Eubie Blake

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Eubie Blake (1883-1983) has been considered one of America's musical treasures. During his lifetime, he remained active through several distinguished careers as a noted stride and ragtime pianist and composer of rags, as a successful vaudevillian performer, and as a composer and songwriter. Though probably best known as a ragtime artist, Blake was one of very few successful African American composers of Broadway musicals in the first half of the twentieth century. Most significant among such compositions was the history - making hit musical, "Shuffle Along".

James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was born on February 7, 1883, in Baltimore, Maryland. John Sumner Blake, Eubie's father, a former slave, was a Civil War veteran and a stevedore. Eubie's mother, Emily Johnston Blake, also a former slave, was a laundress. The youngest of 11 children, Blake was the only one of his brothers and sisters to survive infancy. The Blake home, recalled Blake in Al Rose's Eubie Blake, was a very strict one. Blake's mother was a devoutly religious woman who gave much of her time to her church, and who tolerated absolutely no inappropriate behavior. Infractions of her rules, Blake remembered, resulted in corporeal punishments swift and severe.

One of the few demands of Blake's father was that his son receive an education. John Blake was taught to read as a slave a rare opportunity and, therefore, was adamant about the importance of literacy. Eubie Blake, however, did not remember his school days fondly, partially owing to general disinterest and frequent fights.

Blake's musical training began around the age of four. He first learned to play on a pump organ his mother had purchased in the hope that he would use his talents to the service of the church. Blake took his first piano lessons from Margaret Marshall, a next - door neighbor. Blake recalled being given the usual standards to play, as well as hymns, which kept his mother happy. However, he was more drawn to the music he heard drifting into his window from the many nightclubs and brothels in his neighborhood. Unable to resist the infectious rhythms and melodies of this raucous music, Blake's practice turned to perfecting this new style of playing.

Composed Rag

Blake landed his first real playing job when he was 15 years old at a neighborhood brothel, Aggie Shelton's Bawdy House. Three dollars a week plus tips was the salary, Blake recalled. He also remembered having to play in "rented long pants" on the account of having to sneak away from home each night in order to play the job. While at Aggie Shelton's, Blake composed his Charleston Rag in 1899. Other early jobs included brief tours with Dr. Frazier's Medicine Show as a buck and wing dancer and melodeon player in 1901 and in 1902 with the traveling show In Old Kentucky. Later that same year, Blake made his return to nightclub playing in Alfred Greenfeld's Saloon, where he composed his next rag, Corner of Chestnut and Low, the address of Greenfeld's club.

Beginning in 1905, Blake spent several summers away from Baltimore in Atlantic City where he was a pianist at the Middle Section Club. He recalled meeting and establishing lasting friendships with some of the greatest black musicians of the time, including long - time friend and competitor, pianist Hughie Wolford, and celebrated composer and performer Will Marion Cook. The older Cook took an interest in Blake's compositions, and according to Blake, became a mentor.

Blake's first big break came in 1907 when he was hired by Joe Gans, an African American prizefighter and childhood friend, who had just opened a new hotel in Baltimore called the Goldfield Hotel. The Goldfield immediately became a prominent haunt of wealthy, sophisticated business-people and entertainers of all races from all over the world. As a performer in this prestigious hotel, Blake became acquainted with rich and powerful people, many of whom had a profound impact on his career. While at the Goldfield, Blake continued to develop his compositional ability. He wrote rags: The Baltimore Todolo, Kitchen Tom, Tricky Fingers, Novelty Rag, and Poor Katie Redd. Blake attributed this compositional spurt to tutelage from Llewellyn Wilson, famous Baltimore conductor introduced to Blake by Will Marion Cook.

In July of 1910 Eubie Blake married Avis Lee, the daughter of a wealthy socialite from Baltimore. According to Blake, he and Avis had met in grade school. He admitted, however, that there was nothing between them until they met again as adults. Avis was not only older than he, but she was also more focused on her education and much more sophisticated, recounted Blake. In Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake, Blake called Avis "one of the ten most beautiful girls in Baltimore."

