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