Clear the Floor, Ma, The Kids Might Be Doing Some More of That Crazy Jazz Dancing

My younger brother was a real comic as a teenager. Night after night, doing the dishes after supper, his song-and-dance routines used to get the rest of us just splitting our sides with laughing.

(Notice I’m not telling you my brother’s name? — that’s because I enjoy my life and limbs intact, and would prefer to keep it all that way, even if he finds out that I’m telling about his entertaining teenage years!)

As I recall, he did a great straight-faced parody of different tunes from our parents’ collection of funny old LPs — I can still almost hear him singing the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace” in a basement-deep voice, doing a cool little jive step, making goo-goo eyes at his dish-towel dance partner.

And there was a sort of Russian-inspired squat-kicking dance routine he did sometimes, and an Al Jolson (”Swanee River” era) impression… but my all-time favourite After-Dinner Show was when my brother danced the Charleston.

See, he’s a tall man, my younger brother.

And he was one of those tall skinny impossibly-long-legged teenagers.

So you can just imagine how that whole Charleston loose-jointed, leg-sliding, knee-crossing fast Roaring Twenties jazz-baby style llooked when those long legs got flying!

Well, just have a look at the video (below) and you’ll see what I mean — the tall guy who’s 4th on the floor in this dance-off competition? I have no idea who that dancer is, but his Charleston style just reminds me of so much of my brother showing off his own moves, when we were kids.
Good times, good times!

Tagged as: 1920s, dance, video