Class Act: The Jazz Life of Choreographer Cholly Atkins
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Cholly Atkins's career has spanned an extraordinary era of American dance. With his partner, Honi Coles, Cholly toured the country, performing with such jazz masters as Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and Count Basie. In the fifties, Cholly created the new specialization of "vocal choreography," teaching such artists as the Supremes, the Temptations, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and Marvin Gaye how to perform their music by adding rhythmical dance steps drawn from twentieth-century American dance, from the Charleston to rhythm tap. Chronicling the rise, near demise, and rediscovery of tap dancing, the book is both an engaging biography and a rich cultural history. Billboard.com Whenever the tongue gets too tangled, or poetry reaches an impasse and other creative gestures fall short, the most expressive option is often just to dance. If there's a hard lesson in this homily, Cholly Atkins has long since learned it. As a result, the heritage of rhythmic hoofing that underlies the history of jazz, R&B, and hip-hop has never been the same. If all this comes as news to you, don't ever again attend a convention, seminar, or teach-in about the aforementioned music genres without having first read Class Act: The Jazz Life of Choreographer Cholly Atkins>...Because until you do, you may be half-informed at best about the evolution over the past century of black dance rhythms and the importanceof vernacular choreography.
Preface and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Going North2. The Rhythm Pals3. Cholly and Dotty4. Struttin' for Uncle Sam5. Coles and Atkins6. The End of Our Road7. Rhythm Tap and More8. In Walked Maye9. Hitsville, U.S.A.10. Back to Freelancing11. The Way I Do the Things I Do12. Black and BlueEpilogueGlossarySelected BibliographyIndex
