Black Expressive Culture Narrative Stage: The Scanner Boys; The Philadelphia Tap Dancers
Web Video Text Tracks Format (WebVTT)
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[SPEAKER name= "Unknown Speaker" Glaw, what you do to secure the record so when you scratching the record won't get harmed at all?
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Interviewer: And Kev, whadda ya have under there?
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Kev: Okay what I have under here is, y'know, plastic and paper. Which really shouldn't be used cause it'll draw a film on your records, but I mean the best thing I suggest to use is use a mat like him, it's called a felt you can buy it any record store because it doesn't cause a film under your records. The reason why it's paper 'cause if I'm speed mixin' I need y'know to put the slide so it will slide back and catch on. If I use mat, y'know felt, it won't y'know catch like that so the best thing to use like he said, is felt. That's one thing I can really suggest to you.
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Interviewer: Are there other questions before we talk with the rappers? Folks wanna hear the rappers, I hear it. Okay, with us today, sitting to my left, two rappers with the Grand Masters of Funk, one of Philadelphia's finest rap groups from Mount Airy. They work with Cosmic Kev here. You got next to me Perry P, next to him Money Man. Maybe we should start by- Perry, why don't you explain, why don't you give us a little example to the folks of what a rap is for those who don't know what we're talking about? And then, what we'll do is we'll break down, just like we did with the DJ, into different types of rap.
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Perry P: Whatchu want me to rap?
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Interviewer: Just a short piece of a rap. So, Kev, could we get some music up there? And let's, let's keep the music real low so we can hear the rap.
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Perry P: One two, one two.
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[[music playing]]
Perry P: One two. Now this is a rap that I'm just gonna make up off the top of my head. And it's like this.
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Perry P: [[rapping]] All day! Funk on the beat when I'm in the place. You gotta get up and feel the bass. And when I'm on the mic I might give it a taste because you know my vibes will shock your rage has got to be quick and when I'm on the mic I'll put you in a fit. You know the beat, it just don't quit, And when I get on the rhythm, said it go like this. Say rhyme so fast, rhymes not slow, rhymes on the beat won't let it go. When you hear the rhyme well you'll be amazed because you know my rhymin' action put you all in a daze.
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Speaker 1: [Parry P] Perry earns his reputation. Okay Perry, First of all, Lets talk about the different types of rap. Actually, both you and money man. In terms of, some people write their raps out some people improvise their raps, how do you all work?
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Perry: Well, the rhymes I say I make out the top of my head, See, money money man just got in the group like, you know, bout a year ago, something like that see all the rhymes I say, I say by myself. and lotta people you know I got in a lotta battle and things. You know.
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Perry: I just like to rhyme.
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Speaker 1: Money man, how about you, when you make up your raps, how do you do that?
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Money Man: Um, some of them are written previously written and others I say off my head.
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Speaker 1: Uh huh,
Money Man: or you listen from others and you take from what they say and you add on what you have to say to it and you can make out with that.
Speaker 1: right, right. what are the different types of rapping?
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Money Man: Slow placed raps, fast talking, fast raps, and theres mainly emceeing where youre just talking between while the DJ's cutting and my man Perry P, he has a whole different, completely different style, he changes his voice while he raps.
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Money Man: He has 50,000 different voices, any kinda character, he can change his voice while he's rapping.
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Speaker 1: theres also message rap,right?
Money Man: Yes, when you rap and youre preaching a message to the people so they should understand what youre um, youre really telling them something that
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no. Uh, yeah. Your rap about the environment, or you tell em a message, something.
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Community, you could talk about rap about the community, different places, you can rap about yourself, but its all a message that you should understand, its just not no hip hops stuff
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Speaker 1: Okay, why don't we, why don't we do real, short examples of the different kinds of rap to give the people an idea of what we're talking about.
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Money Man: Alright, well this is mceeing: In the place to be, to the highest degree, most definitely, with personality, got's to be the all-mighty money. That's just mceeing. Now Parry's going to do some space rapping.
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Parry P: One two. This is a form of rap that I made up myself with the different voices, to see the people smile. For just a little while as you rock your eye with the stereo seats surround sounds at the grand masters [inaudible]
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Parry P: Not your attitude? How you really feelin'?
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Parry P: Now, this is how it goes. Now everybody know you in the place and when I'm on the microphone, I rock the bass, I gotta rhyme in store for you and boy
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Parry P: and when I get on the beat, I'm down by law, cause the rhymes don't stop. We just don't quit, and when I'm on the mic I got's the beat, and it's like this!
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[[Applause]]
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Money Man: Uh message rap? Going through the ghetto, hold up hold up, lemme get it right, lemme get it right, lemme get it right
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Money Man: You going through the ghetto with nothing to do, saying nothing changed, and not for you. You're sitting around, looking just like a clown, going around, got your pants down.
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Money Man: Ain't got no money, nothing to give, how will you work? say, how will you live? This automatic system and remote-controlled synthetics, genetics command your soul. Trucks, tanks, laser beams.
