Tap dance (or tap ) is a form of dance that uses the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion; it is often accompanied by music. Tap dancing can also be a cappella , with no musical accompaniment; the sound of the taps is its own music.
100-404: It is an African-American artform that evolved alongside the advent of jazz music . Tap is a type of step dance that began with the combination of Southern American and Irish dance traditions, such as Irish soft-shoe and hard-shoe step dances , and a variety of both slave and freeman step dances. The fusion of African rhythms and performance styles with European techniques of footwork led to
200-626: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz
300-401: A continuous base material along the underside of the shoes; a split-sole tap shoe has a gap in the base material under the arch of the foot, making them more flexible. Modern tap shoes have soles with heels of varying height (one inch or more) and are commonly made of wood or stacked leather. Some beginner tap shoes have heels made of plastic. The toe box of the tap shoe is located on the front of
400-473: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when
500-502: A film about a tap dancing penguin. Another well-known tap film is 1989's Tap , starring Gregory Hines and many old-time hoofers. Early tappers like Fred Astaire provided a more ballroom look to tap dancing, while Gene Kelly introduced ballet elements and style into tap. This style of tap led to what is today known as Broadway style , which is popular in American culture. It often involves high heeled tap shoes and show music, and
600-399: A form of dance called "jigging", which was taken up by minstrel show dancers in the 1800s. Tap dance then became a popular stage entertainment. As minstrel shows began to decline in popularity, tap dance moved to the increasingly popular Vaudeville stage. Due to Vaudeville's unspoken "two-colored rule", which forbade blacks to perform solo, many Vaudeville tap acts were duets. One such duo
700-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal
800-478: A full split from which they rise with no hands. "Stormy Weather" was a six-minute performance performed in one go with no retakes. The Nicholas Brothers danced on pianos and many other structures during this performance. During the 1930s, tap dance mixed with Lindy Hop . "Flying swing outs" and "flying circles" are Lindy Hop moves with tap footwork. In the mid-to-late 1950s, the style of entertainment changed. Jazz music and tap dance declined, while rock and roll and
900-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in
1000-423: A moment of relief for those on the battlefront. The tap dancer said it was "the best thing I could have done to help my country." After his time on The Betty White Show and with USO, Duncan was discovered by Lawrence Welk 's personal manager Sam Lutz. He first appeared on the show as a guest in 1964. Several years after joining The Lawrence Welk Show , Duncan sang and danced a blend of old and new routines at
1100-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,
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#17327800878481200-485: A national audience, television stations in the Jim Crow South threatened a boycott if Duncan remained on the show. In a 2018 interview, White said that she refused to fire Duncan and gave him more airtime, recounting "I said, 'I'm sorry, but, you know, he stays. Live with it'." In 2018, Duncan had the opportunity to reunite with White on Steve Harvey ’s show Little Big Shots: Forever Young where he revealed he
1300-518: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of
1400-660: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key
1500-519: A pullback, pullbacks, wings, Cincinnati, the shim sham shimmy (also called the Lindy), Irish, Waltz Clog, the paddle roll, the paradiddle, stomp, brushes, scuffs, spanks, single and double toe punches, hot steps, heel clicks toe stands, over-the-tops, military time step, New Yorkers, and Shiggy Bops. In the earliest years of tap dancing, tap shoes often had wooden soles. The soles of modern tap shoes are either full-sole or split-sole. A full-sole tap shoe has
1600-462: A relaxed dancer." In fact, "his forearms tended to swing stiffly from the elbow." In terms of expression, he aimed to "please old-timers." The stress of doing so caused the look on his face to be strained, "wavering between smarmy and scared, the smile of a man concerned about the pistol sticking into his back." In 1954, Duncan first appeared on The Betty White Show and quickly became a regular performer. However, when Betty White 's show reached
1700-613: A second time that year on September 18 at Carnegie Hall. Duncan even starred in a musical on top of his many performances. In 1988, around March 10 through 13, he played Mr. Magix in the Long Beach Civic Light Opera's " My One and Only " a musical parody that first opened on Broadway in 1983 and won three Tony Awards. A year later, Duncan performed at San Francisco's Kimball's East, alongside Robert L. Reed. The event also featured Brenda Bufalino , Fred Moritel, Rusty Frank , and Savion Glover . Duncan's career
1800-432: A surprise for co-host Sheryl Underwood , who performed a tap dance routine with Savion Glover as part of the show's New Year's Evolution . Underwood said Duncan was her inspiration for tap dancing. Duncan gave Underwood flowers to celebrate her return to tap dancing. Little is known about Duncan's personal life, but at one point in his life, Duncan served in the army as an army private, while one of his brothers, Wilbur,
1900-482: A thin fiberboard integrated into the sole that can be firmly "gripped" by the screws – to reliably attach the tap to the shoe. When no adhesive is used, the screws can be loosened or tightened to produce different sounds, whereas tonal quality is fixed when adhesive is used. Jazz music Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in
