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2002 - John Bubbles (1902-1986) revolutionized tap dancing by dropping heels on the
offbeat, accenting rhythms with the toes, extending rhythmic patterns beyond the
usual eight bars of music, and loading the bar with a complex slew of beats. No
wonder why he is heralded as the Father of Rhythm Tap. There is no dancer today
who has not been influenced by his inventions.
Born John Sublett in Louisville and raised in Indianapolis, at
the age of ten he teamed up with the six-year-old Ford Lee "Buck" Washington
(1903-1955) in an act in which Buck stood and played piano and Bubbles sang.
After winning a series of amateur-night shows around town, “Buck and Bubbles"
began playing engagements in Louisville, Detroit and New York City. Around the
age of eighteen, Bubbles’ voice started changing and he switched his focus to
dancing. Smarting at the embarrassment of being laughed out of the Hoofer's Club
for being a novice tap dancer, Bubbles retreated to the privacy of the shed,
determined to develop his technique. He returned to the Club with his new style
of rhythm tapping that was laced with double Over-the-Tops and triple Back
Slides, blowing everyone away.
By 1922, Buck and Bubbles reached the pinnacle in vaudeville
by playing at New York's Palace Theatre. Bypassing the black T.O.B.A. circuit,
their singing-dancing-comedy act headlined the vaudeville circuit from coast to
coast. Buck's stop-time piano, played in a cool and laid back manner, contrasted
with Bubbles' witty explosion of taps in counterpoint. They played the London
Palladium, the Cotton Club, the Apollo, were the first blacks to perform at
Radio City Music Hall, and continued to break the color barriers theatres across
the country.
Their motion pictures include Varsity Show (1937), Atlantic
City (1944), Cabin in the Sky (1943), and A Song is Born (1948). On his own,
Bubbles appeared in Broadway Frolics of 1922, Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1930,
and The Ziegfield Follies of 1931, and secured his place in Broadway history by
originating the role of Sportin' Life in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess
(1935). The role of Mingo in that production was played by Buck. He also
appeared with Judy Garland at the Palace and Bob Hope in Vietnam, and recorded
Harlem Comes to London, Selections from Porgy and Bess, and Bubbles, John W.
That Is.
Before Bubbles, dancers tapped up
on their toes, capitalized on flash steps and danced to neat two-to-a-bar
phrases. Bubbles loaded his bar, dropped his heels and hit unusual accents and
syncopations, opening the door of modern jazz percussion. "I wanted to make it
more complicated so I put more taps in and changed the rhythm," said Bubbles
about his style, which prepared for the new sound of bebop in the 1950s and
anticipated the prolonged melodic lines of "Cool" jazz in the 1950s.
Constance Valis
Hill
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