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Money Man: Guns, Blacks, sufferings, neutron, b-bomb, a-bomb, gas. All that stuff will kill you fast.
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[[Applause]]
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Money Man: A slow rap. See I really don't have no slow raps.
[SILENCE]
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Money Man: Alright, this a little speed, a speed, rap.
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I'm the [[motivator?]], dominator, heart breaker, boob shake, got the power, never sour, always finish to devour, in it, I won't break it down, I never quit it like this, give it all the break and all the chip in the joint and when I rock all the people I'll keep the party goin'.
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[[Applause]]
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Speaker 1: Rapping is most commonly associated with folks as or with recordings. A lot of people nowadays hear rapping they think of it as a recorded form, something that started off on records and then hit the street. Actually one thing you learn real quickly in cities like Philadelphia or New York or DC or Baltimore is that it's just the other way around. The rapping started out on the street, started out at block parties, at clubs with DJs working, first started off doing emcing.
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Speaker 2: It started in New York
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Speaker 1: Right. And developing from there into a recorded form and a commercial form, so that the records keep infusing new ideas and new things into the street but the same way, the people in the clubs and the block parties are coming up with new stuff all the time. Now, in terms of how popular rapping is in Philly, how many groups would ya'll say there were there working now?
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Speaker 2: In Philly?
Speaker 1: Yea
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Speaker 2: 500. It's a lot of 'em .
Speaker 1: I don't know about that one.
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Speaker 2: 5000. It's everywhere you look is a DJ. You know, everybody wanna be a DJ. That's what I say, I call em wannabes and suck emcees and stuff like that, you know to make em stop, cuz we pulled up on a lot of people and made them look bad, and that will make them stop. Cause its people right and they go out there and they'll rap like this. Well my name is Tom, I'm on a mic, I got it big, I'm doing it right, I ride a .. and people be like, what is he saying? What is he sayin'? There's no, there's no strong message to it like, you know like screaming and getting into it so people will know what you're talking about. And it's a lot of other people that be like [inaudible] .. what did he say? You can't understand their words.
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Speaker 1: Okay. Unfortunately, we have run out of time in the workshop, but at 4:15 on the main stage, the Grand Masters of Funk are gonna be on for about a half hour doing nothing but rapping.
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Speaker 2: That's right
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Speaker 1: And then joining them on the stage will be the Scanner Boys who are gonna do both popping and break dancing. So, let's have a big hand for the Grand Masters of Funk and Grand Wizard Sly.. we'll see ya'll at 4:30 over there, if you wanna see more of this or stay here for the next workshop
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Hey[[?]] you guys want to be all free right now. Come on down and watch what we're going to do.
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Hey watch it now.
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Watch this thing right here now. Ladies and gentlemen, we're your next attraction. Take away right here. Come on down and watch what we're going to do right here. Come on.
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Right down and close.
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Bring it.
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Bring in and rub a lady out.
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Watch this nice. It's going to be all right. Come right down and close and sit down
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Hey, you going to get some free, but you don't get much free when you come out, so you better come down and get some.
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Hey, watch it nice. That's going to be all free right here
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Now I know your have friends neighbors talking about this. This is where the right here. You is in the right place. This is what they were talking about.
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Now ladies and gentlemen.
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If you come right on down and close. Come right down and have a seat.
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Reason asked you- Reason we asked you to come down and have seat is the gifts of our regulation for firsts the block of back can have the front of all. So come on down.
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Right down and close now, ladies and gentlemen.
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Hey tell them to bring the snake girl out here.
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The girl on the roller skates.
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Watch it now ladies and gentlemen.
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Getting ready to do a white shop here.
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This is the wake shop from the tent over there.
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Oh they got to show that lady. The other one you go over there and you see it. You go home and tell and all your friends and neighbors about it. Because this is the one. And your- if you read your paper, they send a paper about that show, well that’s the one you’ve read about and talked- are talking about.
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So now we’re going to turn you back over, to the man that, you know, brought us all here; he went to a great expense to bring us all here. 50 cent apiece. [Laughing]
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Speaker 2: You may walk away from that other stage thinking that you know all there is to know, thinking that you’ve seen all there is to see over there in the performance. See a little bit of break dancing, hear some gospel music, hear a little bit of do-op and some vocal harmonies. But you really don’t know what you’ve seen until you come to this stage, because on this stage we’re gonna tell you what it all means. So when you go home, when you’re all through you go home you tell your friends and neighbors and say what we’ve got for you here. You can say, ‘I not only saw, but I heard him talk’, and more specifically, ‘I know what I’m talking about now, ‘cause I heard him on the workshop stage’.
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So here we are on the workshop narrative stage for the Black Philadelphia Program here at the Festival of American Folk life.
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Now what we’re going to be doing today, this particular workshop is going to deal with traditions of Black entertainment.
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Willie Jones here, right next to me a fella more commonly known in Philadelphia as “Ashcan Jones”, has a long and varied career on the stage.
