Whether he was clicking his quicksilver heels to slinky jazz swing or twitchy improv, the hoofer Will Gaines took the view that he was "just trying to dance the melody". Gaines, who has died aged 86, was not only an extraordinary dancer, but also one of a rare breed of open-minded listeners who could hear melody and rhythm in everything from bebop to Bach to abstract electronica, and he looked and sounded as if he was having the time of his life playing with all of it.
Gaines would show up at gigs resembling the fall-guy in a slapstick comedy an amiable drifter in a reversed baseball cap, often bearing a large sheet of plywood, and looking as if he had come to board up the windows rather than mesmerise an expectant crowd. But the plywood was Gaines's portable dancefloor, and once he set it down and began shuffling and snapping, crouching as if about to roll a dice, then rearing back in mock amazement, delighted audiences could sense a lifetime's learning on the hoof on Harlem stages shared in the 1940s and 50s with jazz stars including Charlie Parker, Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt and Nat King Cole.
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