Tradition In Tap Honors Professor Ardie Bryant
On Nov. 7-9, 2008, New York’s Tradition In Tap festival honored Ardie Bryant, who has spent most of the past 50 years in the Los Angeles area.
Teachers, students and participants listened with great interest when Bryant recalled Bill Robinson’s visit to a club in San Francisco in 1948 to see him dance. Louis Jordan, the band leader of “Caldonia” fame, had previously seen Bryant dance and suggested that his friend, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, catch the act of this young bebop dancer.
Bryant explained that even though the club owner knew Robinson was in the audience, he didn’t tell Bryant anything except that he, “better be good.” While he was dancing, Bryant looked over the audience and spotted Robinson sitting ringside smiling and applauding. Following the performance, Robinson invited Bryant to his table and told Bryant that he had “educated feet” and to “always live a clean life.” Bryant was the first bebop tap dancer Robinson had ever seen.
Ardie Bryant is an entertainer extraordinaire. As a teacher, panelist, musician, singer, storyteller and tap dancer, he has a quintessential show-biz personality; he knows when to start, when to stop and when to pause for laughs. He also plays trumpet and scats.
Growing up in the San Francisco area, Bryant often danced with the West Coast bebop jazz artists there: Charlie Parker, Errol Garner, Charlie Mingus, Jo Jones, Art Tatum and Dizzy Gillespie. “These jazz artists would get together at a club called Jimbo’s and would jam till the sun came up,” Bryant recalls. “I would carry my tap shoes with me; Mingus used to call them my horn. I will always treasure those days. I got my jazz diploma when I graduated from that institution.”
Ardie Bryant was born on March 20, 1929 in Dallas, Texas. When he was very young, his mother took him to an amateur show at the Harlem Theatre. Dressed in a short, white suit with white shoes, Ardie danced “The Susy Q” and some “truckin’” and “peckin’.” In the audience was the great rhythm dancer, “Pork Chops” Patterson. After the show, he took Bryant aside and taught him a singe time step, break and a rhythm turn. He also showed him how to hold his arms gracefully instead of letting them hang haphazardly at his side. Two weeks later, his mother bought him his first pair of black patent leather tap shoes.
When Bryant was 7 years old, he appeared with Jimmie Lunceford’s band. Shortly after, his parents moved to Sacramento, CA and insisted he concentrate on schoolwork. However, they would often take Bryant to see the stage shows at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. When Bryant saw Bill Robinson dance to “It’s Magic,” it left a lasting impression on Bryant. “The tempo was very slow and the rhythmic combinations he executed were magic,” Bryant says. “From Bill Robinson, I learned posture, showmanship and technique.”
Dancer John Bubbles also influenced Bryant. “He was a true innovator,” says Bryant. “If he had not developed rhythm tap, all of us still would be dancing on our toes. Following his example, I tried to take it one step further and use my entire foot to create different sounds and combinations.”
By the time Bryant was 16, he had developed a good “swing” technique. But after hearing his first bebop recordings by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, he was hooked. “The drummer was wild, cutting in and out, challenging, executing combinations that were totally different from anything I had ever heard before,” exclaims Bryant. “I went out and bought every record I could find and began making the transition that would forever change the style of dancing.”
As his act developed, Bryant designed a drum platform which allowed him to advance the percussive elements of his dance style. It raised him above the audience’s level, so his feet were visible. It also provided him with a first class floor. At first, dancing on the 28-inch diameter surface of the drum platform was difficult, but after a few months of practice, he could execute any steps on the drum he cared to do. Later, he added two, 14-inch tom-toms that were tuned, and enabled him to create unique sounds. Together, these three, drum platforms added a new dimension to his act. A review in Variety Magazine summed up Ardie Bryant‘s amazing talent when it said, “His feet tick at the dazzling speed of a ticker tape in a Wall Street crash.”