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He’s worked with everything from circuses and carnivals, to medicine shows and black traveling tent shows. Worked with minstrelsy, worked with vaudeville, been in the movies, been on the stage.
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How many people do you know who could say that at one period of life they were working with an old medicine doctor selling medicine, and in another were appearing with other Lindy Hoppers in the Marx Brothers movie, “Duck Soup”.
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That’s right ladies and gentlemen, this gentleman right next to me is a movie star as well as a Lindy Hopper.
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Speaker 1: Was in a number of feature films, many of which you're probably familiar with. But that's not what we're here to talk about.
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What we're going to be speaking about today more specifically is traditions of entertainment.
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Now, when you come to a folk festival, a festival of folk lives such as this, you expect to hear about folk culture, you expect to hear about the old times.
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But you don't expect to hear that much about "commercial entertainment", Tent shows, Vaudeville theater.
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Yet we have to realize that, especially in the Black community, the traditions of music, of dance, of comedy that we see on the stage were often traditions that were born in the folk community,
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brought onto the stage, and developed there into new forms that became traditions themselves, except traditions of the stage.
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Traditions that were passed down from older generation of performer to younger generation of performer, not mother to father, excuse me, not mother to son,
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or mother to daughter, or father to son, or father to daughter. But rather older comic to younger comic, older dancer to younger dancer.
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With us here is Willie Jones. Willie started off on the entertainment circuit as a dancer when he was quite a young man and then traveled literally the entire circuit.
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Willie, could we start by talking about how you started as a dancer-- where you were, how you first got on showbiz, and then the different stages of show business that you've worked with?
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Willie: Well I started show business, I was, I went to see a carnival.
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And I saw the carnival, I liked what the people was doing, and I, I was on the farm, I can tell you, I was down in Georgia. And we was on a farm.
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And I saw those people dancing and carrying on, so I asked them, could I go to the store for them?
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So I went to the store for them, they let me go the the store for them, and when they got ready to leave, they let me go with them.
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Willie "Ashcan" Jones: And first I went to the store and I watched what they did, and when they really need somebody to do something I was there to do it.
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So that's my first way of getting away from home.
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I went away with a carnival. And then later on then I started learning how to dance.
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I wanted to be a dancer so I tried to learn how to dance, but I wanted to tap dance and I found out I couldn't learn how to tap dance.
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So I learned a dance they call it Lindy Hop. And I'm guessing y'all never heard of it because they–
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That's why we had to tell about this because they took the Lindy Hop from us and turned it into the Jitterbug.
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So-that- everybody all know the Jitterbug but they don't know the Lindy Hop. The Lindy Hop was the first one it was the Lindy Hop.
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But they took it from us and turned it into the Jitterbug so it wouldn't be our dance it was somebody else's dance.
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When we did it it's just like the break dancers today: you go someplace they got a big sign up there, "No break-dancing here," 'cause they say you'll tear up everything.
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So when I was young, when we would do Lindy Hop they would have it in there- they wouldn't call it the Lindy Hop they said "No part of the Big Apple here."
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'Cause everybody thought the Big Apple and the Lindy Hop were the same but it was different.
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You did Lindy Hop, Big Apple was a dance that you did everything like you see 'em doing today.
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On that what Saturday night something they got having a Saturday night show what is it there?
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[[unintelligible crowd chatter]]
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Saturday Night Fever. Well see, that's what the uh- Big Apple was years ago they did the same thing years ago. We called it Big Apple you could do anything you wanted to do.
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But the Lindy Hop you had to do one special dance- you couldn't turn your girl loose no, no longer you could turn 'round and back.
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But now you just turn 'em loose you do what you want to do and they do what they want to do.
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It's a lot of different than dances now. But they still call it partner dances.
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Which is not partner dance no more. Anytime you turn the hand- take the hand and loose from a girl,
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More than the time than you can turn 'round it's no more partners.
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Interviewer: Well you started off with a carnival then tried to be a dancer, right?
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Jones: Oh yeah, I tried to be a dancer with the carnival and I couldn't.
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Interviewer: Now, one thing that people- when they think about carnivals nowadays, folks tend to think of rides and gambling and games, but now you're talking about dancing on a carnival— could you tell us a little bit about
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where you would dance on a carnival and how carnivals were different in those days?
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Jones: Well at that time, you- when a carnival come to town, they had to have a black show. At that time we didn't call it a black show, we called it a minstrel show or a plantation show.
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[[thunder]]
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Or a jig show. You had to have one of them but see you couldn't come to town with just rides and games at that time,
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because you had a lot of people didn't go— didn't ride, you had a lot of people didn't play the games.
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But they saved up all the year to go to that show and they would come in and see that minstrel show
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uh- they call it their plantation show or the black show.
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Or the colored show they call it all kind of show then. But the carnival had to have one with them then.
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But today they don't have to have 'em. See they can come in with rides and things but you couldn't just come with just rides and games at that time.
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So that's why you had so many comedians, so many show people at that time.
