Eddie Brown & Irma Young
Eddie Brown was a legendary tap dancer who won fame as a master of rhythm tap improvisation and taught the next generation of dancers. Born in Omaha, Nebraska (1918), one of 14 children of musicians, singers and dancers, he learned to tap on street corners. Eddie told me that famed tapper Bill (Bojangles) Robinson discovered him at sixteen while touring Omaha. Against his parents' wishes, Eddie ran away and toured China with Robinson. In the 1930s Eddie Brown became a solo performer, primarily in San Francisco. We met in 1976 when he was in Jon Hendrick's Evolution of the Blues Show and I was an usherette while attending the San Francisco Art Institute.
"Eddie Brown was my best friend. I had known him since 1976 in San Francisco. Eddie was dancing in the Evolution of the Blues show on Broadway. I wasn't really a tap student, although Eddie did make me buy tap shoes and gave me lessons. I just wanted to be with him. I don't know what it was that drew us together—a very unlikely pair. We just were.
-From Anita's diary, after Eddie's funeral January 6, 1993, LA, California
Irma Young was born (1913) into a family of musicians in Thibodaux, Louisiana. She was an accomplished saxophone musician who played in the Young Family Band. Her famous brother Lester "Prez" Young was a legendary jazz tenor saxophonist who came to prominence as a member of the Count Basie Orchestra. Irma shared with me, her photos of performing as a young woman. She told me stories of coming to Hollywood but there were no roles for women of color. Her dance partner, Napoleon Whiting, was cast as Silas, the butler, in The Big Valley. On Saturday nights Irma and her friends would cruise up and down Central Avenue, known as the epicenter of the West Coast jazz scene. Irma married Eddie Brown's brother, Crawford W. Brown Sr. She was widowed at an early age with two children. I stayed close with Irma's son Crawford Jr. "Brownie" and his daughter Tina and her boys. Recently, I donated two hand-colored black and white photographs I made from her family's vintage jazz portraits: Kansas City band and the New Orleans Strutters.
