Jazz Dance

The late Marshall Stearns was author of The Story of Jazz, and was the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival and Institute of Jazz Studies. He was also a professor of English at Hunger College in New York and a medieval literature scholar. He died in 1966 while completing his book Jazz Dance co-authored by his wife Jean. Jean Stearns, is an authority on jazz and assisted her late husband Marshall in researching and writing Jazz Dance.

* Marshall Winslow Stearns: An Appreciation by James T. Maher * Prologue Prehistory * Africa and the West Indies * New Orleans and the South * The Pattern of Diffusion Beginnings * From Folk to Professional * Early Minstrelsy * Minstrel Dances and Dancers * Late Minstrelsy The Vernacular * Medicine Shows and Gillies * Carnivals, Circuses, and Negro Minstrels * Roadshows, T.O.B.A., and Picks * The Witman Sisters Tin Pan Alley and Song Lyrics * Ballroom Origins * The Song Writer: Perry BradfordI * The Song Writer: Perry BradfordII Broadway and the Reviewers * Williams and Walker and the Beginnings of Vernacular Dance on Broadway * Early Harlem * Shuffle Along * Broadway: The Early Twenties * Broadway: The Late Twenties * Choreography: Buddy Bradley Technique: Pioneers, Innovators, and Stylists * King Rastus Brown and the Time Step * Bill Robinson: Up on the Toes * Frank Condos: Wings and the Expanding Repertory * James Barton: Versatility * Harland Dixon and Character Dancing * John W. Bubbles and Rhythm Tap * Fred Astaire Specialties * Eccentric Dancing * Comedy Dancing * Russian Dancing Acrobatics * Straight Acrobatics * The New Acrobatics * The Flash Acts The Class Acts * The Original Stylists * The First Class-Act Team: Greenlee and Drayton * Pete Nugent and the Class Acts * Coles and Atkins: The Last of the Class Acts The Jitterbug * Harlem Background * The Savoy Ballroom * From Coast to Coast Requiem * Baby Laurence and the Hoffers Club * Groundhog * The Dying Breed * Epilogue