A class act is a performance, personal trait or behavior that is distinctive and of high quality. As a

noun phrase A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently ...

, it is typically used to refer to a single person, a team (such as performing artists working together) or an organization.

Usage and contemporary etymology

In sports

In sports, a "class act" would be an athlete who not only performs exceptionally well, but also exhibits a range of other admirable qualities on and off the field.

In dance

In dance during the

jazz age The Jazz Age was a period from 1920 to the early 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles gained worldwide popularity. The Jazz Age's cultural repercussions were primarily felt in the United States, the birthplace of jazz. Originating in New O ...

and the swing era (the first half of the 20th century) –

tap dance Tap dance (or tap) is a form of dance that uses the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion; it is often accompanied by music. Tap dancing can also be performed with no musical accompaniment; the sound of the taps is its ow ...

in particular – a class act was, and still is, a complimentary reference to a dance team that exhibits precision, elegant dress, detached coolness, flawless execution, and dignity. In 1946, after serving in the Army, Charles "Honi" Coles and

Cholly Atkins Charles "Cholly" Atkins (born Charles Sylvan Atkinson; September 13, 1913 – April 19, 2003) was an American dancer and vaudeville performer, who later became noted as the house choreographer for the various artists on the label Motown. Biogr ...

collaborated as a dance duo that became highly acclaimed. British dance critic Edward Thorpe, in his 1989 book, ''Black Dance,'' described Coles and Atkins as For black dancers of the

and the swing era, the noun phrase, "class act," had a more nuanced meaning. According to

, some performers and managers harbored

stereotypical In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...

preferences of how black male dancers and musical comedy dance teams should dress and perform. To those performers and managers, a class act was more apropos for white male entertainers. Black entertainers who did it were likely to be perceived as defiant.

Atkins Atkins may refer to: People * Atkins (surname) Places in the United States * Atkins, Arkansas, a city * Atkins, Iowa, a city * Atkins, an unincorporated community in Bossier Parish, Louisiana * Atkins, Nebraska, an unincorporated community * Atk ...

, in his 2001 book, ''Class Act'' (co-authored with Jacqui Malone), stated that, Against the backdrop of dance teams working in the

blackface Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a glo ...

tradition, Atkins was one in a long list of virtuoso black male dance artists who rejected the

minstrel show The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of Afr ...

stereotypes In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...

of the grinning-and-dancing clowns lazy, incompetent fools and

dandies A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance and personal grooming, refined language and leisurely hobbies. A dandy could be a self-made man both in person and ''persona'', who emulated the Aristocracy, aristocrati ...

who thought only of flashy clothes, flirtatious courting, new dances, and good looks. Atkins' and his peers aspired to pure artistic expression driven by a desire for respectability and equality on the American concert stage.

Class act syles, in tap

Marshall Stearns Marshall Winslow Stearns (October 18, 1908 – December 18, 1966) was an American jazz critic and musicologist. He was the founder of the Institute of Jazz Studies. Biography Stearns was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Edith Baker Winslo ...

, in the 1964 film-made-for-TV, ''Over the Top to Bebop,'' stated that the class act "started with the soft-shoe and the sand and the

shuffle Shuffling is a technique used to randomize a deck of playing cards, introducing an element of chance into card games. Various shuffling methods exist, each with its own characteristics and potential for manipulation. One of the simplest shuff ...

; and it grew up and became a dance in which you showed elegance and dignity and precision. And every class act in the thirties and forties had their own soft-shoe."

Selected "class acts"

In tap dance

* The Cotton Club Boys, from 1934 to 1940, were the

Cotton Club The Cotton Club was a 20th-century nightclub in New York City. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue from 1923 to 1936, then briefly in the midtown Theater District until 1940. The club operated during the United States' era of P ...

's stock class act dance troupe * John "Bubbles" Sublett and Ford "Buck" Washington *

and

Honi Coles Charles "Honi" Coles (April 2, 1911 – November 12, 1992) was an American actor and tap dancer, who was inducted posthumously into the American Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2003. He had a distinctive personal style that required technical precisio ...

* Willie Covan and Leonard Ruffin * Eddie Sledge and Fred Davis ''(aka'' Fred and Sledge) * Charles Cook and Ernest Brown * Eddie Rector (1890–1962) * Dickie Wells,

Jimmy Mordecai Jimmy Mordecai (July 11, 1905 – May 7, 1966) also known as James Mordecai was an American, Harlem-based jazz tap dancer in the 1920s and 1930s. He featured in the 1929 short film ''St. Louis Blues'', and starred in the 1930 Vitaphone Varieties m ...

, Earnest Taylor *

Nicholas brothers The Nicholas Brothers were an entertainment act composed of brothers, Fayard (1914–2006) and Harold (1921–2000), who excelled in a variety of dance techniques, primarily between the 1930s and 1950s. Best known for their unique interpretati ...

* Gary Lambert "Pete" Nugent (1909–1973), Irving "Peaches" Beamon (born 1911), Duke Miller (1910–1937)

In vaudeville

* Rosamond Johnson and

Bob Cole Robert Cole may refer to: Entertainment *Robert William Cole (1869–1937), British writer *Bob Cole (composer) (1868–1911), American composer *Bobby Cole (musician) (1932–1996), American musician Sports *Bob Cole (cricketer) (born 1938), for ...