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But now, what you see at— what— if you ever go in to that tent and see what I do, you'll hardly ever see it today.
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Interviewer: So, there wasn't then an entire— there was an entirely different tradition of carnivals that of– including entertainment, a special top, a special tent
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that had nothing but a show in it— a show that included music, dance, and humor; the sort of comedy that Willie Jones still does.
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Now, Willie started as a dancer with carnivals, but really didn't stay with carnivals all that long time before he had jumped on to another form of entertainment.
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Where did you go after carnivals as a dancer but before you went on to do the Lindy Hop?
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Jones: Well uh, I went on to the-
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York then I went to New York to learn
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And now I went with the vaudeville show
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And a guy named Snake Hill Dave was out trying to do another dance
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I finally couldn't tap dance so I tried to do a snake {{??}} dance
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Well he was good at it, and I was good but I wasn't good as him, 'cause I did a lot of comical dancing and didn't know time. And when they really want somebody to do something when they- I thought I was good and they took me away {{??}} I found out-they found out I didn't know time.
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So then I lost {{our bet?}} So I taken 6 months to learn music and time so I would be a dancer. And from that day on, I start to waken, dancing but I was doin' the Lindy Hop but I wasn't doing- and I got older, I couldn't throw the girls around and the girls couldn't throw me around so I started doing comedies it's cause I wanted to stay in the show business.
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Speaker 1: Well, you say that before you did Lindy Hop you worked on a vaudeville show, were you showing inside at that time or working under tent at all?
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Willie: What no, I was showing theaters and clubs all over the world, and auditoriums yeah.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so the first thing that becomes real clear then is the link between the type of show that you were doing on the carnival, and what was happening at that time in black vaudeville or real close tie the same kind of entertainment.
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Willie: Oh yeah it was the same entertainment
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Speaker 1: Now another form that borrowed the same entertainment was that of the minstrel show. Now a lot of people when they hear minstrel shows automatically think of the 1800's, think of white people who would put on black face-would quirk up their faces so that they would look black and then would do comic routines caricaturing the dance, the humor, the music of the black man.
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In the 1900's however, a number of black troops developed which did the very same thing. Among them {{Silas?}} Scream, the Florida Blossom minstrels, and others.
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Willie, could you tell us a little bit about what was a minstrel show and-from having worked with the Florida Blossoms for a while.
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Well, the minstrel show we used to have what we call uh-one night stands.
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Jones: They would play here tonight and be someplace tomorrow night and some place the next night. And they had a lot of, uh, uh, people working, they had uh, 50, 60, people working, they had people put up these tents like this. Those people they'll go there they'll take down the night and put it up the next day and you wake the next day. You did a lot of traveling, that's what they call a 'one night stand'. You hear a lot of good people say, 'now
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I'm like the "Florida Blossom" or the "Brown Skin Model" or the "Silas Green Show."
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One night stand, when a guy talking to a girl, a girl talking to a boy, say you only got a one night stand. That's where that word, 'one night stand' come from cause they did one night.
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Interviewer: Now what sort of entertainment, exactly, how-how would a minstrel show run, let's say from beginning to end to give an idea of what sort of things you'd see if you went to such a show?
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Jones: Well you went to a minstrel show, they would open up with a band. Next you would have, uh, a line of girls dance. And next you would have what we call a principal, and maybe a tap dancer, maybe a singer, uh, somebody doing something, some of 'em be doing tricks and things. But that the next come a chorus and then you'll come again, a tap dancer, a comedian. And then you'll go again and then the middle that's where the band would take it's whole. You have a band and that band would play, and let you feel them. And then whatever's the star - whoever the star was, would come on after that.
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Interviewer: So you'd close out with a star?
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Speaker 1: You-you close, uh, the whole show close, but the star would be the last one to come on. [?] last one to come on. And after the star then they bring the whole act, called a finale, everybody come on and do a finale.
00:23:41.000 --> 00:24:01.330
Interviewer: So basically, when we're talking about minstrel shows in this century, we're really talking about full scale stage shows. Shows that carry comics, shows that carry the band, carry singing stars, all working under a tent, and showing one night stands all through, especially the southern states and the east coast states.
00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:32.000
(Interviewer) The connection that is clear between vaudeville, between carnivals, between minstrelsy, and tent shows, minstrel tent shows or other forms of tent shows. There's another form that is closely linked to all of these though in a rather strange way, that of the medicine show. Now, Willie you worked a little sort of on and off in your later years when you were doing carnival with some medicine showmen. How did that work? What was a medicine show to you?
00:24:32.000 --> 00:25:11.000
[Willie(Interviewee)] Well, a medicine show was a doctor. He made his own medicine, he had, he would sell liniment, and that liniment, anything that hurt you it was supposed to cure it. Then he would have capsules, whatever it was. Don't care what you had. That's what you bought for-, it would cure it, but the thing about it he would have a big thing just like this. You didn't pay no money to come in to see that. He would have the big show and after he had the show then he'd make his medicine pitch. He sells medicine, but he would pay his performers out of the money he make outta his medicine.
