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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

CAAF: Jazz hand paroxysm

September 11, 2007 by cfrye

Sorry for the dust here. Terry has his cold, OGIC has been entertaining, and last night was my first jazz class. It was wonderful, and I spent the rest of the night in an elated state working on the little routine we learned which, if I can get it super spruce, may be my ticket to Broadway. Fingers crossed.
Seriously, the class was great. My two things to work on for next time are to stop trying to insert relevés everywhere (ballet you go up, jazz you stay down) and to stop giggling every time someone either says or demonstrates “jazz hands.” The instructor was nice about it, but it’s clearly going to be a liability if I can’t get over it.
I have to tap away at the book for a few hours, but more soon. In the meanwhile, here’s my favorite pop culture invocation of jazz hands from the summer (goodness begins around the 1:30 mark; warning: it’s from a show that makes some people’s souls bleed).

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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