If the shoe fits...

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Laraine Goodman's shoes

My first pair of tap shoes were shiny, patent leather ones bought at a store called Selva on Broadway. I was about 10 or 11, studying at the Mable Hart Dance Studio in Harlem, and really liked those shoes. I'd put them on in the house whenever I could and, when my parents weren't around, would practice some tap in the living room. When I decided to get back into tap dancing, in my late 20s, I bought some shoes at Capezio and had them for awhile, not using them that much because I wasn't tapping that much. In later years, I've had a number of shoes from different brands and currently favor a pair of wooden soled shoes because I really prefer their sound more than the metallic tap sound. Plus, that's what Bill Robinson wore! I asked some dancers about their relationship with tap shoes and here are their answers. If you have thoughts about shoes, comment below. Thanks.

Sarah Petronio
Me and my shoes...
I have funky feet...funky not in the "bring in the funk" way just sensitive feet with bunions. So, I need wide comfortable shoes. I wore the lovely Capezio leather K360 for 20 years. I have had them in white, black, tan and even painted them brown with little silver music notes. I made the “Capezio stop” to buy tap shoes every time I came to the USA from France where we lived. I started with Capezio Master Taps, tried the Tele tone taps when the Master Taps were impossible to find. I also enjoyed the Duo-Tone heel Taps. I beat my feet to all kinds of music especially Be bop and jazz. When I was invited to teach and perform at the Boston Umbrella Tap Festival, I ended the week teaching 35 excited students and got so excited myself that at the end of the class, I jumped up in the air and landed back down with the most terrible pain in my right foot. I decided to ignore the slight swelling on my foot that night because not even a broken foot would have stopped me to be on that stage the following night where I was scheduled to perform with the most incredible line up of artists - Jimmy Slyde, The Nicholas Brothers, Steve Condos, Brenda Bufalino, Savion Glover, Honi Coles, The Jazz Tap Ensemble, LaVaughn Robinson, Eddie Brown and Dianne Walker. I had requested Bross Townsend to inspire me with his piano playing and Major Holley to walk with me to the sound of “Blues in the Closet” and they did. Except for the agonising shooting pains that seemed to go through my Capezio shoes into my dancing feet all went relatively well. THANK YOU MY TAN CAPEZIO K360’s for supporting me as I danced! After the show my foot was as large as a small pumpkin so when I returned home I spent the next few years rediscovering with the help of orthopaedic soles how to continue walking and dancing with one dislocated toe in my right foot. It was then that I switched to Miller and Ben tap shoes offered to me by Avi Miller and Ofer Ben. They were strong, but a bit stiff so I wore them for a year to break them in without the taps till they were ready and very comfortable for me to “hit” the way I wanted. I still wear them and find that they are well made and offer me a powerful sound on stage and when I teach big tap classes.

Hilary-Marie Michael

I'm loving and currently wearing The GS1 Tap Boots made by Matt at Dancing Fair. I really enjoy the quality of sound, they're extremely comfortable, there are many options to customize the build (sounding board, shank, insole, material, etc.) and I like the cut and style. I also have a pair of leather oxfords by Matt that I use for recordings and soft shoe performances. Dancing Fair is a small business that has a dancer's comfort, sound and style at the forefront of their mind, and for that, I'm very appreciative.

Laraine Goodman

I guess my very first attraction to tap shoes was on the feet of Eleanor Powell in 1964 when I was an apprentice for Summer Stock Theater in West Springfiled, MA. Eleanor was tall and gorgeous and had the lead in a musical bound for Broadway (can’t remember which show it was). My real dive into tap and tap shoes was around 1986, 87 when I stumbled upon a used a used pair of Capezio character shoes with taps at a street fair. They were my size, a perfect 8, and they felt like heaven. As my tap life progressed, I graduated to flat Brenda Bufalino tap shoes (designed by Brenda and Avi Miller and Ofer Ben) They were called Danskys. I wear that brand to this day. I like my taps loose. Also, Thinking about trying out Capezio K360s. During the 90s, Gregory Hines gave me two pairs of his own brand, his design: One a woman’s style, see two tone black and red in photo and a “mens” style, black and dark grey. These days, all shoes should be gender fluid.

Shoes from top to bottom (see photo at top):
Brenda Bufalino's with one screw taps installed by Rob Rowe
Greg Hines two tone red/black “woman's"
Greg Hines two tone black/grey
Avi, Ofer and Brenda’s Danskys (Black and two tone Black/White)
Real Rockette’s red tap shoe from Rockette’s closet circa 1940s
And, last but not least, my first capezio character shoes found on street

Megan Haungs
I could dance just like John Bubbles
Heel drops would be no trouble
I'd tear up that tap mat.
Rhythm time steps would be easy
Syncopation always easy
If I only tapped in flats.

Inspired by Ms. Mable
The feminine enabled
But still keeping it real.
I'd dance like those before us
Who tap danced in the chorus
If I only danced in heels.

