#Brotherhood In Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers

[oconnormusicstudio]

Happy Birthday, Harold Nicholas!

Happy Birthday, Harold Nicholas!

I know that I promised in Major Excitement to post about the Nicholas Brothers and this is it!

I can’t remember the first time I saw the Nicholas Brothers in a movie but I’ve sought them out ever since.  I even bought their biography in 2010, Brotherhood In Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers.

Tap dancing legends Fayard (b. 1914) and Harold (1918-2000) Nicholas amazed crowds…

[deforest]

FAYARD & HAROLD NICHOLAS (The Nicholas Brothers) in STORMY WEATHER — 1943, dir. Andrew L. Stone Fred Astaire told the brothers that the "Jumpin' Jive" number in Stormy Weather was the greatest number he had ever seen on film. He would have been more impressed had he known, Harold admits, that "when it was time to do the jumps over each other's heads into splits in the routine, we never rehearsed it." Fayard adds: "It came nice and easy. Nick Castle [the choreographer] said not to rehearse it, that we knew what to do, so we did it like a rehearsal. And in one take!" — Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers by Constance Valis Hill