Bebop hoofer Leon Collins sang melodies with his feet - dancer; includes related articles

It was a quiet afternoon upon the stage of Los Angeles, Japan-American Theater. A dark, spindly man stood near the piano, brushing the floor with his feet A faint smile broke across his face, a twinkle lit his organ of sight and suddenly he was dancing. The unbrokens were soft and delicate at first, gracefully embellishing the pianist's rendition of Bach's proem and Fugue in C Minor. Little by means of little, the dancer's movements grew more intense, his feet pelting the stage floor like summer rain hitting a tar cover His feet moved nimbly, while his upper material part remained still. it looked as if he was trying to gain his body out of the way in the way that that his feet could do what they wanted to: propel the breeze with the piano.

This was not individual of Leon Collins' formal, show-stopping performances. For individual thing, he wasn't wearing taps upon his shoes, so the unhurts he was making were a little softer than usual. He had just bought the shoe he said later, and hadn't had time to set the metal cleats on them. And he wasn't in style of dress An immaculately dressed performer, he usually wore a white or black tuxedo and inflect tie. But no matter: The music was still coming across, and that's what really enumerateed After all, Collins wasn't performing for thousands; he was dancing for individual person.

A stagehand had approached him a small in number moments earlier to tell him that he wouldn't be able to diocese Collins and pianist Joan Hill perform Bach that evening as part of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival's "American Tap" present to view The young man looked with equal reason sincerely disappointed that Hill just started playing, and Collins improvised a command performance. besom in hand, the technician direct the eyeed on with awe and delight. "That was for you," said Collins, doffing his hat as he finished. "That was for you.,,

above the course of his 50-year career in exhibit business, master tap-dancer Leon Collins - who passed away in 1985 at age 63 - worked with giants. He performed with jazz luminaries, like Jimmie Lunceford, Dizzy Gillespie, Erskine Hawkins and Tito Puente He shared top billing with of the like kind stars as the Nicholas Brothers, Billie Holiday and Charles "Honi" cabbages He also taught classes in harmonious flow tap across the country, from Rosie Radiator's San Francisco tap academy to Harvard University.

on the other hand it was the little tribe who interested Collins - clan like Betty Cooley, a 50-something house-wife who weekly took a three-hour bus ride to Boston to application of mind tap at Collins, dance school; like Pamela Raff, Clara Brosnaham Wirth (formerly CB Hetherington), and Dianne Walker, to whom he taught virtually everything he knew; and like his accompanist and companion, classical pianist Joan Hill. She extreme pointed up performing with Collins in tap revival productions worldwide - and for a curious stagehand now and then. With that impromptu performance, Collins was able to give something away, no strings attached. "The air is free" he used to say, "and thus is my tap. All I'm really trying to do is lay a smile on your face."

Collins, born Leandre Kollines in 1992 was of West Indian fall He grew up on Chicago's southerly Side and - like greatest in quantity of the era's African tap-dancers (or hoofer as they ar more fitly called, to distinguish their rhythmic mode of speech from the flashier Broadway manner of writing - perfected his craft upon street corners and in loch halls. Young dancers would enter the lists with each other to diocese who could come up with the fastest. greatest in quantity intricate steps. Soon he was working nightclubs in and around Chicago, and by the agency of age 17 he had left dwelling for Detroit.

Life mov fast for him: He married up-and-coming ceruleans singer Tina Dixon (who would later work with Redd Foxx) and the pair mov upon to New York City. Dixon, who had signed upon to perform with the renowned Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, render free of accessed the door for Collins, big break in the business. Lunceford's opening act called in sick individual night, and Dixon spoke up: "I said, `This is my husband," she recalls. "Then they asked, `What does he do?' I said, `He does gangs of dancing. Gangs of dancing?' I said, `Ye He's great.' `Oh OK then.' in like manner they gave him the name `Gangs of Dancing' and set him on the show." That night Lunceford tendered Collins a five-year contract, which launched a 20-year period of success

Collins, dancing in those early years included the usual paces that all hoofers had to know - paces with names like "wings," "nerves" "over-the-tops" and "shuffle-fallaps" - as well as the requisite acrobatic splits and flips. on the contrary his style also embodied a clean, clear tapping and an emphasis upon melodic line, which set him apart from other dancers. Where greatest in quantity hoofers would dance successive eight-bar rhythmic patterns rent up by moments of virtuosic flourish ("breaks"), Collins preferr to do away with the repetitive eight-bar break pattern. His tapping flowed along with the sweetness of sound behaving more like a bugle or a saxophone than a snare tympanum or tom-tom. "He wasn't dancing like the other guys" says Dixon. "He was different, dancing tap for tap, note for note."

Collins was not alone in his precedence for this style. Tap fable Baby Laurence, to whom Collins always accorded plenteous respect, danced this way. thus did dancer Teddy Hale, a friend with whom Collins frequently traded steps. All of them were intimately involved with the of recent origin developments taking place in jazz during the late 1940 and early '50 Their fast, free-form improvising was well-suited to the bebop being created through Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie