“Savion is to tap what Charlie Parker is to jazz” – Herb Alpert
Savion Glover began as a prodigious student of the great Honi Coles and the late Gregory Hines. It was Hines who called him “possibly the best tap dancer that ever lived.” Glover has been boldly breaking new ground for over a quarter century.
Glover was only eleven when he made his Broadway debut. There, he played the title character in 1984’s The Tap Dance Kid. Then, he received his first Tony nomination at fifteen for 1989’s Black and Blue. Also that year, he appeared alongside Hines and Sammy Davis Jr. in Tap.
The film is an inspiring love letter to the artform featuring one of Davis’s final screen appearances. It paired Hines and the young Glover’s explosive rhythmic power with cameos by veteran hoofers. Here, Bunny Briggs, Arthur Duncan, Howard “Sandman” Sims, Jimmy Slyde, and Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers all appear.
By the turn of the 1990s Glover was moving freely between stage and screen. He appeared in Hines’ PBS special Gregory Hines’ Tap Dance in America. Also, he was featured in over forty episodes of the iconic children’s series Sesame Street. Furthermore, he received a 1992 Drama Desk nomination for Jelly’s Last Jam on Broadway.
Glover built on the momentum from this award-winning celebration of Jelly Roll Morton. Then, he became a cultural phenomenon at twenty-three when he co-conceived and starred in the wildly successful 1996 musical Bring in ‘Da Noise/Bring in ‘Da Funk. This was a landmark production tracing the history of Black life in America through tap. The show earned Glover a Tony Award for Best Choreography. Bring in ‘Da Noise/Bring in ‘Da Funk ran for three years at Broadway’s historic Ambassador Theatre, totaling 1,130 performances.
Recommended for fans of Gregory Hines, John Coltrane, Jimmy Slyde and Bunny Briggs.
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