Capering & Kickery

Table Talk

Here's a 1966 sitting-down dance that is clearly a direct descendant of the late 1950s hand jive: Table Talk, published in a dance manual that was a tie-in to the musical variety television series Hullabaloo.  The series ran from 1965 to early 1966 on American television channel NBC, amassing an impressive lineup of stars as hosts and performances by major musical acts (including The Rolling Stones, Sonny and Cher, and The Supremes). 

An important element of the show was a dance troupe, choreographed by multi-talented actor-director-dancer-choreographer David Winters (among many other things, he originated the role of A-Rab in West Side Story (1957) and was recast in the 1961 film as well) called the Hullabaloo Dancers.  They were a talented group whose alumni included Michael Bennett and Donna McKechnie, choreographer/director and star (Cassie), respectively, of the 1975 Broadway musical, A Chorus Line.  There's a video of the Hullabaloo dancers here.  The video quality is poor, but their skill shines through.  They still have a dedicated Facebook fan page, and a "reconstruction" of Hullabaloo was briefly featured with Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - the clip may be seen here.

Hand Jive Style: Clapping it out

A quick postscript to last week's post about the hand jive performed on the Johnny Otis Show in the late 1950s:

Towards the end of the song, there are three clapping sequences that can be used for an extremely low-key hand jive.  These can be seen in the video embedded in the earlier post.  Here are descriptions of each:

(1) Johnny himself!  At one point he stops playing the piano and simply sits there clapping to the music, accenting the even beats:

one CLAP three CLAP five CLAP seven CLAP

He briefly transitions to a finger-snap instead of a clap, keeping the same rhythm.

(2) One of the McKinley sisters (sadly, I don't know which is which, but the one at the back), gets a slightly more complex rhythm going on beat 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7:

CLAP two CLAP CLAP five CLAP CLAP eight

(3) The other McKinley sister and leader Marie Adams have an even more interesting beat going, with pairs of fast claps on "2&" and "6&" in a 1-2&3-4-5-6&7-8 count:

one CLAPCLAP three CLAP five CLAPCLAP seven CLAP

This one can be a little bit tricky to get.  It matches the first four beats of the music very well but there's a slightly different syncopation on the second four beats, so it feels odd at first until one gets used to clapping with a different accent.

The second and third sequences are done simultaneously on the show to very nice effect.  It would be interesting to split a group in thirds and have all three going at once.

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Previous hand jive posts:
Hand Jive Basics (includes the Grease sequence)
Hand Jive Style: Three Tons of Joy (includes the video from which these clapping sequences were taken)

Hand Jive Style: Three Tons of Joy

I described a basic hand jive sequence, as shown in the popular 1978 movie-musical, Grease, a while back, but it's not the only version.  I heard the sad news of "Willie and the Hand Jive" artist Johnny Otis' death today, so in his memory, let's look at the hand jive variations demonstrated on his show in the late 1950s by Three Tons of Joy, a trio featuring R&B singer Marie Adams with sisters Sadie and Francine McKinley.  Here's the video clip of the show from which I've taken the sequences described below:

Hand Jive Basics

I have a great nostalgic love for the 1978 movie-musical Grease, and particularly for the big "Born to Hand Jive" scene at the school dance. I usually avoid analyzing my favorite movies from a dance historian's perspective -- it can be painful -- but I couldn't resist looking into the hand jive. I found a few surprises in my research, but for this post I'll just stick to the basics, with more background to follow in the future.