Norma Miller RIP

[lipi]

I only yesterday found out my friend Norma Miller died earlier this month. She was the last surviving dancer from the 1930s professional troupe organized at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. You may have seen her in Ken Burns's "Jazz". She could be intimidating or downright scary, and was famously brutally honest when assessing dancers, but she was always sweet to me and I will mis her.

 

Here's Norma dancing in "Day at the Races", the Marx Brothers movie. Ivie Anderson is the singer, the soundtrack is almost certainly Ellington's band. Norma is the woman in the second couple taking a solo, at 1:59. (The woman in the couple before was Norma's sister Dot.) 

 

 

And here she is in "Hellzapoppin'", an Olsen and Johnson movie. That's Slim Gaillard on piano and guitar, Slam Stewart on bass, and Rex Stewart on trumpet. Norma is in the second couple to come on screen, at 3:09, in the chef outfits. Frankie Manning, who died ten years ago, is the man in overalls at 3:58.

The obituary in the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/obituaries/norma-miller-dead.html

And the NEA's notice:

https://www.arts.gov/news/2019/national-endowment-arts-statement-death-nea-national-heritage-fellow-norma-miller

[JSngry]

RIP.

A real dancer like that should never be ignored by any musician. What the voice is to tone, dancing is to pulse.

[Chuck Nessa]

The Today Show had a report last Sunday - https://www.today.com/video/norma-miller-known-as-the-queen-of-swing-dies-at-99-years-old-59477061780

[romualdo]

Wow!!!!

[Big Beat Steve]

RIP.

She impressed many people here at lindy hop classes and conventions and related interviews and lectures where she gave first-hand "eyewitness of an era" accounts to a generation of swing dancer youngsters.

[Hardbopjazz]

RIP.

Her dancing was amazing.