The Hand jive is a dance particularly associated with rock and roll and rhythm and blues music of the 1950s. It involves a complicated pattern of hand moves and claps at various parts of the body, following and/or imitating the percussion instruments. It resembles a highly elaborate version of Pat-a-cake. Hand moves include thigh slapping, cross-wrist slapping, fist pounding, chest slapping and pounding, hand clapping, elbow touching and hitch hike moves.

In 1957 when film-maker Ken Russell was a freelance photographer, he recorded the teenagers of Soho, London hand-jiving in the basement of The Cat's Whisker coffee bar, where the hand-jive was invented. According to an article in the Daily Mirror,^[1] "it's so crowded the girls hand-jive to the band as there's no room for dancing." Russell told interviewer Leo Benedictus of The Guardian^[2] that "the place was crowded with young kids... the atmosphere was very jolly. Wholesome... everyone jiving with their hands because there was precious little room to do it with their feet... a bizarre sight. The craze fascinated me. It seemed like a strange novelty, I used to join in."

The hand-jive was particularly popularized by Johnny Otis's 1958 hit "Willie and the Hand Jive". Eric Clapton did a version of the song in 1974 that reached the Top 40.^[3] It is also featured prominently in the Broadway musical Grease through the song "Born to Hand Jive"; in the movie adaptation of the musical, the song is performed by Sha Na Na. On a DVD audio commentary for the movie, choreographer Patricia Birch mentions that the dance also went by the much more risque name "hand job", but the title was changed as Grease was aimed at a family audience.

Additionally, the Hand Jive was played on several occasions by the Grateful Dead and also by the New Riders of the Purple Sage with Jerry Garcia, Sony, 1972^[4]

This song exhibited the Bo Diddley beat, a specific and highly popular rhythm created by Bo Diddley that was copied by generations of musicians.

George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers recorded a version of the song and a music video.^[5]

The hand-jive (updated with feet movements) featured in the Olivia Newton John-John Travolta 1978 film hit Grease.^[6]

Laurin Rinder & W. Michael Lewis made a disco version of Willie and the Hand Jive for their 1979 album Warriors.^[7]

The term is also used by some jugglers in reference to certain hand motions in the Mills Mess juggling pattern.

[edit] See also

• Juba dance
• Manualism (hand music)
• Bo Diddley Beat
• The Cat's Whisker

[edit] References