George Harper (trumpet), Ernie Harper (saxes), Harry Burdett (saxes), and Norman Turner (drums), complete the combination.

Apparently the Salon continued to do well after the end of the war. A brief mention in the Independent newspaper in 1997 gives us this:

A former drummer called Dave Davies showed me a snap of the first night his band played the Salon Bal in Haringey (sic), with a fresh-faced R Scott on the left.

"R Scott" is Ronnie Scott and yes, I'm trying to get hold of the photo! 

Last January, Stephen Holliday shared a memory on HoL of the Salon during his childhood in the late forties and early fifties:

Above the shops was the "Salon Bal" ballroom. My mother loved dancing and, as my father worked the late shift at the Post Office, I was taken to dances organised by a woman she knew. I would run around with the other children while everyone danced. Children were invited to take part in the "Oki-Koki" and the "Conga". The band seemed to consist of a large number of banjos and was run by a man named Charlie. On a good evening they were not bad! Further entertainment was provided by the organiser singing. One particular song comes to mind - a particularly enthusiastic rendition of "Don't laugh at me ('cause I'm a fool)" which was the latest hit from Norman Wisdom.

The venue was sold in 1956 (details unknown). Then here's what happened next, from The Stage on 7 January 1971:

The next transition was to Lazers nightclub. This beacme the the home of Bolts gay nights, one time hangout of George Michael, and HQ of Bolts hi-NRG record label.

Bolts had petered out by the mid-ninties at which point it made the transition to Bilongos Latin Club. It appears to have survived as a Latin and or African Jazz venue through the Nineties, until its demise and eventual conversion to Legends Gym in 2010. For a while it was known as La Differente and subsequently as Club AJZ. The latter name originally stood for Afri-Jazz. Company records suggest that this business was finished by 2005. However the Latin vibe seems to have continued since the Guayando Latin Club* was being advertised as late as 2007. 

For more on Bolts and pictures and video of the venue in its modern guise as a gym see this post. 

*Thanks to HoL member Maggie for the name of this incarnation