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2002 - The Nicholas
Brothers Fayard (1914- ) and Harold (1921-2000) created an exuberant
style of American theatrical dance melding jazz rhythm with tap, acrobatics,
ballet and black vernacular dance. Their rhythmic brilliance, musicality,
eloquent footwork and full-bodied expressiveness are unsurpassed, and their
dancing represents the most sophisticated refinement of jazz as a percussive
dance form.
From a young age, at the Standard Theatre in Philadelphia
where his parents conducted a pit band orchestra, Fayard was introduced to the
best tap acts in black vaudeville. He then proceeded to teach young Harold basic
tap steps. The "Nicholas Kids" made their professional debut in Philadelphia in
1930-31, and in New York, at the Lafayette Theatre one year later as the
"Nicholas Brothers.”
In 1932 they opened at the uptown Cotton Club, which became
their home base for next few years. Dancing with the orchestras of Cab Calloway
and Duke Ellington, the brothers evolved a classy and swinging musical
performance in which comic quips and eccentric dance combined with
precision-timed moves and virtuosic rhythm tapping.
Alternating between the stage and screen throughout their
career, they made their first film, the Vitaphone short, Pie, Pie, Blackbird,
with Eubie Blake in 1932 and their first Hollywood movie, Kid Millions, for
Samuel Goldwyn in 1934. On Broadway, in Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 and Babes in
Arms (1937), they worked with choreographer George Balanchine, and during the
same period performed at the newly-opened downtown Cotton Club and starred in
the London West End production of Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1936, in which they
worked with Buddy Bradley.
At the Apollo, Harlem Opera House, Palace and Paramount
theatres in the thirties and forties, the brothers danced with the big bands of
Jimmy Lunceford, Chick Webb, Count Basie and Glen Miller. Collaboration with
Hollywood dance director Nick Castle on seven musical films for 20th Century-Fox
embellished the brothers' modern style of jazz dancing. They tapped on suitcases
in The Great American Broadcast (1941), jumped off walls into back flips and
splits in Orchestra Wives (1942) and jumped over each other down a flight of
stairs, landing into a split on each step, in Stormy Weather (1943). These
dazzling feats were always delivered with a smooth effortlessness. In Down
Argentine Way (1940), they moved in perfect synchrony: arms and wrists circling,
they slipped and slid along the floor, dipping into splits and whipping into
one-legged wings.
By the late forties, their high-speed and rhythm-driven style
was fast and fluent enough to endure the radical musical shift in jazz to Bebop.
The Brothers headlined "The Hepsations of 1945" on a southern tour with Dizzy
Gillespie's big band, and worked with bop composer/arranger Tad Dameron, but
they were irresistibly drawn to the steady and danceable rhythms of Swing and
continued to work in that musical tradition.
Working as solo artists in the late
1950s and early 60s, Harold in Europe and Fayard in America, the brothers were
reunited for three Hollywood Palace television specials in 1964 and continued to
perform as a team.
Constance Valis Hill
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