[SILENCE]
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:40.000
(Interviewer) Unlike.. uh.. most of the other forms medicine shows, were more often than not white-owned with black entertainers appearing on them, it was very hard for a black doctor to really operate in many of the years, especially in the South, to manage a show, because you'd run into too much trouble down there. There were only two or three shows, Doc Robinson's, no.. not Doc Robinson's
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:43.000
(Willie) Yeah Doc Robinson's Minstrel yeah
00:25:43.000 --> 00:26:08.000
(Interviewer) Doc Robinson's Minstrels, there were, there were a few shows that were all black medicine shows, more often what you had was mixed and white medicine shows that would employ, one or two black.. uh... entertainers, entertainers that might've come from the Minstrel stage, might've come from the carnival stage, might've come from any of a variety. There's one other area I think we should talk about, and , show those links, and speaking about Vaudeville,
00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:09.000
(thunder strikes)
[SILENCE]
00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:29.000
(Interviewer) Maybe... maybe we're gonna get wet (Will in background responds "yeah") I think so. Maybe we can talk a little bit about.. uh.. Irvin C. Miller's "Brown Skin Models" and the role that you played in that and then how.. so what happened to Irvin C. Miller and Florida Blossom, to show how closely linked a lot of these things were.
[SILENCE]
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:34.980
(Willie) Well, a Brown Skin Model show was a, a theater show, but right after World War Two
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:39.000
Willie: Have no theaters the [w-??] because they have done-
00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:41.000
Wasn't showing up with pictures then
00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:43.000
They didn't need ya that's what it really was
00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:46.000
They used to take children so that they could make more money
00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:51.000
But after the war, they didn't need it. They were making plenty money, now everybody had plenty money.
00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:57.000
So the Brown Skin Models bought the Florida Blossoms which were a tent show
00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:59.000
So we still have someplace to wake
00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:02.000
So we was waking under tent
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:06.000
That's what made the uh 'em buy that show because we couldn't go into the theaters
00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:09.000
The theaters didn't need us that's what it was
00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:12.000
[sounds of thunder]
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:15.000
Interviewer: We're still here [light laughter]
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:32.000
Interviewer: So what happened to Irvin C. Miller? Here we had a traveling stage show that ultimately bought out a tent show, a minstrel show, went under tent, under canvas continued to tour like that, where did they go from there?
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:36.000
Willie: Well, he went back in the theaters--he stayed out there a year and he didn't like it.
00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:57.000
He went back in the theaters, and after went back in the theaters, it still--we, uh, Vaudeville, we had, used to be a week. It went from a week to 3 days. It went from 3 days to 1 day. Then it went from 1 day to just 1 midnight show. And you would have to move another place then.
00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:13.000
So after that, he, he went out of business and he told me, he said to me, he said uh, "You been handlin' my show, so don't wait for nobody, let's get your own show." That's when I went to the carnival with my own show. And I just closed the carnival 3 years ago, I retired from it.
00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:28.000
Interviewer: So basically, the story is one that comes full circle. Willie Jones started off working with circuses and carnivals, especially carnivals, as a dancer in the "Plantation Top" on the shows.
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:38.000
Went from there to doing some Vaudeville tent show work and Vaudeville theater work. Went there into Lindy Hop, which was inside club work and theater work and movies.
00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:48.000
From there, still as a Lindy Hop dancer, into the Vaudeville stage show, Irvin C. Miller's "Brown Skin Models," which in turn bought out a minstrel show.
00:28:48.000 --> 00:29:08.000
Went under canvas, traveled on the road under canvas until they went back to theaters and then ultimately closed the show down, at which point Willie went back to where he started in someways on carnivals, except now, instead of working as a dancer with carnivals, he was the owner and manager of his own carnival show.
00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:10.000
There's one more thing I want to mention here, Willie-
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.760
Willie: One more thing I wanna tell everybody here. Now, I work here.
00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:28.000
Willie Jones: I worked the theater here, I don't know whether y'all remembered, but I worked the national theater here with Walter Huston and "Knickerbocker Holiday."
00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:33.000
I work here with the carnival on Bennet Road, that's where they used to put up with James E. Strates Shows.
00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:39.000
I know a lot of ya' heard that show 'cause it still comes here, the James E. Strates Show, I work here with them.
00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:50.000
And, and then we had a big theater down on--I think it was 7th and T--everybody, everybody heard of that. You hear the Harvard in Washington.
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:59.000
We would play the [[Rooling Balling?]], Harvard in Washington, the Earle in Philadelphia, the Apollo in New York. And, we did that year round.
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:10.000
Interviewer: There's one more thing I'd like to mention. Those who have come to the festival and see you performing on the main stage have probably noticed that this gentleman is a comic.
00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:21.000
Willie "Ashcan" Jones. Well, we've only talked so far about dancing here on this stage, and you starting off as a dancer and being a Lindy Hopper and going from here and there.
