RIP Sandman Sims

[brownie]

Never had the privilege of seeing him do his executions at the Apollo but I

heard he could be rough.

NEW YORK (AP) _ Sandman Sims, the famed tap dancer who chased unpopular acts off the stage as the "executioner" at the Apollo Theater for decades, died May 20. He was 86.

Sims taught footwork to boxers Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali, and his dance students included Gregory Hines and Ben Vereen.

Sims, who once boxed himself, earned his stage name by dancing on sprinkled sand, a technique he pioneered while trying to mimic the effect of dancing in the rosin box before entering the ring.

When he won a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1984, Sims used the $5,000 fellowship to teach dance to children in a Harlem parking lot.

Born Howard Sims in Fort Smith, Ark., Sims grew up in Los Angeles and came to New York in 1947. He danced at the Apollo for 17 years, acting as the "executioner" beginning in the mid-1950s.

He also stage managed the Apollo, owned a cafe, and worked as a carpenter and mechanic, and was a regular in the vaudeville scene.

The poet Sandra Hochman wrote a play about Sims in 1986 called "The Sand Dancer."

[JSngry]

ATTENTION ALL LOVERS OF JAZZ:

YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO SEE THIS MOVIE:

Even though it's about tap-dancing, the stories told, especially Sandman Sims' raps about getting your own style, and the Lester-Young-converted-to-dance work of the incredible Chuck Green, to say nothing of the looks in Bunny Briggs' eyes, make it simply one of the best and truest movies about jazz ever made, if you know what I mean.

Sandman in this movie is spectacular, and the three dancers, all accompanied by a Lionel Hampton big band, form a perfect parallel-in-dance to a portion of the evolution of jazz: Briggs with the flash and crip elan of the Swing Elan, Green with his Prezish otherworldiness, and Sandman with the brash fire and self-challenging complexity of bebop. The stories of each man's career also carries an eerie parallel to those of so many jazz musicians.

I've lost track of how many times I've watched this movie since taping it off Bravo a few years ago, but I swear, it grows MORE mesmerizing with each viewing. And if Chuck Green's solo over the closing credits doesn't leave you in a goosebump covered trance... :D

Highly, HIGHLY recommended. Bubba says check it out.

R.I.P. Sandman, and thanks. You were the real deal.