I recently had the pleasure of meeting Lorraine Condos, widow of the great tap master Steve Condos,  backstage after the NY Tap Extravaganza.  I never knew Steve but was always impressed by his enthusiasm for tap manifested not only in his dance but in his discussion of the art form.  I first saw him dance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a big tap show called, "Tappin' Uptown".  His style was rapid fire taps with precision of sound.  He came out of Philadelphia (where a lot of tappers came from) and performed with his brothers in the 1930s and 1940s.  He died in 1990 right after having performed on stage at the Lyons International Dance Biennial in France.  He was 71.  I've always felt, if you gotta go, go out doing what you love and that's what he did.  The clip is from a 1988 episode of Nightline with Steve, Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis, Jr. talking about tap dance.

Speaking of Sammy, I was surfing the web and ran across a 1966 clip of him dancing with Count Basie.  The image quality is very bad, but worth putting up with to appreciate what they are doing.  Count was the master of doing only what was necessary on the piano as he played.  He made space and time that works well with tap.  Watch these guys...