Avis Blake was herself a classically trained pianist, who, according to Eubie Blake, had the ability but had been too sheltered to consider having a career of her own. After they were married, she remained at home as homemaker and wife, occasionally traveling with Blake until her death from tuberculosis in 1939. They had no children.

Blake left the Goldfield in early 1911, shortly after the death of owner Joe Gans. His stay there, however, had made him famous throughout the Northeast and highly sought after. The years between 1911 and 1915 Blake described as good ones in which he played in some of the best clubs in Baltimore, New York, and Atlantic City. In 1911 Blake wrote his rags, Chevy Chase and Fizz Water, which he published later that year. Unfortunately the experience was marred by the unscrupulous dealings of his publisher. In his inexperience, Blake inadvertently gave up certain rights to his songs, causing him to lose a great deal of money in future royalties. That same year Blake also wrote Troublesome Ivories and Brittwood Rag, named after the popular Brittwood Club of Harlem.

During this period of his life, Blake was enjoying fame and privilege few musicians of his time would ever know. By most standards he was a success. Yet the events of the next years took him in an entirely different direction - into a new musical profession which eclipsed his young career as ragtime pianist for the next 40 years. Blake became a songwriter and composer of musicals.

Met Sissle

Blake and Noble Sissle met on May 16, 1915, at Riverview Park in Baltimore. Almost immediately after their meeting they formed one of the most successful collaborative performing and songwriting teams in American musical theater history.

Noble Sissle (1889 - 1975) was a well - educated son of well - to - do parents from Indianapolis, Indiana. Sissle studied at DePauw and Butler Universities in Indiana. He was a naturally gifted singer and actor who had participated in plays and sung in glee clubs both in high school and college. Seeking fame as a professional performer, Sissle moved to Baltimore. Blake recalled that it was through Sissle that he met James Reese Europe, whom Rose described in Eubie Blake as a "monumental figure in the Negro Music World." Europe was the organizer and president of the Clef Club for black musicians. This organization was a booking agency for musicians and especially Europe's orchestras, which dominated booking in New York City. Europe hired Blake as pianist in his Long Island orchestra in 1916. The three men remained close friends until Europe's death by stabbing in 1919.

Only a few weeks after their meeting, Blake had written music to Sissle's lyrics, "Its All Your Fault," which they persuaded the legendary Sophie Tucker to sing. Two years later, in 1917, the team of Sissle and Blake was separated by World War I. Sissle enlisted, but Blake, already 34, was too old. Upon Sissle's return in 1919, they developed a vaudeville act which traveled under the name The Dixie Duo.

Significant about The Dixie Duo was the fact that this team never performed in black face as was the tradition; yet, they were still successful. "The practice of corking faces by black performers was expected for artistic survival," says Rose. And, of course white artists like Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor continued using black face. Credit must therefore be given to Sissle and Blake as pioneers among others in the rejection of the stereotypical make up. During their tour the team wrote, then favorites, Pickaninny Shoes, and Oriental Blues which was later included in their smash hit musical, Shuffle Along.

The hit musical Shuffle Along, established Blake and Noble Sissle prominently among the greats of musical theater in the twenties. Shuffle Along opened in 1921 and was an immediate success. Blake and Sissle financed the show themselves, along with help from Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, the Fisk educated comedy team with whom they had joined forces. Miller, Lyles, and Sissle also starred in the show. Originally titled The Mayor of Jimtown, Shuffle Along satirized small - town politics in a fictional black town with hilarious comedic sketches and lively musical numbers. The overwhelming success of this show made wealthy men of its creators, and stars of Miller and Lyles, as well as newcomers Florence Mills, Paul Robeson, and Josephine Baker.

Shuffle Along ran for over 500 performances on Broadway. The show also ran for an extended stay in Boston. The touring companies played to sell - out houses all over the United States. Songs from the musical included "Bandana Days," "In Honeysuckle Time," "If you've Never Been Vamped by a Brownskin, You've Never Been Vamped At All," "Love Will Find A Way," and "I'm Just Wild about Harry."

