Written and copyright by Harri Heinila
Misleading claims about Pepsi Bethel as the creator of the Tranky Doo routine, which was also called the Savoy Routine, have recently been circulating to a worrying degree.[i] Those misleading claims prompted this short article of the Tranky Doo. The misconception of Pepsi Bethel as the creator of the Tranky Doo goes back to jazz dancer and historian Mura Dehn’s Spirit Moves documentary from the 1950s. One of its scenes of the Tranky Doo shows three dancers, Albert ‘Al’ Minns, Alfred ‘Pepsi’ Bethel, and Leon James, performing the routine.[ii] Obviously, because Pepsi Bethel danced in the middle and was flanked by Al Minns and Leon James, it has been alluring to consider Bethel as the leader of the pack. Probably that has led some of those who watched the scene to draw a far-fetched conclusion of Bethel as a creator of the Tranky Doo routine. Lainey Silver in her Tranky Doo article from 2015 stated that Jun Maruta, who was lucky to discuss the Tranky Doo with Pepsi Bethel, told her that Bethel denied creating the routine.[iii] We also know that Mura Dehn used another Savoy Lindy Hopper, Esther Washington, instead of Pepsi Bethel for the second scene of the Tranky Doo in the Spirit Moves. Like Bethel, also Washington was flanked by Minns and James. This second scene unfortunately did not end up in the commonly available version of the Spirit Moves.[iv]
It could be argued, or to be exact, speculated, whether there would exist any mention of Pepsi Bethel as the creator of the Tranky Doo if the second scene instead of the scene with Pepsi Bethel had been included in the version of the Spirit Moves that is available and circulating in public. Despite parts of the second scene of the Tranky Doo with the trio, Al Minns, Esther Washington, and Leon James, were shown in the Watch Me Move documentary from 1986, which was aired “nationally over PBS” in the US in September 1987, obviously no one has claimed Esther Washington as the creator of the Tranky Doo.[v]
Otherwise, as the creators of the Tranky Doo have been suggested, in particular, Frankie Manning, and Al Minns and Leon James. Also Thomas ‘Tops’ Lee and Wilda Crawford, and Herbert ‘Whitey’ White have been mentioned in this context, although White was mentioned in terms of a teacher of the routine, and Lee and Crawford as early performers of the routine.[vi] Frankie Manning’s claim of being the creator of the Tranky Doo can be found from his autobiography that was published in 2007. In it, Manning explained how he created the routine based on steps of a Chicagoan chorus girl named Tranky Doo. He did not explain when he exactly created the routine. But he claimed that people “who watched us picked it up” when his Congaroos dance group performed the Tranky Doo at the Savoy Ballroom. This had to be after Manning came back from the military service in 1946 because his Congaroos began to perform the Tranky Doo after his return to a civilian life from the Second World War.[vii] However, we know that Thomas ‘Tops’ Lee and Wilda Crawford did the Tranky Doo in the movie Love in Syncopation from 1946. It is unclear whether the Tranky Doo scene in the movie was filmed earlier than in 1946, but the Tranky Doo scene in the movie shows that by 1946 the Tranky Doo had got a traction. So far, there has not been any other evidence for Lee and Crawford’s role in the history of the Tranky Doo, and it is questionable whether they could be claimed as the creators of it.[viii]
In 1959, Al Minns and Leon James claimed in a newspaper article that the “Trankey Do” was their routine that was based on jazz dances “the cakewalk, slow drag, snake hips, Charleston, Lindy Hop, boogie woogie, and “Apple Jack”.”[ix] According to the aforementioned Lainey Silver’s article, Jun Maruta heard from Pepsi Bethel that Al Minns and Leon James taught the Tranky Doo to Bethel.[x] Herbert ‘Whitey’ White as a teacher of the Tranky Doo was proposed in the Frankie Manning 100 Commemorative Book that was published in 2014. In it, the late Ruby Reeves, a dance partner of Harry Connor, was quoted to be saying that Connor “learned the Trankie-do (sic) from Whitey while working with Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers.”[xi]Reeves and Connor used to perform a routine called “Cranky Doodle”, which probably was the Tranky Doo. Because they performed it, for example, at Louise ‘Mama Lou’ Parks Duncanson’s events,[xii] there may exist footage of the routine. But so far the present writer has not seen any “Cranky Doodle” footage.
