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La Pas Ma La
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Wikipedia article
'"La Pas Ma La"' is the first ragtime composition to be published by minstrel performer Ernest Hogan in 1895. With his troupe, the Georgia Graduates, he performed a dance step and ditty with the name "Pasmala".Gushee, Lawrence. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/i231864 "The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Jazz."] Black Music Research Journal 14, no. 1 (1994): 1-24. doi:10.2307/779456.
Hogan created a comedy dance called the "pasmala", which consisted of a walk forward with three steps back. In 1895, he wrote and composed a song based on this dance called "La Pas Ma La".'Tap Roots: The Early History of Tap Dancing' by Mark Knowles, McFarland & Company, 2002, , pages 119-20. The song's chorus was:
:Hand upon yo' head, let your mind roll back,
:Back, back back and look at the stars
:Stand up rightly, dance it brightly
:That's the Pas Ma La.
References
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