Several revivals of Shuffle Along were mounted years after the show had closed. Most notable were the productions of 1933 and 1952. Despite the fact that Sissle and Blake tried to rejuvenate their once hit show with new songs, neither revival was nearly as successful as the first.

Three years after Shuffle Along, Sissle and Blake's second successful musical came to Broadway in 1924, The Chocolate Dandies. Songs from The Chocolate Dandies included "That Charleston Dance," "There's a Million Little Cupids in the Sky," "You Ought to Know," "Dumb Luck," and "Manda."

After the break - up of Blake and Sissle in 1927, Blake teamed with several other prominent lyricists and performers of the time, including Henry Creamer, Broadway Jones, Milton Reddie, and Andy Razaf. Blake and Razaf's collaboration produced hit songs for a show called Blackbirds of 1930, which included tunes "Memories of You" and "You're Lucky to Me." Blake and Razaf's musical, Tan Manhattan, written and produced in 1940, was a great success, Eubie Blake's last big success in musical theater until the opening of the Broadway smash hit Eubie!, a musical review of his works, in 1978.

Returned to Ragtime

While serving as a bandleader with the United Servicemen Organizations (USO) during World War II, Blake met and married Marion Grant Tyler, his second wife, in 1945. Tyler was also a performer and a businesswoman, who, after the couple settled in New York, became his valued manager of business and personal affairs.

From 1945 to 1950 Blake attended New York University, graduating at age 67 with a degree in music. It was certainly not uncommon for artists who had enjoyed the success that Blake had to have been considering retirement or, at least, slowing down at this age. However, Blake showed no signs of easing up. Almost prophetically, he was preparing himself for what was to become yet another upswing in his already distinguished career.

In the 1950s a revival of interest in America's ragtime music began to surface and spread throughout the country. Blake, one of the few surviving authentic artists of ragtime, found himself enticed into yet another career as ragtime artist, historian, and educator. In the years that followed, Blake signed recording deals with major companies like 20th Century Records and Columbia Records; he also lectured and gave interviews at major colleges and universities all over the world.

In the 1970s Blake's fame was once again soaring. In his late eighties and nineties, he appeared as special guest performer and clinician in all of the world's top jazz and rag festivals. He was a frequent guest of talk shows such as The Johnny Carson Show and Merv Griffin. Sold - out performances in the world's most prestigious concert halls punctuated his active schedule. Blake had also been featured under the baton of many of the world's great conductors, including Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Fiedler. Virtually every music organization in the country has honored Blake, and articles about him have appeared in Time and Newsweek as well as in all of the magazines related to his trade.

By 1975 Blake had been awarded doctorate degrees from Rutgers, the New England Conservatory, the University of Maryland, Morgan State University, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Dartmouth. In 1978 he was an invited guest and performer at the Carter White House, and in 1981 James Hubert Blake received the Presidential Medal of Honor.

Blake died five days after his 100th birthday, on February 12, 1983, in Brooklyn, New York. News of his death was carried by major newspapers and television stations internationally. That year a proliferation of concerts celebrating Blake's life and music by the music world honored his memory.

A uniquely gifted artist, Blake has left the world a rich and varied body of music and history. Blake, by his own admission, was very fortunate. Not only did this musical genius rise far above what was expected of or allowed for African American musicians of his time in mainstream musical theater, but he was also granted a life long enough to witness the world's eventual acceptance and appreciation for the music of his youth, ragtime.

Books

Carter, Lawrence T. Eubie Blake: Keys of Memory. Detroit: Balamp Publishing Co., 1979.

Chilton, John. Who's Who of Jazz: Storyville to Swingstreet. New York: DaCapo Press, 1985.

Kimball, Robert, and William Bolcom. Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake. New York: Viking, 1973.

Rose, Al. Eubie Blake. New York: Schirmer Books, 1979.

