Bunny Briggs came to Northampton in 1979 to celebrate the premier of the documentary, No Maps on My Taps. Briggs was one of the tap masters at the heart of the film, and he led a tap parade that Sunday down Main Street. It seemed like everyone in town came out to join the second line festivities, and it remains one of the most memorable experiences of my nearly 40 years of life in the Valley. Briggs is seen with Lionel Hampton in this trailer from the George Nierenberg film.
Six years earlier, I’d seen Briggs and fellow hoofers Baby Lawrence and Chuck Green performing in Central Park at a Newport-in-New York concert that also featured Charles Mingus, Gato Barbieri, Carla Bley, and Professor Longhair. Briggs & Co traded twos, fours, and eights with organist Milt Buckner and drummer (and former tap master) Jo Jones, and made the parallels between jazz and dance obvious and unforgettable. Bernard Briggs died on November 15 in Las Vegas at the age of 82. Read the New York Times obituary here.
Here’s Briggs in footage from the early 90’s Broadway production, Black and Blue. He dances to Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood,” with Jerome Richardson on soprano saxophone. I find Richardson’s accompaniment almost as moving as Brigg’s compelling use of eyes, hands, limbs, and feet. Black and Blue was scored by Sy Oliver and Luther Henderson, and Richardson is heard with Billy Butler, guitar; Al McKibbon, bass; Roland Hanna, piano; and Grady Tate, drums.
Richardson’s was a name I encountered a lot when I first began listening to jazz. He was on a few of Charles Mingus’s Impulse albums that were cornerstones of my collection; played tenor and flute on several of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis’s great sessions with organist Shirley Scott; and he was a soloist on Quincy Jones’s fabulous Walking in Space. Richardson also made a handful of sessions as a leader, but most of his work was done in big bands and studio orchestras and that tended to detract from his renown as a soloist.
The multi-instrumentalist was born in Oakland, CA, on Christmas Day in 1920, and died in 2000 at age 80. What first drew my attention to him was his swinging original “Groove Merchant.” It appeared on the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra’s Central Park North in 1969, and here it is in a beautifully-filmed performance introduced by Thad. That’s Richardson front and center on soprano, Sir Roland Hanna, piano; Richard Davis, bass; Mel Lewis, drums; Snooky Young, trumpet; Jerry Dodgian, alto; and Pepper Adams, baritone sax.
Credit my colleague Peter Sokolowski for discovering this additional footage of Bunny Briggs with Charlie Barnet’s Orchestra in 1949. The clip opens with echoes of Barnet’s theme song, “Cherokee,” followed by Briggs dancing and scatting the “Singing Telegram.” That’s Barnet on alto and tenor saxes, a young Doc Severinsen in the trumpet section.