Concert of Sacred Music (Duke Ellington) Briggs, Bunny performer Concert 1965-09-16 Grace Cathedral Ellington's historic first concert at a house of worship combined his band with the Herman McCoy Choir; the Grace Cathedral Choir; vocalists Jon Hendricks, Esther Marrow and Jimmy McPhail; and tap dancer Bunny Briggs, premiering in Ellington's "And David Dance Before the Lord" which included a passage during which Briggs executed a series of rapid soft-shoe steps, backed by soft organ chords, a muted trumpet, and a children's choir. The effect was eerie and enchanting. (Balliett) . The accompaniment was Duke's "Come Sunday" theme from Black, Brown and Beige. Writing (in 1981) about the Sacred Music concert at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in December of 1965, with Briggs performing "David Danced Before the Lord" Whitney Baliett wrote: "There, in full aural and visual flower, was Ellington's vision. The number, which was recorded during the concert, begins with a short, annunciatory band chord, and this is immediately followed by Briggs dancing fast, light steps. He continues by himself for sixteen measures, and drops into rangy half-time steps. (He dances throughout the number, which lasts six minutes.) The saxophones play the lovely step-like thirty-two-bar melody (originally "Come Sunday"), which, like a lullaby, covers less than an octave and a half and is built on sequential notes. It is played in half-time to the dancing, and this sets up an exhilarating rhythmic tension. A choir chants the words over the band, which further enriches the rhythms, and in the next chorus the choir hums the melody while the band plays counter-melodic figures-- beautiful little flags of the sort that Ellington ran up again and again in his best work. The band falls silent and the choir chants for a chorus, backed by Ellington and the rhythm section. (Don't forget the continuing rattling, clicking and stomping drone by Briggs' feet, and how, every once in a while, he throws in wild, offbeat, two-footed steps, which jar everything around him.) The choir rests, and Ellington and Briggs do a charging duet for a chorus. Then the choir hums the melody again, there's a pause, and Briggs gives an electrifying shout, which is answered by sixteen bars of ensemble band shouts. At the same time, the drummer (Louis Bellson) solos, the choir chants, and a clarinetist sails into the stratosphere. This mad five-tiered float careens along for eight bars, and Briggs dances out into the sun by himself for several easy measures, and the piece comes to rest with a final band chord." (Whitney Balliett, The New Yorker, November 9, 1981). Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts Strattemann, Klaus: Duke Ellington: Day by Day, Film by Film. Copenhagen: Jazz Media (1992). Stearns, Marshall and Jean Stearns: Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York: Macmillan (1968). Tap Dance America http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html Bunny Briggs (biography) loc.music.tdabio.27 tda IHAS 151216 loc.music.tda.1151