2000-423: A variation with a pickup, which is essentially adding an additional brush sound. Popular steps with many variations include pullbacks, timesteps, riffs, and drawbacks. Time steps is an umbrella term that is widely used in tap for any combination of steps that follows a specific rhythm or pattern. These consist of a rhythm that is changed to make new time steps by adding or removing steps. There are many variations of
2100-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,
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#17327800878482200-693: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo
2300-558: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were
2400-451: Is currently considered to be modern tap, but has since declined in popularity. Basic tap steps are known as "one-sound steps" and are either weight shifting or non-weight-shifting steps. Common basic tap steps include heel drops, toe drops, a brush, scuff, chug, pull, hop, leap and step. In advanced tap dancing, basic steps are often combined together to create new steps. Many steps also have single, double, and triple variations, or can have
2500-493: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In
2600-574: Is made by shoes that have a metal "tap" on the heel and toe. Different shoes may differ in their sound. Tap dance is an indigenous American dance form with roots that go back 300 years to Irish and West African musical and step dance traditions, which themselves have medieval and ancient roots . During the 17th – 19th centuries, it was primarily developed from European step dance forms, such as jigs and clogs . These dances were brought to America by immigrants and eventually grew to incorporate African rhythms and styles . These fused and evolved into
2700-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,
2800-521: Is usually the type of tap first taught to beginners. Examples of this style are found in Broadway musicals such as Anything Goes and 42nd Street . "Soft-Shoe" is a rhythm form of tap dancing that does not require special shoes, and though rhythm is generated by tapping of the feet, it also uses sliding of the feet (even sometimes using scattered sand on the stage to enhance the sound of sliding feet) more often than modern rhythm tap. It preceded what
2900-625: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and
3000-617: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz
3100-547: The Shirley Temple franchise. Shortly thereafter, the Nicholas Brothers came on the scene. Consisting of real life brothers Fayard and Harold, this team wowed audiences with their acrobatic feats incorporated into their classy style of dancing. A notable scene in the movie "Stormy Weather" features the pair dancing up a staircase and then descending the staircase in a series of leapfrogs over each other into
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3200-730: The animated film , Happy Feet , has further reinforced the popular appeal. National Tap Dance Day in the United States, now celebrated May 25, was signed into law by President George Bush on November 7, 1989. (May 25 was chosen because it is the birthday of famous tapper Bill "Bojangles" Robinson .) Prominent modern tap dancers have included Sarah Reich , Brenda Bufalino , Melinda Sullivan , The Clark Brothers , James "Buster" Brown , Savion Glover , Gregory and Maurice Hines , LaVaughn Robinson , Jason Samuels Smith , Chloe Arnold , Michelle Dorrance , Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards , and Dianne "Lady Di" Walker . Indie-pop band Tilly and
3300-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from
3400-587: The 1980s, Duncan danced at multiple venues alongside other famous tap dancers. On May 13, 1982, he appeared with the Hoofers Club on the show "Two on the Town." In 1988, he was featured in "An Evening of Tap" at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Declared a "tap dancer's summit," the event's jazz tap performance included Steve Condos , Howard Sandman Sims , Savion Glover , Bunny Briggs , Jimmy Slyde , and Gregory Hines . Arthur Duncan danced with Gregory Hines
3500-476: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described
3600-509: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to
3700-464: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo
3800-874: The International Frolics in Los Angeles in 1967. This event took place in the Creole Lounge of the Hacienda International Hotel. Duncan also kicked off the opening of the new Richmond office of Home Savings and Loan Association on May 3, 1979, in California. Duncan appeared alongside seven others of "TV’s greatest entertainers" in a "salute to the 'golden days of television.'" The seven others consisted of Dennis Day , Alan Hale Jr. , David Nelson , Peggy Lennon , and Barbara Hale and her husband, Bill Williams . In
3900-665: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and
4000-589: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in
4100-480: The Vaudeville circuit in 1902 in a duo with George W. Cooper. The act quickly became famous, headlining events across the country, and touring England as well. In 1908, the partnership ended and Robinson began dancing solo, which was extremely rare for a black man at that time. Despite this, he had tremendous success and soon became a world-famous celebrity. He went on to have a leading role in many films, notably in
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4200-551: The Wall also features a tap dancer, Jamie Pressnall, tapping as percussion. During the 1930s and the 1940s, Americans were able to watch tap dancers perform on film. However, Black tap dancers found it difficult to be a part of these White films because segregation was prominent in America. This led to the creation of two different styles of tap dance: White tap dancers formed a Broadway style and Black dancers continued to evolve with
4300-478: The annual "Tap Extravaganza" in New York City . In 2006, Duncan was honored for his contributions to tap dance at the 15th Annual St. Louis Tap Festival . In 2017, Duncan appeared on the series premiere episode of the reality talent series Little Big Shots: Forever Young , where he performed a dance and reunited with actress Betty White. In 2018, Duncan made an appearance on The Talk as part of
