Drummer Taps Into Other Talent : Louie Bellson, Who’ll Play at OCC, Attributes His Potent, Leg-Powered Sound to Dance Lessons

Louie Bellson, one of the best-known drummers on the planet, learned to tap dance at an early age.

“My sister Mary was an excellent tap dancer,” Bellson said earlier this week by phone from the Remo drum company’s office in Los Angeles, “and you know how drumming and dancing are so much alike, so I asked her to teach me the fundamentals. And she did.

“When you came up in the same generation as Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich and all the other great drummers, you had to know how to do everything--sing, dance, tell a few jokes, emcee--as well as play drums.”

Bellson, long respected for his footwork on twin bass drums, a technique that early on set him apart from the majority of trapsmen, attributes his potent, leg-powered sound to those long-ago dance lessons from his sister.

“Dancing is rhythm and timing and pacing. Those two feet are very important to drummers; you want to reiterate with your feet what you do with your hands. And tap really helps.”

Many of his fans might not be aware of the drummer’s dancing abilities. But choreographer and Orange Coast College professor of dance Linda Sohl-Donnell is.

The dance ensemble she directs, Rhapsody in Taps, will join forces tonight at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa with Bellson’s big band to present parts of “A Triology of Time,” a musical tribute that Bellson and film composer Jack Hayes wrote to honor three tap giants: Bill (Bojangles) Robinson, John Bubbles and Bill Bailey.

It won’t be the first time that Bellson and Sohl-Donnell have worked together. The ensemble initially teamed with Bellson’s quintet in 1983 for a Los Angeles show. More recently, the dance ensemble appeared with Bellson’s big band at La Mirada Civic Theatre, in 1990.

Before that concert, Bellson approached Sohl-Donnell about brushing up on the steps his sister taught him long ago.

“He went out and bought a new pair of tap shoes and we got together and I re-taught him the traditional Shim Sham Shimmy,” Sohl-Donnell said. “He knew what he was doing with just a little practice session. His rhythmic understanding is so incredibly strong that he picked it up again in no time.”

At the conclusion of that ’91 concert, which included celebrated tap dancer Eddie Brown, Bellson came out from behind his kit with his dance shoes on and did the Shimmy with Sohl-Donnell’s ensemble.

“People hadn’t expected to see Louie dancing, and they just went wild. It was a very big moment, with Louie standing in the line side by side with Eddie coaching Louie on the steps.”

“It was something I wanted to do,” Bellson said, “part of giving 100%. Linda gave me a few lessons, honed my skills and brought me back to that whole routine. It was really wonderful.”

Bellson, who was married to singer Pearl Bailey, was especially close to one of the honorees in “A Triology of Time”: his brother-in-law Bill Bailey.

“If Duke Ellington and Count Basie were alive today and you asked them who the greatest tap dancer of all time was, they’d say Bill Bailey. His was a God-given talent. He never had a lesson; he was born a dancer.

“You could give him any kind of tempo and he’d dance up and down the stage with the greatest rhythms you ever heard. He could do all of Bojangles things, he even looked like Bojangles--always had the derby and could do that stair dance like he did. He was a fantastic dancer.”

The complete version of the Triology, according to Bellson, contains slow musical introductions during which a narrative of each dancer’s life is read.

Tonight’s performance will do away with the narration and focus on Sohl-Donnell’s choreography, titled “Suite Echoes.”

“My inspiration for choreographing the piece,” Sohl-Donnell said, “is from the three dancers (being honored). It’s mostly my impression of having seen their work, either in person or on videotape. I wanted to achieve a sense of the era in which they performed, styled with my own choreographic approach.”

Bellson’s 17-piece big band, with trumpeter Conte Candoli, saxophonist Matt Catingub, pianist George Gaffney and trombonist Thurman Green among others, will open tonight’s show, before the Rhapsody in Taps ensemble joins after intermission.

Those hoping to see the drummer out hoofing in front of his set this weekend, as he did in La Mirada, probably will be disappointed. “I’ve been so busy lately,” said Bellson, “that I haven’t had time to get my tap shoes out of the closet.”

The 69-year-old drummer is in such demand these days that he keeps working bands on call in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York as well as a set of drums and a full library of music in each city.

In June, his “Tomus One, Two and Three”--a piece for full choir and orchestra, “with a swing band in the middle”--premiered in Washington. The libretto for the piece was written by his late wife.

The coming months will find Bellson doing a jazz cruise with such notables as Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway and Clark Terry in October, before moving his big band into New York’s Tavern on the Green in Central Park, which has just added live music.

He’ll tour Italy early in 1994. The drummer also continues to do clinics for aspiring musicians at colleges and universities, something, he said, that makes him feel good, if not particularly young.

“I didn’t think an old, broken-down drummer like myself could keep on working this much,” Bellson said with a laugh. “When I do these clinics, the kids come up and say I’m ancient but that I play pretty well for an old man. It’s like athletes and their legs; when a drummer’s feet go, he’s finished. But, boy, mine are still strong. Must have been all that dancing.”

* The Louie Bellson Big Band and Rhapsody in Taps appear tonight at 8 in the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. $19 and $25. (714) 432-5880.