- Description
Tap Dance America is a reference work of bibliographic information and does not point to digitized versions of the items described. The Library of Congress may or may not own a copy of a particular film or video. To request additional information Ask a Librarian.
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The Cotton Club: Spring 1934 Cotton Club Parade: Cotton Club Boys / Cotton Club Boys [theatrical performance]
- Title
- The Cotton Club: Spring 1934 Cotton Club Parade: Cotton Club Boys [Theatrical Performance]
- Performers
- Cotton Club Boys
- Johnson, Howard Foster "Stretch"
- Long, Avon
- Horne, Lena
- Published/Created
- 1934-03-04
- Genre
- Theatrical Performance
- Venue
- Cotton Club
- Abstract
- From Haskins:
This show eight months long; very popular. This was Harold Arlen's last show, with Adelaide Hall, Avon Long, Lena Horne, precision dancing. The Cotton Club Boys were introduced to this edition of the Cotton Club.
A group of ten colored show girls who will be featured in the new floor revue at the Cotton Club in Harlem with its premiere on March 4, only once was a local beauty picked--Ethel Shepherd. the only beauty found among the scores of applicants who met all of the strict standards imposed by the producers of the show.
The Cotton Club Girls had become an institution in their own right, and the Club's management, feeling they needed a new gimmick, decided to use a line of young male dancers. Dozens were auditioned, ten were chosen:
Howard "Stretch" Johnson, Charles "Chink Collins, William Smith, Walter Shepherd, Tommy Porter, Maxie Armstrong, Louis Brown, Jimmy Wright, Thomas "'Chink" Lee, and Eddie Morton.
They were made a feature act of the show and their new style of group dancing, in which all moved together in rhythmic unison, was immediately popular. At the end of an eight-month run they became an established feature at the Club. Avon Long was also hired and his dancing was different from the eccentric and contortionist acts of an Earl Snake-hip Tucker or Jigsaw Jackson. Long's style had a distinctive jazz beat that was subtle, gliding, and smooth.; and he had an excellent voice. "As Long As I Live" he performed with a female partner. This show was Lena Horne's second at the Club; she gets to break out of the chorus to become a partner to Avon Long. Before the Cotton Club season had ended, Horne had landed a job on Broadway in the show "Dance with Your Gods." - Source
- Haskins, Jim: The Cotton Club. New York: Random House (1977).
Last Updated: 12-16-2015