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red by the Kennedy Center in the early 1990s.</p><p id="5d39">And they and Cab Calloway appear in a tribute to iconic performers in Janet Jackson’s <i>Alright </i>video in 1989.</p><p id="7ffa">Then I discovered many others had never heard of them either, from teachers to college students to entrepreneurs.</p><p id="9784">Check out two reaction videos below, it is a tiny sample of people finding out about the brothers for the first time. According to a Google search, some don’t even know the Nicholas Brothers' race.</p><p id="4c39"><b>The backstory of “Jumpin Jive” bandleader Cab Calloway</b></p><p id="b588">As the host who introduced the Nicholas brothers in <i>Stormy Weather,</i> the big band era would gradually go out of style for Cab Calloway who disbanded his orchestra, but he came back swinging in the 80s (pun intended) with a movie appearance in the <i>Blues Brothers</i>.</p><p id="2a04">So, the singer, actor, bandleader, social activist, and philanthropist was introduced to a new and broader audience.</p><p id="f31c">He was the first renowned band leader to travel with his orchestra in the Jim Crow South… and in his private train car because of segregation.</p><p id="2646">In 1994, he was awarded The National Medal of Arts by President Clinton. In 2008, fourteen years later, Cab Calloway was awarded a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.</p><p id="6d45"><b>Seriously?</b></p><p id="76d5">So, The Nicholas Brothers were not alone in having their talent suppressed. The brothers are a sobering and inspirational part of little-known history that more people should know about.</p><p id="abdf"><b>Thank you for reading.</b></p><h1 id="f0dc">Sources</h1><p id="6063"><i>The clip below was nearly cut from the film in its entirety…</i><b>Seriously?</b></p> <figure id="b107"> <div> <div> <img class="ratio" src="http://placehold.it/16x9"> <iframe class="" src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FIoMbeDhG9fU%3Ffeature%3Doembed&amp;display_name=YouTube&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIoMbeDhG9fU&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FIoMbeDhG9fU%2Fhqdefault.jpg&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=youtube" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="640"> </div> </div> </figure></iframe></div></div></figure><p id="9ab2"><a href="https://youtu.be/IoMbeDhG9fU">https://youtu.be/IoMbeDhG9fU</a></p> <figure id="0444"> <div> <div> <img class="ratio" src="http://placehold.it/16x9"> <iframe class="" src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2Fq_ZrMpfDXFo%3Ffeature%3Doembed&amp;display_name=YouTube&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dq_ZrMpfDXFo&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fq_ZrMpfDXFo%2Fhqdefault.jpg&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=youtube" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="854"> </div> </div> </figure></iframe></div></div></figure><p id="0a7b"><a href="https://youtu.be/q_ZrMpfDXFo">https://youtu.be/q_ZrMpfDXFo</a></p> <figure id="a485"> <div> <div> <img class="ratio" src="http://placehold.it/16x9"> <iframe class="" src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FGDiIT6QgsPs%3Ffeature%3Doembed&amp;display_name=YouTube&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DGDiIT6QgsPs&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FGDiIT6QgsPs%2Fhqdefault.jpg&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=youtube" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="854"> </div> </div>

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</figure></iframe></div></div></figure><p id="be8a"><a href="https://youtu.be/GDiIT6QgsPs">https://youtu.be/GDiIT6QgsPs</a></p><p id="612e"><b>The Nicholas Brothers Danced Like Superheroes to Jumpin Jive. Nichecreativity.com <a href="https://nichecreativity.com/the-nicholas-brothers-danced-like-superheros-to-jumpin-jive/"></a></b><a href="https://nichecreativity.com/the-nicholas-brothers-danced-like-superheros-to-jumpin-jive/">The Nicholas Brothers Danced like Superheros to Jumpin Jive | Finding Your Niche (nichecreativity.com)</a></p><div id="7672" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/dancing-joy-the-story-of-the-nicholas-brothers-889f70465cec"> <div> <div> <h2>Dancing Joy: The Story of the Nicholas Brothers</h2> <div><h3>Exploring the life and work of legendary African American tap dancers, Fayard and Harold Nicholas.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*ONISmy7KV_XdsRmf0_byaA.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="c1c1" class="link-block"> <a href="https://news.npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/archive/calloway.html"> <div> <div> <h2>NPR's Jazz Profiles: Cab Calloway</h2> <div><h3>Jazz Profiles from NPR Cab Calloway The middle-class Calloway family hoped their son would become a lawyer like his…</h3></div> <div><p>news.npr.org</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*N5lYLRZawjxSL5mg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div> <figure id="7a64"> <div> <div> <img class="ratio" src="http://placehold.it/16x9"> <iframe class="" src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FvRuovJ3hP9o%3Ffeature%3Doembed&amp;display_name=YouTube&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvRuovJ3hP9o&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FvRuovJ3hP9o%2Fhqdefault.jpg&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=youtube" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="640"> </div> </div> </figure></iframe></div></div></figure><p id="eb25"><a href="https://youtu.be/vRuovJ3hP9o">https://youtu.be/vRuovJ3hP9o</a></p><div id="e731" class="link-block"> <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/article295323/CLUBS-CAB-CALLOWAY.html"> <div> <div> <h2>CLUBS CAB CALLOWAY</h2> <div><h3>DATE OF EVENT: Saturday, Dec. 22, 1945 DATE PUBLISHED: Sunday, Dec. 23, 1945, in The Kansas City Star Editor's note…</h3></div> <div><p>www.kansascity.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*aUAcxMygGZYhN4Bi)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="7e15" class="link-block"> <a href="https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-01-25-fayard-nicholas-obit_x.htm"> <div> <div> <h2>undefined</h2> <div><h3>Dancer Fayard Nicholas dies at 91 LOS ANGELES (AP) - Fayard Nicholas, who with his brother Harold wowed the world of…</h3></div> <div><p>usatoday30.usatoday.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*TKJ2p_HwQsQNqml1)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

