[Dixielandjazz] Sandman Sims - a memory

[Richard Broadie]

Steve, (and list)

I've been trying to remember the Sandman's name for nearly 43 years.  In
Sept. 1960 (a week or two after my 21st birthday, I attended a benefit jam
session at San Francisco's Coffee Gallery that was held for the recently
burned-out Jazz Cellar (jazz club).  Alto sax genius Pony Poindexter was the
host. (Basie's "Little Pony" is a tribute to him.)  I played briefly on the
first set (on aborrowed bass) when Jimmy Hamilton, Duke Ellington and Jimmy
Rushing came in.    Duke immediately sat in on the piano so I got to finish
one song with him.  Ever since then, I could, perhaps, somewhat
legitimately, claim to have performed with Mr. Ellington.  I knew my
limitations and fled the stage after returning the bass to it's owner
(possibly Leroy Vinegar).   Not too long after Mr. 5x5 sang a few numbers
they started to REALLY jam,   The improvised riffs that day were still the
best I've ever heard. Then Duke invited several black tap dancers to sit in.
>From that point the drummer was virtually on vacation.

Now that you mention his name, I'm quite certain that the Sandman was there.
I believe he got his name by sprinkling sand on the floor and dragging his
feet through it, creating a unique sounding effect.  Somebody told me that
he taught Bo Jangles this trick but I doubt it since he was much younger
than Bo.  But who knows?
I can't describe the competition that took place.  I never saw dancing like
that before or since, be it on film, TV, or live.  I can't find words to
characterize it properly so I won't try.  Perhaps unforgettable is as close
as I can come, but then again, with my current memory, very few things are
truly unforgettable.  Then again I did forget Sandman's name.

Being about the second time in my life that I legally entered a bar (the
first was on Aug. 27 when I watched the Kennedy-Nixon debate in a SF barroom
on the actual date of birthday #21), I must say that I never again found
myself in such company or witnessed a more awe inspiring set of performances
or such an talented random convergence of jazz genius.

Thanks for triggering the above in my mind, Steve.  Sometimies the good
stuff sticks.

Dick Broadie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 5:55 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Sandman Sims


> The Sandman dies. May not be OKOM, but this gentlemen was a LEGEND in
> "hoofing". If he was not your kind of dancer, you have no soul. ;-)
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
> May 30, 2003 - New York Times
>
> Sandman Sims, 86, Tap Dancer and Fixture at the Apollo, Dies
>
> By DOUGLAS MARTIN
>
>       Sandman Sims, the celebrated tap dancer and Apollo Theater legend,
> died on May 20 in the Bronx. He was 86, although he long maintained that
> his age was "a matter of opinion."
>
> For decades he was "executioner" at the Apollo Theater in Harlem,
> chasing unpopular acts off the stage on amateur nights, sometimes with a
> toy gun. He told disconsolate losers about how he himself had to return
> 10 times before being allowed to finish his act. But then he danced up
> storm upon storm and won 25 straight contests, a record that led to the
> four-win limit now in effect.
>
> The man born Howard Sims became famous and won his stage name for
> dancing on sprinkled sand, his deft feet brushing, scraping, rustling,
> seeming almost to whisper to the floor. His skill was suggested by his
> accomplished students Gregory Hines and Ben Vereen, as well as by the
> boxers to whom Sandman taught footwork, including Sugar Ray Robinson and
> Muhammad Ali.
>
> In a review in The New York Times, the dance critic Anna Kisselgoff
> called him a "virtuoso among virtuosos - in a class by himself."
>
> When he won a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment
> for the Arts in 1984, Mr. Sims was more modest.
>
> "I thought I was making noise all these years," he said. "Now they're
> calling it culture."
>
> He used the $5,000 fellowship to teach dancing to children in a Harlem
> parking lot.
>
> "I was born dancing," Mr. Sims said in a 1977 interview with The Times.
> That happened in Fort Smith, Ark., on Jan. 24, 1917. He grew up in Los
> Angeles.
>
> Tap dancing was the street dance, the break dancing of his time. He
> would walk around with his tap shoes in his back pocket.
>
> "People would throw down their shoes in front of you and say,
> `Challenge!' " he said in an interview with Newsday in 1989. He decided
> to pursue dancing as a career when he realized that he could not make it
> as a boxer.
>
> In 1947 his friend Archie Moore, the prizefighter, drove him to New
> York. There Mr. Sims fell in with hoofers, practitioners of a dance
> style that characterized the Hoofers Club in Harlem. Unlike the
> heel-and-toe tap performed by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, a hoofer's
> steps use the whole foot.
>
> Dancing came from his boxing days when he would do "some fancy steps" in
> the rosin box before entering the ring, he told The Los Angeles Times in
> 1986. People liked the effect, so he tried dancing on sandpaper, but
> wore out his shoes. He tried gluing sandpaper to his shoes, but wore out
> the mat. Loose sand in a box was the solution.
>
> He danced at the Apollo for 17 years, but could not support himself that
> way. He owned a cafe, taught tap and worked as a carpenter and mechanic,
> among other things. He was a regular on the vaudeville circuit.
>
> Mr. Sims became the Apollo's executioner in the mid-1950's and continued
> off and on for more than three decades. He was also stage manager of the
> theater.
>
> He is survived by his wife, Solange; his daughters Mercedes White and
> Diane Jones; his son, Howard Jr.; 9 grandchildren; and 12
> great-grandchildren.
>
> In 1986 the poet Sandra Hochman wrote a play in verse and dance about
> Mr. Sims called "The Sand Dancer." Ms. Hochman's language is whimsical:
> "I wanted my feet to sound like shooting stars," the Sandman character
> says.
>
> Mr. Sims, who danced in that production, was good with words himself.
>
> "I'm in show business not for a season, but a reason," he said in the
> Times interview in 1977. "The wine, women and song are gone. I want to
> just dance my way away at the end."
>
>
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