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:27.000
How was it that you became a comic, and how does that fit into this transformation in show business?
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:32.000
Jones: Oh, I said that I got too old to dance, you know,
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:39.000
I was, we was throwing girls around, I was doing the Lindy Hop, and we was throwing girls around, and girls throwing us around.
00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:52.000
If anybody--no it's not anybody old enough out there. If you saw "A Day at the Races" with the Marx Brothers, "Hellzapoppin" with Olsen and Johnson, "M-Mel-Melody Gold-round" with Martha Raye, I was in that picture.
00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:04.000
I was with Chick Webb [?], "Beat the Drum" with Chick Webb, "Your Feet's Too Big" with Fats Waller, and with the "Brown Skin Models," "Wonder Where My Gal is Tonight."
00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:12.000
Interviewer: As a comic, from whom did you learn, and how did you go about becoming a comic?
00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:20.000
Jones: Oh, when I found out I was getting too old to dance, it was an old fella named William Earle was working with me, and I learned from him.
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:34.000
And when he died--no he got sick first before he died--and I had to take his place, and we had Rastus Murray--he's a late comic, was very good, everybody might of heard of him--
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:42.000
and he said to me, William Earle while he was sick, he told me to go out there and do comedy and do what he did, he had told me once not to never do it,
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:49.000
but he got sick and told me to do everything what he do and go out there and don't be scared of Rastus Murray and I would make it.
00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:50.270
And I went out there and did it and-
00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:55.000
Jones: But he died about two weeks later than that but he left me a living.
00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:06.000
Interviewer: That's one thing that you rarely see at a folk festival--or you rarely hear tell of, that of a professional entertainment tradition being passed on within the entertainment form.
00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:23.000
Really the way that most of our entertainers in this field learned and stayed in it, it wasn't that they were learning from parents or necessarily older people, it's often that they were learning from people who were the immediate generation above them in the entertainment field--
00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:30.000
people with whom they worked as colleagues on the stage and from whom they learned the older traditional routines.
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:50.000
So that now when you see Willie doing comedy here what you see is really his version of a number of the routines done by Willie Earl and the older comics who in turn had performed those on minstrel stages and traveling tent shows and medicine shows stages and learned them from older comics before them.
00:32:50.000 --> 00:33:03.000
So, it's an entire hidden tradition, a tradition that finds its expression only on the stage and found its development really in black traditions of entertainment and the black traveling stage.
00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:09.000
Are there any questions before we close out the workshop for Willie?
00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:12.000
[SILENCE]
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:26.000
If there aren't, I'd just like to mention that following this workshop immediately we're going to stay in the vein of performance traditions of the black stage with a workshop on the art of tap dancing.
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:38.000
Appearing on the stage will be Master Tapper LaVaughn Robinson, 57-year-old tap dancer who learned on the streets of Philly and got quite a lot of experience in Vaudeville and in the late Vaudeville in nightclubs
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:44.000
and his two accompanists colleagues who once were students Germaine Ingram and Sandra Janoff.
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:53.000
So while we wait for them to come on over and get the stage setup for the next workshop, let's please have a hand for Willie "Ashcan" Jones.
00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:56.000
[[applause]]
00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:58.720
Unknown: The dance tradition
00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:26.000
Interviewer: Wide variety of dance forms, which we've seen some more contemporaneous, the stepping, and of course the breakdancing and then we also are fortunate to have another form endemic to Blacks; the tap.
00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:40.000
Now I’m wondering if we could just start by giving the artist a chance to give us some historical sociological statement on the evolution of the art and of that particular form- of this form.
00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:42.000
Mr. Robinson is handing the mic to-
00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:44.000
LaVaughn Robinson: Well I want to give it to somebody that know what they talking bout
00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:46.000
Interviewer: That’s why we have you having the mic.
00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:47.000
Robinson: Thank you very large.
00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:49.000
[Laughing]
00:34:49.000 --> 00:35:00.000
Robinson: What um...Well for- Number one my name is LaVaughn Robinson, this is Germaine Ingram and Sandy Janoff. Did I pronounce that right?
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:01.000
Janoff: Sure.
00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:06.000
Robinson: Robinson: Right, right. And we started tap dancing at a young age.
00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:08.000
Janoff: (Laughing) Speak for yourself.
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:29.000
Robinson: Well um, I started tapping at a young age, she told me to speak for myself. She- [aughing] one of them South Philadelphia smarties [laughing] And um tap was always learned on the street, you learned how to tap dance on the street.
00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:38.000
Not in those schools, ‘cause they didn’t have no schools at that time, and the schools that they did have you couldn’t afford to go know how.
00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:46.000
So you hung on the streets in the evenings and watched all the other tap dancers that danced on the street. And you learned in that fashion.
00:35:46.000 --> 00:36:04.000
I’ve been dancing for- at that time, when I learned how to dance on the street I’d been dancing about 3 months, you know, and I picked it up [[emphasis]] vaguely, until I start [[emphasis]] hanging with the master dancers. And we had quite a few master tap dancers in Philadelphia at that time, am I right, sir?