The Nicholas Brothers: How Hollywood Hid Their Talent

One of their famous students is known around the globe, but the brothers, not so much

Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash

Many people will recognize names in this article because they are iconic and, in many cases, White.

But, the Nicholas Brothers, credited with teaching one of their famous students to Moonwalk remains unknown to the majority of the public.

Why is that?

Screams, slack jaws, and howls of disbelief were stunned reactions from a group of male college students in March 2023 watching a 1940s movie clip.

They watched as brothers, Fayard and Harold Nicholas performed to Cab Calloway’s “Jumpin’ Jive.”

Before the students began to watch the clip, it was clear they knew nothing about the brothers or what they were about to see…

Dance was not quite the proper description…

Until a few months earlier, I also knew nothing about the Nicholas brothers.

Fayard and Harold Nicholas were born seven years apart in the early 1900s to college-educated musicians.

Admirers and friends of the self-taught Nicholas brothers included Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gene Kelly, and later Gregory Hines, to name just a few.

As a toddler, the eldest brother, Fayard watched famous entertainers of color during his parent’s theater performances and began imitating what he saw.

He later taught his younger brother, and they began performing as children in venues like the segregated Cotton Club.

Stormy Weather, released in 1943 was the first all-star Hollywood movie in which people of color were in the leading roles.

And Cab Calloway and his orchestra, featured in the film, was the first African American to sell a million records long before the film was produced.

Before watching the movie clip, I knew maybe a two-sentence description about Cab Calloway.

Watching the jaw-dropping “Jumpin Jive” clip in which the brothers did not rehearse and completed their scene in one take, I wondered why I’d never heard of them before.

And I felt dumb.

Why had I never heard of the Nicholas Brothers before?

In retrospect, I recall the Nicholas Brothers being mentioned during talk show appearances by contemporary dancers who referred to the brothers as pioneers of the art of tap dance.

But describing the Nicholas Brothers as tap dancers is an understatement.

After fact-checking the professional lives of the Nicholas brothers I learned about their accomplishments.

Fred Astaire described the brother’s performance in Stormy Weather as the finest dance sequence he had ever seen. But the performance was nearly cut out of the film entirely.

The brothers appeared in many major movie musicals but with racial restrictions.

Meaning their performances were edited out of the films by the studios, especially for distribution in southern states.

Yet the brothers performed for nine presidents and gave a command performance for the king and queen of England. They have a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. And their careers spanned six decades.

The brothers later taught at Harvard as artists-in-residence and were honored by the Kennedy Center in the early 1990s.

And they and Cab Calloway appear in a tribute to iconic performers in Janet Jackson’s Alright video in 1989.

Then I discovered many others had never heard of them either, from teachers to college students to entrepreneurs.

Check out two reaction videos below, it is a tiny sample of people finding out about the brothers for the first time. According to a Google search, some don’t even know the Nicholas Brothers' race.

The backstory of “Jumpin Jive” bandleader Cab Calloway

As the host who introduced the Nicholas brothers in Stormy Weather, the big band era would gradually go out of style for Cab Calloway who disbanded his orchestra, but he came back swinging in the 80s (pun intended) with a movie appearance in the Blues Brothers.

So, the singer, actor, bandleader, social activist, and philanthropist was introduced to a new and broader audience.

He was the first renowned band leader to travel with his orchestra in the Jim Crow South… and in his private train car because of segregation.

In 1994, he was awarded The National Medal of Arts by President Clinton. In 2008, fourteen years later, Cab Calloway was awarded a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Seriously?

So, The Nicholas Brothers were not alone in having their talent suppressed. The brothers are a sobering and inspirational part of little-known history that more people should know about.

Thank you for reading.

Sources

The clip below was nearly cut from the film in its entirety…Seriously?

https://youtu.be/IoMbeDhG9fU

https://youtu.be/q_ZrMpfDXFo

https://youtu.be/GDiIT6QgsPs

The Nicholas Brothers Danced Like Superheroes to Jumpin Jive. Nichecreativity.com The Nicholas Brothers Danced like Superheros to Jumpin Jive | Finding Your Niche (nichecreativity.com)

https://youtu.be/vRuovJ3hP9o

Nicholas Brothers
Cab Calloway
African American Film
African American Dance
Discrimination
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