Wynn, Ron, ed. All - Music Guide to Jazz. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 1994.

composer; pianist

Personal Information

Born James Hubert Blake on February 7, 1883, in Baltimore, MD; died February 12, 1983; son of James Sumner Blake and Emily Johnston Blake; married Avis Lee, 1910 (died 1939); married Marion Gant Tyler, 1945.

Career

Began playing ragtime around 1898 in a bordello; composed first piano piece, 1899; performed in touring stage shows, 1901-02; ragtime pianist in Baltimore, MD; performed at Goldfield Hotel, Baltimore, 1907-15; met Noble Sissle, 1915; cowrote hit song "It's All Your Fault;" became member of James Reese Europe Orchestra, 1916; toured Europe with 369th Infantry Regimental Band, 1918-19; toured with Sissle as Dixie Duo, 1919-20; with Sissle, composed hit musical Shuffle Along, 1921; with Sissle, composed musical Chocolate Dandies, 1924; toured Europe with own orchestra, late 1920s; led own orchestra in U.S., 1930s; toured with USO shows during World War II; active as DJ in New York, early 1950s; appeared at 1969 Newport Jazz Festival.

Life's Work

One of the creative giants of African-American music, Eubie Blake was active until the very end of his hundred years of life. His musical career encompassed several different phases, any one of which would have earned him a place in the history books, and audiences in the late 20th century looked to him as a unique repository of information about ragtime, early musical theater, and other musical genres in which he had been involved. Equally renowned as a pianist and as a composer, Blake also influenced the careers of many musicians who came after him.

He was born James Hubert Blake in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 7, 1883; his nickname "Hubie" was eventually shortened to Eubie. Both his parents grew up as slaves. Blake's home was a strict one--his father, who had learned to read from the daughter of his former master, insisted on the virtues of education, and his mother was strongly religious. It was Blake's mother who introduced him to music, buying him a small pump organ in the hope that he would develop into a church musician. As a young man Blake studied classical music with a local church organist.

Changed Course After Hearing Ragtime

But his mother's hopes were dashed when Blake began to encounter the syncopated rhythms of what would coalesce into ragtime music at the end of the 1890s. In spite of the classicizing ambitions of ragtime pioneer Scott Joplin, many ragtime pianists began their careers providing live entertainment for houses of prostitution. The 15-year-old Blake fit the pattern, even though he had to sneak out of the house to perform at the establishment of one Aggie Shelton.

He showed a distinctive style early on, and by 1899 had composed a ragtime tune of his own. Later published and entitled the "Charleston Rag," it gave an idea of Blake's skill at the keyboard with its vigorous left-hand part and complex harmonies. His hands could stretch across the unusually large interval of 12 white keys. Blake moved onward and upward from Aggie Shelton's bordello, performing in various Baltimore nightclubs and going on the road with a touring minstrel show in 1901. He gained the ability to improvise on popular songs and light classics of the day, and became more and more at ease with audiences of various backgrounds. From 1907 to 1911 Blake performed at Baltimore's Goldfield Hotel, owned by boxer Joe Gans. He was considered one of the top ragtime pianists on the East Coast and traveled often to New York and to the resort of Atlantic City.

The next phase of Blake's career began in a Baltimore park 1915 when he met the singer, songwriter, and bandleader Noble Sissle, an Indiana musician who had moved east with dreams of making a career in musical theater. The two men hit it off creatively, and within days Blake had set to music a song lyric by Sissle entitled "It's All Your Fault." The song became a hit when it was picked up by the leading white vocalist of the day, Sophie Tucker.

Joined James Reese Europe Band

That catapulted Sissle into New York's leading African American dance band of the day, James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra. Sissle prevailed upon Europe to hire Blake as a keyboard player, and Blake made the move to New York. Europe, an underappreciated pioneer who laid the groundwork for many of the accomplishments of the big-band era, immersed Blake in an atmosphere ripe with black creative talent and inspired him to look to new musical horizons. Sissle and Blake continued to work together as lyricist and composer, but their partnership was interrupted by America's entry into World War I; Sissle enlisted in the Army and went to France (performing with Europe's band while there), but Blake, by then 34, was too old for military service.