4400-507: The basic time step, including the single, double, and triple time steps. Time steps consist of single- and multi-sound step combinations. In tap, various types of turns can be done, including step heel turns, Maxi Ford turns, cramp-roll turns, and drag turns. All tap turns can be practiced in both directions. Other common tap steps include the shuffle, shuffle ball change, double shuffle, leap shuffle, flap, flap ball change, running flaps, flap heel, cramp-roll, buffalo, Maxi Ford, Maxi Ford with
4500-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized
4600-404: The creation of tap dance. This fusion began in the mid-17th century but did not become popular until the mid-19th century. There are two major versions of tap dance: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely performed in musical theater . Rhythm tap focuses on musicality , and practitioners consider themselves to be a part of the jazz tradition. The sound
4700-555: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within
4800-509: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in
4900-413: The edge of the shoe more, making them heavier as a result. A tap's "tone" is influenced by its weight as well as its surface shape, which may be concave or convex. The tonal quality of a tap can also be influenced by the material it is made from, and the presence of a soundboard. Taps are mounted to the sole of the shoe with screws, and sometimes adhesive as well. The screws are driven into a soundboard –
5000-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as
5100-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",
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#17327800878485200-489: The first black tap dancers to be acknowledged by America was Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , who performed duets with Shirley Temple . However, Bill Robinson's career was reduced to "minstrelsy," which can be defined as White performers using makeup to mock black culture or using black stereotypes in a performance. Black Americans joined these minstrel performances, where they would be forced to act on black stereotypes in their performances. James "Buster" Brown , got his start in
5300-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in
5400-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired
5500-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In
5600-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,
5700-460: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in
5800-578: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to
5900-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in
6000-478: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since the 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around
6100-646: The latter is known as " a cappella " tap dancing. Hoofers are tap dancers who dance primarily "closer to the floor", using mostly footwork and not showing very much arm or body movement. This kind of tap dancing, also called rhythm tap , was employed by slaves in America. Steve Condos developed an innovative rhythmic tap style that influenced the work of later tap dancers such as Gregory Hines and Savion Glover . The majority of early hoofers, such as Sammy Davis Jr. , Glover, Hines, and LaVaughn Robinson were African American men. Savion Glover helped bring tap dance into mainstream media by choreographing Happy Feet ,
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#17327800878486200-955: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville
6300-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement
6400-423: The movement as they perform, and the choreography is not prepared beforehand. There was also the "two-color rule," which made sure that black tap dancers were not able to perform solos onstage. This led to some tap dancers performing comedic tap duets. There were stereotypes placed on black Americans such as the "Uncle Tom" stereotype, and many tap dancers were forced to wear " black-face " onstage to perform. One of
6500-697: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in
6600-583: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for
6700-500: The new jazz dance emerged. What is now called jazz dance evolved out of tap dance , so both dances have many moves in common. But jazz evolved separately from tap dance to become a new form in its own right. Well known dancers during the 1960s and 1970s included Arthur Duncan and Tommy Tune . No Maps on My Taps , the Emmy award winning PBS documentary of 1979, helped begin the recent revival of tap dance. The outstanding success of
6800-467: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides
6900-618: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of
7000-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which
7100-500: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of
7200-458: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has
7300-494: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman
7400-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed
7500-676: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became
7600-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in
7700-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by
7800-425: The segregated clubs of the 1930s, but eventually earned international mainstream recognition and mentored younger more modern tap dancers in the 1990s. Tap dancers make frequent use of syncopation . Choreography typically starts on the eighth or first beat count. Another aspect of tap dancing is improvisation . Tap dancing can either be done with music following the beats provided, or without musical accompaniment;
7900-483: The shoe for the purpose of reinforcing the shoe; however there are tap shoes that use a soft leather instead. A single tap shoe has two taps: one under the heel, and another under the toes. Popular tap shoe makers include Bloch and Capezio . There are several styles of tap shoes: Depending on manufacturer and model, tap characteristics can vary considerably. For example, some taps have relatively low weight and small footprint whereas others may be thicker and fill out