The similarity of some steps between the Savoy Ballroom-based Big Apple routine, which Frankie Manning allegedly choreographed in 1937, and the Tranky Doo routine, may lead some people to conclude that Manning choreographed both routines.[xiii] However, the popularity of the Big Apple at the end of the 1930s, and the temporal distance between the beginnings of these two routines – it seems that the Tranky Doo originated years later in the 1940s – put the Big Apple steps into the public domain.[xiv] Practically, it is impossible to claim that only Frankie Manning knew about the steps both the Big Apple and the Tranky Doo routines shared. The earliest example of a “Tranky Doo” step that was not included in the preceding Big Apple might be seen in a controversial picture of Herbert ‘Whitey’ White and his fellow dancers from 1940. The picture portrays White executing a step that resembles the step from the very beginning of the Tranky Doo routine, in which the dancers’ legs moved sideways, and which was executed after the Fall Off the Log step.[xv]
Therefore, based on available evidence and despite the fact that different Tranky Doo versions seemingly are from the same genesis – originated from the same source – because these different versions use the same steps in the same order at the beginning of the routine at least until Boogie steps, it is not possible to conclude convincingly the originator of the routine from the similarities and differences between the Tranky Doo versions of Frankie Manning, Al Minns, Pepsi Bethel, Leon James, Esther Washington, Thomas Lee, and Wilda Crawford, especially because Manning in his autobiography admitted that he later “lengthened” his original Tranky Doo.[xvi] As a Savoy Ballroom and jazz historian Terry Monaghan stated, the Tranky Doo originally consisted of “a sequence of basic Lindy steps and “was regularly danced in [the Savoy Ballroom] in the 1940s”.[xvii] Thus, it seems likely that the Tranky Doo stemmed from a group effort by Savoy dancers; there were more than one person who executed and knew of those steps. But who originally composed the sequence of the steps for the Tranky Doo remains to be debated.
A correction on April 29, 2024: The phrase “Love in Syncopation that was released in 1946″ has been changed to the phrase “Love in Syncopation from 1946″. That is according to what the source says.
Endnotes:
[i] The present writer refers to various Facebook discussions, in which a few ambitious, but unfortunately misleading YouTube videos of the history of the Tranky Doo have played a central role. See also Karen Hubbard and Terry Monaghan, “Negotiating Compromise on a Burnished Wood Floor”, in Julie Malnig (editor), Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009, p. 136.
[ii] The Spirit Moves version of the Tranky Doo that shows the Pepsi Bethel in the middle can be found from YouTube. See for example Russell G. Jones, “The Spirit Moves Disc1,” YouTube Video, September 3, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjguncQiw70 . Accessed on April 27, 2024.
[iii] Lainey Silver, “Frankie’s Tranky Doo (The Frankie Doo) (http://www.lindylainey.com/blog/frankies-tranky-doo-the-frankie-doo), 7/2/2015. The link redirected the reader to a new version of the article when the present writer accessed it on April 27, 2024. The present writer has used the version of Lainey Silver’s Tranky Doo article that was published on “7/2/2015” instead of a newer version of it from 2017. The present writer has a copy of the “7/2/2015” version. The newer version can be found at https://www.lindylainey.com/blog/frankies-tranky-doo-the-frankie-doo . Accessed on April 27, 2024.
[iv] The New York Public Library has had a collection of the Spirit Moves-related films. See Kimberly A.. Chandler Vaccaro, Moved By The Spirit: Illuminating the Voice of Mura Dehn and Her Efforts to Promote and Document Jazz Dance. Doctoral Dissertation. Temple University, 1997, pp. 247-248. Three parts of the Spirit Moves documentary, which have also been sold in various outlets, have been circulating among jazz dance enthusiasts. Much of these three parts, if not all of them, can be found from YouTube. The present writer recalls seeing the Al Minns / Esther Washington / Leon James version of the Tranky Doo in one those Spirit Moves films at the New York Public Library. This scene was also included in the Watch Me Move documentary from 1986. See W.E. Baker, et al. Watch Me Move, Community Television of Southern California, 1986.