In 1958, when Bryant co-starred with Cab Callaway at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, Nat Nazzaro, one of the top business managers in the country, approached Bryant about letting Nazzaro represent him. Nat was an ex-vaudevillian and a vigilant manager. Bryant agreed, and his career zoomed. Bryant moved to New York where he played the Palace, Carnegie Hall, Latin Quarter and Copacabana nightclubs, and the Roxy and Paramount Theaters. When Bryant played the Paramount, Duke Ellington honored him by accompanying his act, something Ellington rarely did.
Bryant performed on “The Record Show of 1953” with Nat “King” Cole, and at Carnegie Hall with Sarah Vaughan. Leonard Reed also featured Bryant in Leonard Reed’s “The Big Rhythm and Blues Show” in 1954 with Joe Louis, Ruth Brown, the Clovers, Wynonie Harris, Lester Young, Dusty Fletcher, Buddy Johnson and His Orchestra and the Edwards Sisters.
When Fred Astaire caught Bryant’s act at Charlie Foy’s Supper Club in Sherman Oaks, he immediately offered Bryant a part in the movie “Band Wagon,” but Bryant was committed to a tour with the Count Basie Band and couldn’t accept Astaire’s offer. One of Bryant’s regrets is that he couldn’t work with Astaire.
Fred Astaire’s graceful turns inspired Bryant. Astaire reciprocated by commenting on Bryant’s agility, saying, “His footwork is phenomenal.” Bryant also admired Gene Kelly’s athletic ability, but feels no one can top “Peg Leg” Bates for pure inspiration.
On several occasions, Bryant toured as a goodwill ambassador for the United States Department of State performing in Europe, the Far East, South America and Australia.
In the mid ‘50s, the dance business began to change and work became more difficult to find for tap dancers. The focus was on recording artists. Though he continued to work into the mid ‘60s, Bryant decided to retire and move from New York to California with his wife and son. He changed careers and went into the music publishing business.
In 1992, Bryant decided to tour with the Benny Goodman Orchestra on a 70-city, 30-state circuit, because he felt the history and heritage of tap dancing was in danger of being lost forever. He received rave reviews.
Bryant has designed and developed a jazz tap technique and tap history curriculum that he has been teaching for several years—first at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, and currently at California State University, Los Angeles. Now in his 80s, Bryant continues to perform, starring at the Calgary Stampede, the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and The Luckman Jazz Orchestra, celebrating Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music. Additionally, he appeared in a worldwide Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears, and can be seen in a recent iPod commercial. He is currently writing a book about his life that will be welcome on shelves of the tap dance section in libraries.
In 2006, the city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs declared Bryant a Los Angeles Cultural Treasure and named him the Ambassador of Tap for the city of Los Angeles.
His dance memories and the sounds of his percussive feet are preserved in recordings at the Archives Center of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.
Special guests attending the 2008 Tradition In Tap festival were the niece and great niece of Anne Bryant: Orianna Brodbeck and Amaliese from Canada. Also present were Harold Cromer, Dancer Magazine’s editor at large, Lindsay Dreyer and Rocky Mendes, who helped take care of Jimmy Slyde prior to Slyde’s death.
Clare O’Donnell, Avi Miller, Germaine Salsberg, Shea Sullivan and Ofer Ben conducted warm-up exercises at the festival. Hank Smith presented the video presentation and Melba Huber led the history panel honoring Bryant. Germaine Salsberg emceed the excellent Participant’s Showcase, which included Dormeshia’s performance of “The Typewriter Song” in tap dance boots!
Many at this year’s Tradition In Tap festival were eager to know more about Professor Ardie Bryant and welcomed him warmly. Bryant acknowledged the excellent faculty teaching in his honor. Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards presented the beautiful tap award plaque to Ardie Bryant. The entire audience thanked Avi Miller, Ofer Ben and Germaine Salsberg enthusiastically for their dedication in presenting the workshops.
Read more of Melba Huber’s columns on melbasdance.com.