Black Bottom Dance

This is so much fun. As per Jazz - it was "created" by the peoples of America - African, Native and European. Its formation would not have happened without the contributions of all involved. And let me tell you - the dancer at about 1:20 is Rubdy Keeler!

I used to do this dance all the time when I was kid, except we called it the "Scraping Dog S**t off the Bottom of Your Shoe" dance! Ah, what memories!

Oh, so THAT'S why they call it "Black Bottom"... of course, the cow's bottom was probably already black before it got stuck in the mud... YIKES!!!

And heavily the heavily orchestrated stuff. XÞ

I am willing to give credit where credit is due. My initial response was to people claiming that white America had stolen their entire cultural history.

America thrives off of such 'stealing'. Mainstream Ami culture is a quiltwork of borrowed and self-constructed ideas - most of them taken completely out of context. :7

I prefer hot j~ & always have, but cannot deny the fact that jazz has significantly/legitimately permeated our country's culture.

I say adopted because it changed in the process of being assimilated. Which is somewhere between perfect replication (which clearly was not the case) and mimicry, which has in-built negative connotations, and does not follow the two separate-but-mutually-constructive paths that developed.

It never would have crossed my mind that people who know anything at all about dancing would not be aware of swing's Harlem/Southside origins.

The major players in jazz were Black. The true innovators and creators were black. The issue is that many still do not what to give this credit to these giants. "Cool" jazz was mostly white musicians playing a, for lack of a better word, watered down version of bebop.

(Also, I am not denying that there were two fairly distinctive and separate courses that jazz took. That is much of the reason that we have Cali versus Savoy styles in most swing dances. That is also why the terms 'hot' and 'cool' jazz are used. . . .

That is part of the history of jazz as a music. But it does not make 'white jazz' an 'inauthentic' art form for the ENTIRE period between 1914 and 1941. . . .

"Adopted", great euphemism. The fact is so much of Black American culture has been "borrowed" that the public does not know the truth about the origins. And jazz was created by Black musicians who brought rhythms from the old world and "borrowed" influences from the new world. This resulted in an entirely new form of music. When others have "borrowed" they have simply tried to take credit for an entire genre w/o creating anything new.

In early years, they almost certainly were. However, as time went on, it was 'adopted' in a relatively legitimate fashion. We are talking about Jazz, the first great 'mutt music' (my father's term, and it is not meant to be derogatory). I can see how a specific dance or certain style of jazz can be deemed inauthentic, but I don't quite take to saying that a notably freeform musical style, for which borrowing and innovation are basic staples, can be said to be 'inauthentic' as a whole. Just me.

IImatar7 they were inauthentic.

uhhhh

It gave the jitterbug of my WWII generation with skirt up when the girls jump overhead in Paris St-Germain-des Pres "caves". May be the last surviving is "Caveau de la Huchette" in the 50s

Keep in mind, I was writing about Jolie Jr. and Ruby Keeler waving hello in Ed Sullivan's audience at the time Keeler was in "Nanette," so we're talking about the early 70s, and the resemblence was so amazing, I thought it was odd he was known as an adopted son. I don't know when you saw him, betteroff, but when I saw him, it was eerie.

a clone of joley? Don't think so. Not saying anything bad about the fellow but I met him in Nashville when he lived there shortly. He had a studio or possibly publishing company. By the time I met him he was sporting a beard so perhaps that's why I saw no likeness to Jolson Sr.

It was still negative; it was just tolerated back then...just like it is still negative to say "people of color" now. People still tolerate it, though.