00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:05.000
Unknown: [inaudible]
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:05.450
Robinson: Good.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:22.000
Robinson: Well, they wasn't just Black dancers now, you had a lot of white master tap dancers in Philadelphia that were challenged would come down to the back bay area of Philadelphia and challenge the black dancers and we would go down to the white area and challenge the white dancers,
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:33.000
and we would all meet at Broad and South outside of Pepsi Bar, back in the little street behind the Lincoln Theatre or either Kater Street.
00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:50.000
Now that they remolded the street and everything they don't call it Kater Street no more, it's "Ka-teer Street"? Spelled the same but pronunciation has changed. You know they put a little pizzazz in it and you know call it "Ka-teer" Street now, you know.
00:36:50.000 --> 00:37:01.000
Yeah right, you remember them days, you was out there tap dancing at that time ya know. Yep, when they had the dance teams they must have had 1000 dance teams at Philadelphia at that time.
00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:12.000
They had teams like Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper. They had teams like Pot, Pan, and Skillet. I mean these were really tap dance teams.
00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:23.000
They had teams like, you know these, the Clock Brothers, right? The Nicolas Brothers, right? And all these teams were pretty good tap dancers.
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:38.000
Interviewer: Well, I wonder if--two lovely ladies chiming in at a time--but we know this to say with break dancing, you have certain obligatory moves: the moonwalk, the helicopter.
00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:53.000
Are there any particular steps that you study with a master dancer or something like that, but tapping steps that are sort of your, the foundation upon which the art form is built?
00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:18.000
Speaker 2: Um, yeah there are certain steps. Well, for one thing every tap dancer has his or her favorite time steps and time steps are just what they sound like. They are steps that are made to set the time, so that the other dancers or accompaniment knows what the tempo is and knows what the meter is.
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:27.000
And there are basic steps. It's funny, when I started dancing with LaVaughn, he didn't know these.
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:36.000
I start talking about the nomenclature, and he says what's that, and I say well a ball change. And he says, "A ball and chain?"
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:46.000
So the nomenclature didn't make any difference. I guess the nomenclature came along when tap dance began being taught in organized schools.
00:38:46.000 --> 00:39:01.000
But the people on the street didn't necessarily rely on the nomenclature. You had to pick it up by seeing it, you picked it up by seeing it and by the sound. I guess mostly by the sound because there's a lot in tap dance that you can't see.
00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:14.000
And you have to know the sound. You have to internalize the sound in order to learn it. But there are shuffles, there are wings, umm, wha-
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:16.000
Speaker 3: There are riffs.
00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:22.000
Speaker 2: Riffs, skilly bops, yea that's some of the vocabulary of the dance.
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:32.000
What's distinctive I think about the way that LaVaughn dances and the way that we've begun to learn is the paddle.
00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:57.000
If you see other tap dancers around the country, you very rarely see them dance with the close paddle that LaVaughn dances, that's the fast paddle back that goes from heel to toe back and forth, single paddles, double paddles, triple paddles that you see LaVaughn execute so marvelously on-on the stage, that you've seen in the past couple of days.
00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:18.000
And that's really distinctive, in LaVaughn's style of dancing. I was in New York a couple of years ago at a tap dance seminar and uh, um, wha-what's Cook's. Charlie Cook who dances with an old team called Cook and Brown,
00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:27.000
and knew I was in Philadelphia and I put on my shoes and started dancing, and he said, "Oh yeah, you like them paddles don't you, you must know LaVaughn Robinson."
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:37.000
So that was an indication to me that how distinctive paddling is, and how much LaVaughn is associated with that style.
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:40.000
Robinson: Thank you very much.
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.000
Interviewer: This lady has something here.
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:53.840
Unknown: One of my favorite stories is LaVaughn's learning the paddle for the first time. I don't even know if I can tell as well-
00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:18.000
Speaker 1: This, this story just has an image for me. The particular details have to do with his being in the army and not quite getting back on the day he was supposed to be back, but that has nothing to do with tap dancing. He was with a friend, Henry Meadows, who was also a master dancer.
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:23.000
They were on the street at 16th and
00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:24.000
Speaker 2: Lumbard.
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:28.000
Speaker 1: 16th and Lumbard. Underneath the street light.
00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:46.000
and I always picture these two young guys, one teaching the other how to do a paddle by the light of a street light and I love that image, and that's become Levaughn's signature.
00:41:46.000 --> 00:42:18.000
Interviewer: You mentioned the Nicolas brothers, what the, and I would assume each of these dancers would have their signature style, you mentioned the tempo, by which they dance. Could you say looking back at Bojangle Robinson what was it about him that made him such an exceptional dancer?
00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:31.000
LaVaughn: You're talking about the master Bill Robinson. Well I think what made Bill Robinson so exceptional as far as dancing was concerned is that he was even footed.