8000-556: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from
8100-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding
8200-408: The traditional rhythm based style. Broadway tap dance was performed in mainly Broadway musicals and film, and it did not emphasize classic jazz rhythms. Rhythm tap integrated more of the classic African roots of tap dance, and it emphasized jazz rhythms, musicality, and improvisation. Musicality is the dancer's understanding of the music they are performing to. Improvisation is where a dancer makes up
8300-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were
8400-575: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing
8500-569: The world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were
8600-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take
8700-500: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from
8800-583: Was "Buck and Bubbles," which consisted of John "Bubbles" Sublett tap dancing and Ford "Buck" Washington playing a piano. The duo performed a "Class Act", a routine in which the performers wore tuxedos, effectively distinguishing them from the older minstrel show concept of tap dancers as "grinning-and-dancing clowns." Another notable figure during this period is Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , a protégé of Alice Whitman of The Whitman Sisters around 1904 (then known as "Willie Robinson"). Well versed in both Buck and Wing dancing and Irish Step dancing, Robinson joined
8900-479: Was a member of a dance quartet that performed at McKinley Junior High School in Pasadena. He later entered Pasadena City College to study pharmacy. Arthur Duncan took dance lessons with Willie Covan and Nick Castle . Duncan claimed that Castle had a bigger influence on him and his musicality. While Duncan could be counted on for a consistent solid rhythm and big finish, he rarely repeated himself and "was not
9000-627: Was an American tap dancer , also called an "Entertainer's Entertainer," known for his stint as a performer on The Lawrence Welk Show from 1964 to 1982. This, along with his earlier inclusion (despite objections) on The Betty White Show in 1954 and with the help of White herself, made him the first African-American regular on a variety television program . He performed all over the world, and notably at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. Born in Pasadena, California , one of thirteen children, Duncan entered show business at age thirteen, when he
9100-877: Was featured on the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, where he represented "the eldest of three generations of tap". The number danced was choreographed by Jason Samuels Smith and received an Emmy Award. A year later, in 2004, he won the Flo-Bert Lifetime Achievement Award at the New York City Tap Extravaganza. He then received the Living Treasure in American Dance Award in 2005 from Oklahoma City University. In 2006, he
9200-408: Was featured weekly as a regular. Though he tapped alone for the most part, he danced with both Bobby Burgess and Jack Imel on the show. The 1989 film Tap featured Duncan in a cameo appearance with other famous tap dancers. He made more TV guest appearances on Diagnosis Murder with Dick Van Dyke , Columbo with Peter Falk , and The Phil Donahue Show . In 2004 Duncan was honored at
9300-638: Was honored at the 15th Annual St. Louis Tap Festival for his "lifetime contribution to the art of tap dance", earning a tribute. In 2008, he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Performing Arts in American Dance degree also from Oklahoma City University. Some years later, the Chicago National Association of Dance Masters awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Lastly, he was inducted in
9400-670: Was in the navy. The two seemed close to their father James Duncan and one of their sisters, Savaletta D. Gordon. Duncan died of a stroke and pneumonia in Moreno Valley, California , on January 4, 2023, at the age of 97. Upon his death, it was revealed that Duncan was in fact born in 1925. Most biographies during his lifetime had used the birth year of 1933, a mistake which he never corrected, since "he never wanted to discuss anything personal," according to his wife. Due to his long-lasting and outstanding tap dancing career, Duncan has earned many awards and much recognition. In 2003, Duncan
9500-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in
9600-553: Was not aware of the controversy at the time of its occurrence. There, he credited White to his success and starting his career. In 1957, Duncan joined Bob Hope 's troupe touring U.S. military bases as a part of the United Service Organization (USO), making him the first African American to be part of that 100-member group. The tour entertained U.S. troops during the Cold War and Vietnam War , providing
9700-429: Was not diminished in the turn of the century. In 2004, he danced at the second annual Los Angeles Tap Festival. He continued to dance in the festival every year until 2008. Duncan is most famously known for his time on The Lawrence Welk Show , on which he appeared as a regular from 1964 until 1982. Introduced by Welk, the dancer was said to be "a credit to his race and to the entertainment profession." In fact, Duncan
9800-460: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. Arthur Duncan Arthur Chester Duncan (September 25, 1925 – January 4, 2023)
9900-400: Was the first Black person to be a regular on a variety show. The weight of this, as well as the weight of being the only Black man on the show, led to him pre-recording his tap dancing, saying he "didn't take chances." His time on The Lawrence Welk Show gave the art of tap "its most regular exposure in that era", which was a time in which tap was mostly dormant. It especially helped that he
10000-536: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and
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