[v] See footnote iv. “ “Watch Me Move!” The Black Influence On Music And Dance,” The Charlotte Post, September 3, 1987. The present writer has not found any mention of Esther Washington as the creator of the Tranky Doo routine.
[vi] This is discussed in this and the next paragraph until the words “But so far the present writer has not seen any “Cranky Doodle” footage.”
[vii] Frankie Manning and Cynthia R. Millman. Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2007, p. 209. See also “Frankie Manning Timeline” on page 243.
[viii] Larry Richards. African American Films Through 1959: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Filmography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1998, p. 104. The present writer has not found anything that directly supports a claim of Thomas ‘Tops’ Lee and Wilda Crawford as the creators of the Tranky Doo routine. Parts of the Tranky Doo routine by Thomas ‘Tops’ Lee and Wilda Crawford can be found for example at twobarbreak, “The Tranky Do,” YouTube Video, March 28, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKXdy7Fie2I . Accessed on April 28, 2024.
[ix] “Channel-time,” Los Angeles Tribune, January 23, 1959.
[x] See footnote iii.
[xi] Frankie Manning 100 Commemorative Book, ed. Deborah Huisken. The United States, The Frankie Manning Foundation, 2014, p. 13.
[xii] See for example David Hinckley, “Mama Lou: Queen of the Hop,” Daily News, December 26, 1988. Jennifer Dunning, “Review/Dance; Tapping Through an Evening in Honor of Mama Lu Parks,” The New York Times, December 29, 1988. See also Huisken 2014, p. 13.
[xiii] The Big Apple that the Arthur White’s Lindy Hoppers (a pseudonym for Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers) performed in the Keep Punching movie in 1939 had a sequence that included some of the steps that were used in the Tranky Doo. For the Keep Punching Big Apple scene see for example Minnvo, “Keep Punching (The Big Apple), YouTube Video, February 23, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0s0pIuNp4g . Accessed on April 28, 2024. For the Spirit Moves Tranky Doo see for example Russell G. Jones, “The Spirit Moves Disc1,” YouTube Video, September 3, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjguncQiw70 . Accessed on April 27, 2024. See also Richards 1998, p. 98. Manning and Millman 2007, pp. 142-144. As far as the present writer knows about this, dance historian Peter Winquist Loggins noticed the similarity of the steps between the Keep Punching Big Apple and the Spirit Moves Tranky Doo years ago when he had the late www.dancehistory.org site.
[xiv] See footnote vii. Harri Heinilä, Hip hop ja jazztanssi: Afrikkalaisamerikkalaisen tanssin jatkumo. Helsinki: Musiikkiarkisto, 2021 pp. 34-35. The present writer drew the conclusion of the Big Apple steps in the public domain.
[xv] “Developing New Dance In Honor Of Joe Louis,” The Pittsburgh Courier, September 28, 1940. See also footnote xvi.
[xvi] For the Tranky Doo performed by Frankie Manning, Al Minns, Pepsi Bethel, Leon James, Esther Washington, Thomas Lee, and Wilda Crawford see for example W.E. Baker, et al. Watch Me Move, Community Television of Southern California, 1986. LindyCompound, “Al Minns and Leon James on DuPont Show of the Week,” YouTube Video, January 17, 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJsBa2u9aMQ . twobarbreak, “The Tranky Do,” YouTube Video, March 28, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKXdy7Fie2I . Russell G. Jones, “The Spirit Moves Disc1,” YouTube Video, September 3, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjguncQiw70 . Sing Lim, “Frankie Manning, Tranky Doo class SEA Jam 2007,” YouTube Video, May 14, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3HYXnvp8wM . All of these YouTube videos were accessed on April 28, 2024. See also Manning and Millman 2007, p. 209.
[xvii] Hubbard and Monaghan 2009, p. 136.
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