Tag Archives: tap dancing

Peg Leg Bates

February 12, 2013 – 8:44 am

Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates lost a leg at the age of 12 in a cotton gin accident and learned how to tap dance thanks to getting a peg leg provided by his uncle. The other day someone in the diamond exchange mentioned having seen the famed tap dancer in the Borscht Belt. “Everyone went to […]

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THE LAUGHTER OF THE MAESTRO by Peter Nolan Smith

February 9, 2013 – 2:27 pm

Last week I was walking home through a snowstorm. Turning the corner toward Fulton I called Cecil Taylor, who lived in the last unrenovated brownstone on that street. We knew each other from back in the 70s. The jazz pianist’s manager James Spicer had been a mutual friend, until the silver-haired impresario ripped off my […]

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