There is the saying that Ginger did everything that Fred did, only backwards and in heels. And certainly their ballroom numbers are among the most elegant icons of romance. But the Fred and Ginger numbers I enjoy most are the conversational tap dances--"Isn't a Lovely Day" from Top Hat, "I'll Be Hard to Handle" from Roberta, "Let Yourself Go" from Follow the Fleet. In these dances, they are side by side or face to face but neither is following or leading but playfully conversing, inventing, surprising each other. Ginger is dressed in slacks--very unusual for the 1930's. Which leads me to the subject of shoes. When I started to tap dance in the late 70's, I first got patent leather Mary Janes, then Freeds, then finally Capezio flats (I don't know if they were called K-360's then). Most of the women I studied with or danced with had similar shoes. We wanted the sound, the solid footing, the headliner professionalism of the flat helped shoes that were worn by our teachers and mentors. The shoes were a statement. We were sometimes (or often) asked why we dressed like men, or why we danced like men, or why don't we wear women's shoes, which meant heels. But of course we were wearing women's shoes, because they were shoes being worn by women. We were just redefining what a women's shoe could be. A shoe in which we could dance upfront, center stage, in which we could invent and converse like our teachers and mentors. 

Favorite shoe: Miller and Ben Jazz-Tap Master--love the sound!

Michael "Toes" Tiranoff

One night in the 90s, Traci Mann, Ginger de Paris, and I were in the the East Village where there used to be a block-long informal flea market by Astor Place. At one stand, Ginger spotted these heavy black and white shoes with taps; more suited to the monster in Young Frankenstein. They happened to be my size, so I brought them. They were maybe five or ten dollars. Well, I set them aside till I went on tour in with the Flying Karamazov Brothers and the New Old Time Chautauqua ( a group of Vaudevillians) in the summer of 1998. At our first stop in Homer, Alaska, we were camped out on the playground track by the high school where we were to do our first shows. Doug Weiselman, the musical director of the band, liked my idea of tap dancing in the show to Caravan. He furiously wrote out charts for the entire band. The arrangement not only allowed for stop time, but also a tacit for me. There was no place to rehearse except by the outside bathrooms. The pavement was concrete. Not wanting to mess up my good tap shoes (Capezio K-360s), I used those heavy duty black and white shoes to practice with. For the best acoustics, and also, because of a light rain all the musicians and I took over the Ladies Rest Room to rehearse the number. After a few run throughs, the number really started to come together. Everyone was excited about that number. It was a highlight of the tour, and still is one of my favorite arrangements. I felt limited in what I could do in these much heavier shoes, but Doug said he liked the bassier sound better than what my regular tap shoes gave me. So, I used them in our first show the next night. I felt restricted with my dancing, and went back to my good tap shoes for the rest of the tour. However, I would use those clunkers for our parades through the towns we travelled to, tapping along with the musicians, and other Vaudevillians.

YouTube finds: Part 1

I, like a lot of other people, can wind up wasting a lot of time on YouTube. You probably know the routine.  You just want to quickly look up one thing, and then you notice all the associated clips and it's all over. Hours later you're saying, "Just this one more and then that's it!' But the upside are the discoveries one can make. Recently, after looking at some tap clips, I decided to find clips of famous actors/performers dancing you were not known for doing tap and any related dance forms. Below are some examples. I realize that depending on your age or experience you may not know who some of these folks are, so I'll try and give a brief bio of each person.

First, we have a quintet of an unlikely line up of "tap dancers." Dean Martin was mainly known as a singer, but was a pretty good dancer. Buddy Ebsen became known on TV for his acting, but was a very good dancer and was almost in The Wizard of Oz. Lee J. Cobb was as dramatic an actor as you can get, having originated the role of Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman and not known at all as a dancer. Charles Nelson Reilly acted and also became a popular guest on game shows. Jackie Vernon was a droll comedian and, as you'll see, not a natural dancer. This clip seems to be from the Dean Martin Show from the 1960s

Doris Day (still with us at 95!) started her career as a singer with big bands and then had a movie career as singer and actress. But she was also a really good dancer. Here she is with dancer Gene Nelson from the 1951 film, Lullaby of Broadway.

Old school Hollywood had a roster of actors known for their tough guy/gangster roles. One such actor was Edward G. Robinson. Well, here he is "cuttin' up the rug" with Wendy Barrie in 1938's I Am The Law.

Cary Grant was known as the handsome, suave, sophisticated guy in the Hollywood of yore, an image he developed over the years, although he did have a knack for comedy. Even though not known as a dancer, he was quite agile because in his youth he juggled and did acrobatics with a traveling comedy troupe. Watch him (and Ingrid Bergman) move in a moment from the 1958 film, Indiscreet.

Another handsome, etc., etc., guy was Clark Gable. Well known as Rhett Butler telling Vivian Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" at the end of the 1939 film, Gone With The Wind, he is here in a different mood from Idiot's Delight, of the same year.

Jimmy Stewart, who I would call the "Ah, shucks" guy, had quite a film career that spanned a few decades. Just google his name to find out about his films, but to see him in a rare dance moment, check this out from Born To Dance (1936). Others in the clip are Buddy Ebsen, Frances Langford, Eleanor Powell, Sid Silvers and Una Merkel.

