Baby Laurence was a relatively new comer to the Hoofers club, he came at a time where he could watch and take in the techniques of a wealth of performers that visited the small back room. Baby Laurence learned quick and although some thought he would never make a dancer, this served to make him even more determined, rather like John Bubbles had done years earlier.

He brought about a number of fundamental changes, combining and re inventing steps in a way never performed before. Such was the fluidity of his tapping, that he became one of the greatest improvisers. Using his great memory for tune structures he could predict the change in tempo and structure of the music and transpose it down to deliver his own rhythmic combination.

He made big changes to the rhythm of his tap dancing, this was not due to his own ideas, but rather it was a response to the changing face of jazz music that was emerging. It is widely believed that Baby Laurence and other dancers of the time affected a change to the rhythm the drummers played to accompany the musicians. It is thought that the drummers began to listen to tap dancers and develop new accompanying rhythms.

While the drummer got busier they literally stole the beats from the tap dancers leaving them with very little percussive space to fill and tap out a rhythm became more complicated needing the tap dancers to ask the drummer to lay off a little. Deliberate stops or quite phases in the music were introduced to allow the dancers to be heard. This contributed to tap dancers decline, as bands were more in demand by big dance halls like the Savoy, and the performance of a tap dancer was going out of fashion.

After a number of years break there was a re-emergence of tap dancing and Laurence was back at the top with some of the other great dancers that survived the lean years of taps decline. Baby Laurence passed on his great knowledge and historical experiences he has had with some of the great pioneers to people right up until his death. It was a great loss, but fortunately some of his teachings can still be seen on video so we can still continue learning from him.