Louis and Dizzy

Here they perform "Umbrella Man" on the Timex All Star Show - The Golden Age of Jazz recorded January 7, 1959.



Although Gillespie had criticized Armstrong as "the plantation character that so many of us resent" in a Down Beat article published in 1949, he later lived near the Armstrongs and apparently visited them frequently at their home in Corona. In his autobiography, Gillespie wrote:

I began to recognize that that what I had considered Pops's grinning in the face of racism was his absolute refusal to let anything, even anger about racism, steal the joy from his life and erase his fantastic smile.

Gillespie was an honorary pallbearer at Armstrong's funeral.

Struttin with some Barbecue

This is a piece that Armstrong wrote - perhaps together with his second wife, Lil Hardin. Here's a bit of a performance apparently from 1951. Armstrong recorded this piece forty two times!



Here's a brief clip evidently from the Murrow piece on Armstrong - Satchmo the Great. By the way, Sidney Bechet frequently performed at Le Vieux Colombier with Claude Luter:



Actually, Louis probably got his first horn from the Karnofsky family before going to the Colored Waifs Home. They were junk and coal dealers that Louis worked for as a child. According to his memoirs, Louis played a tin horn to attract customers for them and they later helped him buy his first cornet. To close, here's a performance by the Marsalis family:

The Strip

Here are a couple of clips from a film Armstrong made together with Mickey Rooney in 1950 - "The Strip." Rooney later described the film as "a low budget musical with a low budget story." Here's a performance of Shadrack:



"Shadrack" was first recorded by Armstrong in June 1938. The film documents one of the earliest incarnations of the All-Stars: Cozy Cole, Barney Bigard, Jack Teagarden and Earl Hines. Hines first worked with Armstrong in 1926 and was included on several of the Hot Five recordings.

According to Rooney, the film cost $885,000 to make and earned back just a bit more. Here's another scene featuring Rooney on drums - who is dubbed by Cozy Cole:



Before joing the All Stars, Cole played in the late 1930s and early 40s with the Cab Calloway band.

The big hit song from the film was "Kiss to Build a Dream On" which is performed three times in the film, including once by Armstrong. The song was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby and Oscar Hammersten II for the Marx Brothers film "A Night at the Opera." It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song after its use in "The Strip." It then became a staple of Armstrong and the All Stars. Here's a clip of a performance of the song by the All Stars in 1959 in Denmark:



This line up of the All Stars includes Trummy Young on trombone, Danny Barcelona on drums and Billy Kyle on piano. Armstrong also recorded "Ain't Misbehavin'" for the film - but the performance was not included in the finished picture. This was a song that had vaulted Armstrong into popular acclaim in the late 1920s when he performed it as part of the revue "Connie's Hot Chocolates." If you want to get a sense of the genius of Armstrong as a jazz vocalist, compare Armstrong's early version of this song with Fats' own. Here's Fats performing the number in "Stormy Weather." The drummer is Zutty Singleton who played with Armstrong on Fate Marable's riverboat band and recorded with Armstrong on several of the Hot Five numbers:

Savion Glover Redux

I posted about Savion's performance at Celebrate Brooklyn previously. Now I find someone recorded it!



Here's a bit of what I said in my earlier post about this performance:

Bill Robinson made a "B" movie called Harlem Is Heaven in which he does his stair dance in a nightclub. The dance sequence is available on a DVD entitled At the Jazz Band Ball. Glover's performance reminded me of this dance. Robinson performs to the tune "Swanee River." Like Glover, he does not look frequently at the audience. (There are a couple of breakaway shots of the audience in the sequence - and they seem oblivious of Robinson). Like Glover, Robinson does very little with his upper body and his movement is pretty much limited to climbing and descending the stairs. Unlike Glover, Robinson is not portrayed as a member of a musical ensemble - he is accompanied only by piano.

Here's the dance by Robinson I mentioned in my post:



What do you think? By the way, Eleanor Powell (in blackface) does an homage to Robinson's stair dance in the film Honolulu - which is occasionally shown on TCM.