The last example is someone who actually is a dancer, having come out of vaudeville, but also known as an actor. His name is Eddie Anderson and became quite famous on the Jack Benny Show as the character "Rochester". He also appeared in many films, including the great 1943 musical Cabin in the Sky, and this clip is from the 1941 Kiss the Boys Goodbye. The singer, Connee Boswell, was inspired by blues singer Mamie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald was inspired by Ms Boswell! Watch Mr. Anderson work the sand...

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Birthday time

Spoiler Alert! The answers to the test from my last post are at the bottom, in case you still want to do that test.

February tends to be my least favorite month, tying in place with August. It's short and always seems dark to me, being in the midst of winter. But it does have two things going for it, Valentines Day (I consider all months Black History Months, so that doesn't count for me) and it has a lot of tap dancers with birthdays. Here is a list of those I know about. If I missed any other February tappers, let me know. You can click on any of these names to see a link of them in action (some with other dancers!).

Feb. 2  - Jane Goldberg
Feb. 4  - Michael "Toes" Tiranoff
Feb. 7  - Leon Collins (1922-1985)
Feb. 11 - Charles "Cookie" Cook (1914-1991)                    

Feb. 12 - Megan Haungs

               Leslie "Bubba" Gaines (1917-1997)
Feb. 14 - Gregory Hines (1946 - 2003)
Feb. 19 - John Bubbles (1902-1986)
Feb. 23 - Baby Laurence (1921-1974)
Feb. 24 - Sarah Petronio
Feb. 26 - Bunny Briggs (1922-2014)

As you can see from above, today is the birthday of Leon Collins, but it is also
the birthday of a non tap dancer, Eubie Blake (1887-1983). I want to mention this great composer because there is a connection between him and tap. Two years ago a play all too briefly ran on Broadway about a famous musical that he and others put together. It was called, Shuffle Along, Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, and was created/directed by George C. Wolfe. Savion Glover did the choreography and created some great tap numbers for a chorus of dancers and the other actors in the show. One of Savion's mentors was Gregory Hines, whose birthday is one week away.  Gregory's sort of reentry into performing, after a hiatus when the act with his brother ended, was in the Broadway show, Eubie, from the late 1970s. That show celebrated the music of Mr. Blake and was where Gregory and his Brother Maurice danced together again. Also, there is a short film from 1932 featuring Nina Mae McKinney called, Pie, Pie Blackbird, that has Eubie Blake and his orchestra playing while the Nicholas Brothers dance. So, there're the connections! Below is a 1979 clip from Saturday Night Live with Eubie, at 92, and Gregory. You can also click on that film title above to watch McKinney, a young Eubie and really young Nicholas Brothers. Enjoy!

Answers for the last post test: #1 Lon Chaney, #2 Ayodele Casel, #3 Chuck Green, #4 Brenda Bufalino, #5 Jimmy Slyde, #6 Dianne Walker, #7 Steve Condos

Music: Part 2

As promised, this is a follow up to last week's post. It's often is said that tap dancers are musicians, but I think they are also storytellers. When dancing, there should be something that the dancer wants to say, whether literally or emotionally. The "story" could be short or long, all depending on the context in which the dancing is done.

A number of years ago James "Buster" Brown hosted a weekly tap jam at the Swing 46 Jazz and Supper Club in Manhattan. On occasion, when he couldn't be there, I was one of the folks who would take over the hosting job. Once when I was hosting a tap dancer did her thing, but afterwards seemed rather disturbed. After a little while she asked me if she could go up again. I asked her why and she said she was frustrated because she hadn't "said" what she wanted to say when she danced earlier. We dancers all know that feeling. The audience can like what you do, but you know you didn't just get it right. When I would hang with some of the tap veterans, back in the day, they often were quite critical of a dancer who they felt "wasn't saying anything." One of the things Charles "Cookie" Cook told me about Bill Robinson was that you could listen to his routines and hear how one step went logically into the next one. Most of us tap dancers can also recognize certain familiar steps and routines just by hearing them. I even rehearsed and worked out a tap routine with Cookie once on while the telephone, just by us scatting and vocalizing "steps" back and forth.

I mentioned in the first of these Music posts that I was searching for some clips on Baby Laurence online, but got side tracked. Well, for those of you unfamiliar with Laurence, below is a clip of him for you to watch and listen to. I got to see him live in the 70s when he hosted a semi regular tap event at the Jazz Museum that used to be down the block from the City Center in NYC. There is a good documentary about him called, "Jazz Hoofer" that includes some footage of him at the Museum. This clip is from an episode of the ABC show Hollywood Palace that was hosted by Sammy Davis, Jr.

And now I want you to listen, and take an optional test. Here are audio clips of 7 dancers. Check them out and pay attention to what you hear. The optional test is to see if you can guess who the dancers are. It might be too simple for some of you, but we'll see. If you have answers, please put them in the "Comments" section at the bottom of the blog here but not on Facebook, if you are accessing this blog from there. I'll have the answers in my next posting. Enjoy and keep working on your particular music and stories!

Dancer #1

Dancer #2

Dancer #3

Dancer #4

Dancer #5

Dancer #6

Dancer #7