00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.000
Right? yea whatever he did on one foot he would do on the other.
00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:53.000
I mean he was not a one foot dancer. He was very clean. All the taps you could hear, you know, and nothing was muffled, and Bill Robinson could run faster backwards than a lot of people could run frontwards.
00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:55.000
I mean this is a fact about the man.
00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:03.000
You know, a lot of people don't know the history because the man passed away before a lot of your people got a chance to know the man.
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:17.850
But the man was not just a good tap dancer. The man was also a pool shot. The man was [laughing] a track star. You know the man was very athletic and very sportsman-like, you know, and one of the greatest dancers I've ever seen.
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:31.000
Interviewer: Okay, how would you, the Twins, well one is going into acting now. Now, contemporaneously, the um, Heinz, Heinz and--
00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:33.000
Robinson: I didn't know they were twins.
00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:35.000
Interviewer: Well, the Heinz Brothers.
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:38.000
Robinson: Oh, you talking about Gregory Heinz and Maurice Heinz?
00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:39.000
Interviewer: Yes.
00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:40.000
Robinson: What was you saying about them?
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:52.000
Interviewer: Well, what I would say in terms of, of their style of dancing, I know that- you mentioned the Nicholas Brothers earlier- and I know that the splits was one thing that one of the brothers was famous for.
00:43:52.000 --> 00:44:03.000
I guess he was the one that sang soprano, but anyway. What about the [laughing] what about the, what about the Heinz Brothers?
00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:18.000
Robinson: Well, I think the Heinz, well, see the Heinz Brothers, um, dancers that came along, they, they came along into the last end of, you know, that tap thing when people were learning the tap.
00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:33.000
They were the last to come along very young and they learned a lot from a lot of dancers that they had seen and I think that they're, uh, upcoming to be one of the, the future great tap dancers. You know? 'Cause they got a lot of time to learn. You understand me?
00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:45.000
And both of 'em have very good singing voices. And this helps. You know, uh, when you mention the Nicholas Brothers, see there's so many different styles of tap dancing.
00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.000
See now, the Nicholas Brothers was flash, acrobatic flash tap dancers.
00:44:49.000 --> 00:45:01.000
Y'know, uh Bill Robinson was the greatest buck dancer in the world. Y'know that's when - and the only thing changed about dancing was the name. Buck dancing and tap dancing - it's all the same.
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:17.000
But, the name changed from buck dancing to tap dancing. Y'know - that's all it is. Lotta people say, "What's the difference between buck dancing and tap dancing?", "Is there a difference?" There is no difference - only thing changed is the name. Y'know.
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:30.000
Interviewer: I think we would entertain some questions from the audience, if you have any. As you are thinking of them I'd like to just put an anecdote in to reinforce what you're saying about Robinson being able to run fast or backwards and some forwards.
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:42.000
At one time, he was the owner of the New York Black Yankees and, uh, they would have double headers there at Yankee Stadium. And one of the--if not promos--at least one of the big--
00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:43.000
Robinson: That's right
00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:59.000
Interviewer: --publicity events, he would get the youngsters or a group of youngsters and, uh, in front of Yankee Stadium, leading there and for a block he would beat them backpedalling and they are running as fast as they can forward. There are some pictures of that.
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Robinson: That's right!
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:05.000
Interviewer: Just a little anecdote to underscore that. Are there some some questions? Yes?
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.060
Audience Member: Uh, I'm wondering - uh, you remember Cosby?
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:34.000
Speaker 1: The fact that we were a tremendous amount of dancers. And I-I personally [?] what's New York
00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:36.000
LaVaughn: Apollo Theater
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:42.000
Speaker 1: The other is in New Orleans [?] still in uh
00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:43.000
LaVaughn: New Orleans
00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:53.000
Speaker 1: [?]
00:46:53.000 --> 00:47:15.000
LaVaughn: That I got to know in Phila...I met Bill Cosby once. He was an upcoming comic when I met him. We were working a club next to each other. And I had a chance to see what he was about for a little while. You know. But Bill Cosby is a very funny man, you know.
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:26.000
Speaker 1: [?]
LaVaughn: Yeah, his comedy is, at, you know, right off the streets. You know, he's an intellect.
00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:28.000
Speaker 1: [?] he's one of the greatest [?]
00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:43.000
LaVaughn: You can say that. You can say that. You, can say that. [[laughter]]
00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:47.000
Speaker 1: [?]
00:47:47.000 --> 00:48:06.000
Interviewer: My pleasure. Um,are there other questions from the audience? Any other persons, after all, you have these master dancers here and it would be nice. Yes.
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:05.000
Speaker 3: Is it [?] to ask a [?] question?
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:08.000
Speaker 2: No.
00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Speaker 3: I want to know what is going on here? [inaubible]
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:28.210
Speaker 2: Well, if you're going to program. This is the workshop area. And we're having a workshop. These three artists are tap dancers and they perform on the main stage. They have performed for the day so you won't see them perform but they're here talking about their