PS - recently Glover has been touring in a show in which he performs to classical music. Take a look:

Paris Blues

Here's a video of Louis Armstrong from the film "Paris Blues". Armstrong did this scene in the middle of his 1960 trip to Africa for the State Department. For more about the trip, check out the fascinating new book Satchmo Blows Up the World.




I love the look Armstrong gives to Sidney Poitier about 1:40 into the video. The score for the film is by Duke Ellington. Armstrong and Ellington were also paired in "Cabin in the Sky" but Armstrong's scene from that film was cut and is apparently lost. I don't know who the saxophone and trombone players are who played for Poitier and Newman. Vanity said this about the film:

The film is notable for Duke Ellington's moody, stimulating jazz score. There are scenes when the drama itself actually takes a back seat to the music, with unsatisfactory results insofar as dialog is concerned. Along the way there are several full-fledged passages of superior Ellingtonia such as 'Mood Indigo' and 'Sophisticated Lady', and Louis Armstrong is on hand for one flamboyant interlude of hot jazz.

As a bonus, here's some of Ellington from "Cabin in the Sky"

Josephine Baker

The National Portrait Gallery has an exhibit regarding Baker's life which I recently visited. Baker is a fascinating figure whose career raises numerous questions about issues of race, gender and identity. But she was also, according to contemporaries, a compelling dancer who brought the dance idioms of black Broadway to Europe. She opened in the Revue Negre in Paris in 1925 as part of a company which included Sidney Bechet, Claude Hopkins and the tap dancer Louis Douglas. Baker did a Danse Sauvage which was an enormous sensation. This was emphatically not tap dance. The French apparently didn't much care for tap dancing in the mid-twenties and the producers apparently thought the show as originally conceived featured too much tap.

Instead of tap, Baker's dance drew from popular American dances of the time such as the Charleston and the Black Bottom and a step called "Through the Trenches" which, according to Baker's biographer Phyllis Rose "mimicked the way soldiers moved in a crouch to avoid sniper fire."






Baker's dance played into French stereotypes of "African" dance as openly lascivious and created an enormous sensation. Of course, rather than emanating from an African jungle, Baker's dance reflected the idiom of black Broadway - Baker had danced in Sissle and Blake's Shuffle Along - and its roots in the newly emerging music called jazz. The French critic Andre Levinson wrote of Baker's performance:

There seemed to emanate from her violently shuddering body, her bold dislocations, her springing movements, a gushing stream of rhythm. . . . It was as though the jazz, catching on the wing the vibrations of this body, was interpreting word by word its fantastic monologue.

I've posted a video of Baker dancing which I should guess dates from 1926-27. Here she's not doing a "savage" dance but a "plantation" bit which of course perpetuated another set of sterotypes about African Americans. At about 1:45 in the video you can see the Through the Trenches step.

Baker published a memoir in 1927 which deeply offended French war veterans. In the book, Baker stated:

I've heard a lot of talk about the war. What a funny story! I swear I don't understand it at all but it disgusts me. I have such a horror of men with only one arm, one leg, one eye.

Of course, in the mid twenties there were probably millions of disabled war veterans in France and their protests forced Baker to disavow these comments and she later staged a benefit for them.

But this didn't end Baker's problems. In 1928 she left Paris for a tour of central Europe. In Vienna, The New York Times reported that Baker required a police escort because of protests by students "who declared their intention of preventing colored artists from playing in Vienna." The next day, the Times reported that the Nationalist Party had petitioned Austria's chancellor to ban Baker's performance. According to the article:

the deputation [to the Chancellor] said the party is receiving thousands of letters daily protesting against "brazen-faced heathen dances and scenes" which, if permitted, are likely to provoke riots.

Baker's performances were allowed to proceed however, and the Times reported that they were opposed not only by right-wing parties but by the Catholic church which held three days of "atonement" services at a church adjoining the Johann Strauss Theater where Baker performed.

To give some idea of the performances which provoked such outrage, here's another clip of Baker performing.