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

duo that began in 1902

Contrasting noun phrase

A "flash act," in tap dance, includes

acrobatic Acrobatics () is the performance of human feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination. Acrobatic skills are used in performing arts, sporting events, and martial arts. Extensive use of acrobatic skills are most often performed in acro ...

movements. The

, who famously performed class acts, also did flash acts.

References

{{Reflist, 50em, refs= ''Class Act: The Jazz Life of Choreographer Cholly Atkins'' (memoir), by

& Jacqui Malone,

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...

(2001), pg. 114; {{OCLC, 974087440

"Class act" (discussion)alternate link
pg. 114
"Class act" (defined)alternate link
, pg. 226
"Flash act" (defined)alternate link
, pg. 227

Note: Malone, a dance and theater scholar at

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the New York City borough of Queens. Part of the City University of New York system, Queens College occupies an campus primarily located in Flushing. Queens College was established in 1937 and offe ...

, married, in 1973, Robert George O'Meally, PhD, American literature scholar and

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo ...

Professor of Literature at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, who, additionally, writes about jazz "Class Act,"
''Performing Arts Encyclopedia'' c/o

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

(online); {{OCLC, 76944288, 54373218

(browse ''Encyclopedia)''
/div>
"Over the Top to Be-Bop
'

Camera Three ''Camera Three'' was an American anthology series devoted to the arts. It began as a Sunday afternoon local program on WCBS-TV in New York and ran “for some time”Mercer, Charles, Associated Press writer, Television World column, “Obscure P ...

'', Season 10, Episode 18,

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

Aired Sunday, 11:30 am, 3 January 1965
Produced for

WCBS-TV WCBS-TV (channel 2), branded CBS New York, is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Riverhead, New York–lic ...

by Dan Gallagher
Nick Havinga ''(né'' Nicholas Havinga, Jr.; born 1935), director : Featured artists: Coles and

(dance duet) : Other performers:

Hank Jones Henry Jones Jr. (July 31, 1918 – May 16, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians have described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts h ...

(piano) : James Fergus Macandrew (1906–1988) (program host) : Guest:

, PhD

(

U-matic U-matic, also known as -inch Type E Helical Scan or SMPTE E, is an analog recording videocassette format developed by Sony. First shown as a prototype in October 1969 and introduced commercially in September 1971, it was among the earliest vi ...

) (1965); {{OCLC, , 37633199, 8511663
New York State Education Dept (1965); {{OCLC, 19009050
Creative Arts Television (

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

) (19??); {{OCLC, 38594171
Creative Arts Television (

) (1997); {{OCLC, 41462387, 50611853
Creative Arts Television (DVD) (2007); {{OCLC, 181202686, 174151608
Aviva Films Ltd. (digital) (2007); {{OCLC, 830519421

"'Let the Punishment Fit the Crime': The Vocal Choreography of Cholly Atkins," by Jacqui Malone ( MCP) ''(née'' Jacqueline Delores Malone; born 1947), ''

Dance Research Journal Dance is an art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements or ...

,'' Vol. 20, No. 1, Summer 1988, pps. 11–18 (retrieved 24 March 2017; stable URL {{url, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1478812) ''Black Dance,'' by Edward ("Ted") Thorpe ''(né'' Edward Robert Thorpe; born 1926) (retired sometime before 1995, was a dance critic for the ''

London Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free of charge in London, England. It is print ...

;'' he has been married to

Gillian Freeman Gillian Freeman (5 December 1929 – 23 February 2019) was an English writer. Her first book, ''The Liberty Man'', appeared while she was working as a secretary to the novelist Louis Golding. Her fictional diary, ''Nazi Lady: The Diaries of E ...

, a writer, for {{age, 1955, 09, 13 years)

Chatto & Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his busines ...

(1989) {{OCLC, 915815720

Overlook Press The Overlook Press is an American publishing house based in New York, New York which considers itself "a home for distinguished books that had been 'overlooked' by larger houses". History and operations The Overlook Press was formed in 1971 by ...

(1995); {{OCLC, 260151435, 232129452

Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History
'
alternate link 1alt link 2
by Constance Valis Hill, PhD (born 1947),

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

(2010), pps. 41–42; {{OCLC, 888554987
Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers
'' by Constance Valis Hill, PhD (born 1947),

Cooper Square Press The Globe Pequot Publishing Group (formerly Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group) is an American independent book publishing company founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers various regional and interest books in the trade b ...

(2002), pps. 134; {{OCLC, 845250422 "Johnson, John Rosamond"alt link
, Cary D. Wintz &

Paul Finkelman Paul Finkelman (born November 15, 1949) is an American legal historian. He is the author or editor of more than 50 books on American legal and constitutional history, slavery, general American history, and baseball. He has also published more than ...

(eds.), ''Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance'' (Vol. 1 of 2; A–J),

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

(2004), pg. 636; {{oclc, 648136726, 56912455 ''What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing,'' by Brian Seibert,

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer P ...

(2016) pps
180200307
/ref>
Tappin' at the Apollo: The African American Female Tap Dance Duo Salt and Pepper
'' by Cheryl M. Willis,

McFarland & Company McFarland & Company, Inc., is an American independent book publisher based in Jefferson, North Carolina, that specializes in academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tert ...

(2016), pg. 213; {{OCLC, 917343455 Dance terminology