RAY SNEED & His Dance Creation!

You know who they are even if they aren't mentioned in the film credits.  I'm talking about the many young, gifted and black actors who worked as extras in vintage movies like Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky.  I'm talking about people like Lennie Bluett and Vivian Dandridge. For instance, I just saw Vivian Dandridge in Val Lewton's I Walked With A Zombie (1943), and was literally transfixed by her one minute of screen time. 

So, when I read that Ray Sneed had told a local New Orleans newspaper (in 1948) that he'd been in Stormy Weather, I wondered how he meant that?  I didn't see him!  But that's okay!  Stormy Weather was filled to the brim with the young, talented and the beautiful.

When he told the same newspaper that he was appearing at a local nightclub called the Dew Drop Inn and that there was "nothing feminine" about his appearance, there was no mistaking exactly what he meant.  The Inn was infamously known for its gender bender & gay oriented entertainment.  They even had a transgender emcee named Miss Patsy Vidalia. The former graduate student of the American School of Ballet, then known as the "Ballet Master of Atlanta University" wanted us to know that his act was "purely masculine" and "most graceful", thank you very much!  The writer of the article just smirked and hyped the brotha as a DON'T "MISS" at the Dew Drop and did so with an added emphasis.  *For the record, The Dew Drop Inn also employed some of the biggest names in black entertainment.

I'm sure the boys at the Dew Drop must have loved them some Ray Sneed!  I know I do now!  He was lithe, sensuous and sexy with a dancer's build.  Watching him, I see everything from the origins of vogue to Michael to Usher in his gazelle-like movements.  Here are moves that I've seen my own daddy do when he had a little too much to drink and I'd say "Daddy, show us the dances you used to do when you were young." 

In his cute jumpsuit, Ray Sneed was one handsome brotha with his tight butt and bouncin' package. He was light on his toes and very graceful, indeed.  I think he was very talented and I enjoy watching him for all of those reasons.  That's all I know about Ray Sneed and his Dance Creation as he is billed in the short musical film Jivin' in Bebop (1947).

 

The film also starred the great blues singer Helen Humes (not in this clip) and legendary jazz great Dizzy Gillespie whose early bop orchestra provides the score.  I suggest that you fast forward to 5:45 if you want to skip Gillespie's antics and the mediocre tap dancing of Ralph Brown.   After Sneed's performance there is an additional treat as the mysterious "shake" dancer known as Sahji (see here:MADELEINE "SAHJI" JACKSON) takes the stage.  Neither performance ever set the world on fire but they're both enjoyable for what they're worth.  And is that a young Quincy Jones on trumpet (extreme far left) with Dizzy's band?

 

 

 

Comments

[Della Mae]

Come to think of it, I had come across him in that dancing sequence before. It looked familiar to me the moment I saw the screen caps.

[elg]

Ray Sneed and Sahji are both EXTRAORDINARY dancers. Thank you for bringing both of these amazing performers to us.