In both of these videos, you get the sense that Baker's facial expressions were an important part of her performance. She was particularly noted for crossing her eyes. Her biographer, Phyllis Rose, thinks this was a way of deflecting attention from her sexual attractiveness. But it's also reminiscent of the kind of "mugging" that Louis Armstrong incorporated into his act. Also, in the second video particularly, I think you can get the sense of how important Baker's rear end was to her dancing. Rose quotes one hostile French critic as saying that he "was willing to bet that she had never thought of founding a new aesthetic on the mobility of her rear end."

Been Rich All My Life

This documentary opened this weekend at the Quad Cinema in New York. I saw the film last night and four of the "Silver Belles" and the film maker were available after the screening to answer questions. The "Silver Belles" are former Apollo ballroom chorus dancers who formed a troupe about ten years ago and continue to dance well into their eighth and even ninth decades. Their stories are fascinating. All started at the very bottom of the ladder and forged careers dancing and performing with some of the greatest artists of our age - e.g., Duke Ellington, Bill Robinson and Louis Armstrong.

But while I expected to be educated and entertained - and I was - I didn't expect to be as moved as I was by the poignancy of their resurrected dance careers and the strength and dignity that these women display in the film. The film was made over a two year period and two of the Belles suffered serious falls during the period of its filming. The way the group handled these events is a major part of the film's story. It's a story of perseverance and how the human spirit can transcend the frailty of our bodies and the physical decay that accompany old age. It makes you realize that there are heroes right here in our midst.

Run (or dance) - but don't walk - to see this film. It'll be one of the best you see this year.

Here are some other reviews of the film.

UPDATE: Here's the trailer for the film which is now available on DVD:

Tap Forward

I had the good fortune to attend the Tap Future performance last night (7/15) - part of the Tap City Festival. All of the performances were fascinating but I'll comment on my three favorites. First, David Rider danced to Gershwin's "I Can't Be Bothered Now." Rider, who is just 20 years old, danced elegantly and featured a remarkable series of spins. According this article, Rider considered giving up dance in order to join the Legionaries of Christ - a traditionalist Catholic religious order. Perhaps he has decided to stick with dance (the program describes him as a student at Fordham). If so, I'd say he made the right choice.

Of course, Astaire - who is apparently one of Rider's dance idols(?) danced to this number in Damsel in Distress. I'd say Rider very nearly outdid the master last night!

Omar Edwards did a number titled "Mr. Nicholas" - a tribute to the Nicholas Brothers. (Fayard's widow was in the audience). Edwards - according to the program notes he's Savion Golver's cousin - did the splits which were the specialty of the Brothers. But most remarkably he danced the last part of his routine in his bare feet - including what looked to me like toe jabs. That's amazing! Edwards has great polish and wonderful stage presence - he 's a great entertainer as well as a graceful dancer.

Finally, I enjoyed the performance of Linda Sohl-Ellison and Monti Ellison in a number entitled "Espiritu." Monti performed on an instrument which I had never seen before called a berimbau. This is a Brazilian instrument of apparently African origin and it produces a sound which has a percussive or rhythmic element as the bow (or vaqueta) is attached to a rattle (or caxixi). The sound of the caxixi produced an interesting counterpoint to Sohl-Ellison's fluent taps. Sohl-Ellison apparently has made a specialty of dancing to what might be called "world music." Her performance last night was a fascinating example of the possibilities in this field.

The Nicholas Brothers and the Jacksons

Here they are together:

Bill Robinson on YouTube

A number of videos featuring Bill "Bojangles" Robinson have been posted on YouTube including a deleted scene (very short) from the film Cafe Metropole and footage of his funeral. They can be found here, here, here (Stormy Weather), here (more Stormy Weather), here (from Harlem Is Heaven), here (from The Little Colonel), and here (from The Littlest Rebel).

Savion Glover

I went to see Savion Glover perform last night at the Prospect Park bandshell. I was going to title this post "Not Your Father's Tap Dance" - but after thinking it over, I think Glover's dance has many precedents. They may not be from my father's generation, though. More like my grandfather - and his father.

