I was watching a Facebook "live" thing (still not quite sure how that works) the other day where Marshall Davis was doing a segment of what he calls "Tap Conversations". He was talking about the importance of the sound of what tap dancers do. Working on steps is good, but just learning more steps, without having an understanding of what you are saying with the feet, can be a tendency for a lot of young tap dancers, as far as he is concerned. It got me into searching the web for some audio examples of tap dancing, but I got side tracked. I wound up coming across an example of a tune I never knew of before that was named after a tap dancer and it had me thinking about other tunes inspired by tap dancers and dancers of associated forms. So, in this post I want to look at some music influenced by dancers, which I'm calling "Part 1.". "Part 2" will focus on audio of the music dancers make with their feet. See, this makes me committed to doing at least 2 posts this year....
Baise has another piece of music, which he and Andy Gibson composed, called."Shorty George." That title refers to a dance step from the Lindy Hop era, but also must be associated with George "Shorty" Snowden, one of the early Lindy Hoppers in Harlem. Now, when I hear that piece of music I can see/hear the relation to Snowden and dance of that time. But that might be the case because of clips I've seen of dancers moving to that music. In previous posts on this blog I've mentioned tunes connected to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. There's the number from the film "Swing Time" where Fred Astaire (in blackface, which I go into in that post) dances to the tune "Bojangles of Harlem" and there is "Mr. Bojangles", which some people think is about Bill Robinson, but is not. In my last post I talk about Duke Ellington's "Bojangles: A Portrait of Bill Robinson". I was wondering if there were other tunes to consider and then I remembered.
At the end of the 19th century the cakewalk became a popular dance and the husband and wife team of Charles Johnson & Dora Dean, became known for doing it in their act. In 1896, a contemporary of theirs, the great Bert Williams, wrote a song about Dora called, "Dora Dean: The Sweetest Gal You Ever Seen." To find out more about them, the cakewalk and Bert Williams, look it up, you'll be fascinated by what you find. Lastly, speaking of Bert Williams, Duke Ellington also wrote on tune for him. Williams evidently wasn't the greatest dancer, his partner George Walker was, but his moves were unique to his character. The Ellington tune is called, "A Portrait of Bert Williams."
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| Dora Dean |
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| Bert Williams |
Below are examples of four of the tunes I mentioned. Enjoy.
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Peace...
"Baby Lawrence" - The Count Basie Trio
"Shorty George" - Count Basie Orchestra, with clips of George "Shorty" Snowden
"Dora Dean" - sung by someone called Sheet Music Singer
"A Portrait of Bert Williams" - Duke Ellington Orchestra
This is GREAT STUFF and very well put together! Thanks a million to Hank Smith :) In Dora Dean, there's mention of 'cracklin' bread.' My grandmother made cracklin corn bread too! The cracklins come from fried pork skins and they put them into the corn bread. It was a favorite of my mother's growing up.
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