Content area
Full Text
The year is 1934, the dawn of the big band era. The music that is beginning to sweep America sweeps across a dance floor from orchestras on four revolving bandstands. For Los Angeles radio listeners, the scene is vividly captured by an announcer who introduces each song amid applause from the audience.
The world's largest ballroom is the domain of a short, red-haired man who spins into his microphone the images of dancers and musicians. He also spins records, for the ballroom is an imaginary one, existing only on the airwaves as the creation of one of America's forgotten broadcasting pioneers.
Although he never received the national accolades given to other top announcers of the 1940s and 1950s, many of whom gained fame via network radio, Al Jarvis was one of America's most innovative radio and television personalities. He has been called the first real disc jockey, as the term is defined in modern broadcasting.
While his legacy has been overlooked by most broadcast and pop music historians, he was largely responsible for the success of Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Nat King Cole, Frankie Lame, and many others. Andr6 Previn was first heard on his program. He was also one of the first video disc jockeys, started the West Coast's first TV teen dance show, and launched Betty White's television career.
The World's Largest Make Believe Ballroom
Al Jarvis was born in Russia in 1909 and emigrated to the U.S. by way of Canada, where he worked in a bank. He had done some acting in high school and was chosen from several applicants to perform at the Pasadena Community Playhouse, where "he was considered extremely talented" (Loeb). He got his first radio announcing job at about age twenty by answering a newspaper ad, and later joined Warner Brothers' station KFWB. He soon developed an informal on-air style, using information about musicians gleaned from reading Billboard and Variety (Dexter, "Origin").
In the summer of 1934, KFWB manager Jerry King issued a memo asking for program ideas. Jarvis proposed using recorded music to construct an imaginary ballroom, the idea being to "create in the minds of the dialers the illusion that they are skimming across the dance floor. [. . .] Wisecrack in between numbers in...