Glover really is one - clearly the leading - member of a quintet. The bassist came on and after a short while Glover appeared - to appreciative applause. He dances on a relatively small raised platform. He wears what look like boots with a relatively high heel with metal taps. He is one of two percussive performers in the quintet which includes piano, bass, drums, reeds - plus Glover. In fact, there were at times three percussion players as the bassist occasionally used his instrument like a drum.

The music reminded me of Coltrane. In fact, the program notes refer to a project with Glover entitled "IF TRANE WUZ HERE." Glover's looks at the audience. In fact, the dance is clearly about sound rather than appearance. But it is fascinating to hear. He uses a series of rolls, stomps and toe jabs to produce sound of considerable rhythmic complexity. The kind of music which his quintet performs is not "dance" music - although it did have a swinging propulsion to it. And the audience loved it! dancing is not visually interesting. He wears ordinary street clothes and rarely uses his upper body. He infrequently

Bill Robinson made a "B" movie called Harlem Is Heaven in which he does his stair dance in a nightclub. The dance sequence is available on a DVD entitled At the Jazz Band Ball and here on YouTube. Glover's performance reminded of this dance. Robinson performs to the tune "Swanee River." Like Glover, he does not look frequently at the audience. (There are a couple of breakaway shots of the audience in the sequence - and they seem oblivious of Robinson). Like Glover, Robinson does very little with his upper body and his movement is pretty much limited to climbing and descending the stairs. Unlike Glover, Robinson is not portrayed as a member of a musical ensemble - he is accompanied only by piano.

Robinson recorded his taps on several occasions. He performed "Doin' the New Lowdown" with the Don Redman band in December 1932; "Ain't Misbehavin'" with Irving Mills and His Hotsy Totsy Gang in September 1929 and "Living in a Great Big Way" with Fats Waller in 1935.

And radio performances of tap dance must have been fairly common in the 1930s. In the film Big Broadcast of 1936, Robinson is shown reclining in a barber's chair while listening to the Nicholas Brothers dance over the radio. In The Black Network, the Nicholas Brothers again perform over the radio. (This short subject is available on the DVD Hallelujah). So the percussive, aural experience of tap has always been integral to the form - although no one could ever accuse the Nicholas Brothers of being indifferent to their visual presentation.

And Glover is not the first tapper to dance with bop jazz accompaniment. In 1945, the Nicholas Brothers toured with the Dizzy Gillespie big band - which included Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro and Max Roach. The tour was called Hepstations 1945 and travelled through southern states including the Carolinas, Mississippi and Alabama. Audience reaction was unfavorable but Constance Valis Hills quotes Harold Nicholas as saying: "Down South, they wanna hear the blues, get with it. . . . But we understood it, the musicians understood it, and so we were having a ball."

In 1946, a tap dancer named Ralph Brown appeared in a TV segment entitled "Jivin' in Bebop" with Gillespie's orchestra and sextet - and danced to the Charlie Parker tune "Ornithology." Brown was a huge fan of Bill Robinson. (Although in the book Tap!, Brown calls himself an "eccentric" dancer. "I also got around and did a lot of movements, spins and stuff, all that sort of thing." In that respect, he was clearly a different type of dancer than Robinson)

So, as the Good Book says, there's nothing new under the sun - although in this case it was under the moon and around 9:30 pm, this writer - who is not a night owl - headed home. In part that was because I'd been up late earlier in the week at a couple of other JVC Jazz Festival events. Of particular note was a concert called Clarinet Marmalade. It featured a clarinetist named Evan Christopher who really blew me away. If you see this guy's CDs - buy them!!! He's fantastic.

Tap Dance History Yahoo Group

I have created a Yahoo group for discussion of the history of tap dance. I'm a real novice in this area but I hope it can serve as a forum for those with more knowledge and experience (and other novices) to discuss this field. Topics might include new publications in the field, films featuring tap dance and upcoming tap events. If you are interested, please check it out here.