Reunited after Sissle's return from Europe, Blake and Sissle toured the vaudeville circuit as the Dixie Duo. Though some of their material absorbed the stereotypes of blacks that were staples of even African-American productions of the day, there was one important difference--they did not wear the burnt-cork blackface makeup that was conventional for both white and black minstrel performers. Sissle and Blake are thus credited with a major step in the creation of a more dignified image for African-American entertainers.

In 1921 Blake and Sissle, with the financial support and stage participation of several of their compatriots in the world of the African-American stage, mounted a musical of their own called Shuffle Along. More ambitious than any other all-black production up to that time, it was one of the first such productions to open on Broadway. Shuffle Along became a runaway success, earning over eight million dollars and spawning the evergreen "I'm Just Wild About Harry." The show's plot involved a satirical treatment of the political leaders of a fictional all-black town.

Orchestra Feigned Musical Illiteracy

Blake's score to Shuffle Along was written out in notation like that of other musicals of the day, but members of the orchestra had to memorize all the music; according to the website jass.com, Blake explained, "People didn't believe that black people could read music--they wanted to think that our ability was just natural talent." The show's company included future stars Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker. Blake and Sissle, now celebrities, collaborated again on The Chocolate Dandies (1924) and toured Europe as "the American Ambassadors of Syncopation."

Blake worked with other lyricists, including Thomas "Fats" Waller's songwriting partner Andy Razaf, and notched several more hits including "Memories of You," written for the revue Blackbirds of 1930. During World War II he led performances given for U.S. troops. Then, at an age when most musicians settle into retirement, Blake enrolled in the music program at New York University, graduating in 1949. Reflecting on his long career, he set down many of his compositions in musical notation.

Then, as a result of the revival of interest in ragtime that began in the early 1950s, Blake found the rest of the musical world very interested in what he had to say and could remember. Music historians, and then the large public that awakened to the joys of ragtime in the 1960s, saw him as the last living link to the era of Scott Joplin, and yet another period of celebrity for Blake began. An album entitled The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake was released in 1969, and Blake became a frequent guest on television and an often-sought honorary degree recipient at the commencement ceremonies of prestigious colleges and universities. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 and performed for the last time at the age of 99 on June 19, 1982. A heavy smoker for much of his life, Blake died in Brooklyn on February 12, 1983, five days after his 100th birthday.

Awards

Honorary degrees from Brooklyn College, Dartmouth College, Rutgers University, New England Conservatory of Music, and University of Maryland; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1981.

Works

Selected discography

• The Wizard of Ragtime Piano, 20th Century, 1958.
• The 86 Years of Eubie Blake, Columbia, 1968.
• Wild About Eubie, Columbia, 1976.
• An American Classic: Eubie Blake, Music Masters, 1981.
• Sissle & Blake: Early Rare Recordings, Vols. 1 and 2, Stash.

Further Reading

Books

• Contemporary Musicians, volume 19, Gale, 1997.
• Hitchcock, H. Wiley, and Stanley Sadie, eds., The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, Macmillan, 1985.
• Kimball, Robert, and William Bolcom, Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake, Viking, 1973.
• Slonimsky, Nicolas, and Laura Kuhn, eds., Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, centennial ed., Schirmer, 2001.
• Smith, Jessie Carney, ed., Notable Black American Men, Gale, 1998.
• Other
• Additional material was obtained online at http://www.allmusic.com and http://www.jass.com.

— James M. Manheim

(1883-1983)

1921

Shuffle Along. A popular black musical featuring a score by the Baltimore-born composer and performer. The popular song "I'm Just Wild About Harry" stimulates a rage for black shows, which would continue into the 1930s. This trend prompts criticism in the African American community about the portrayal of blacks on stage only as singers and dancers.

Quotes:

"If I'd known I was gonna live this long. I'd have taken better care of myself. [Eubie Blake At Age 100]"

• Born: February 07, 1883, Baltimore, MD
• Died: February 12, 1983, New York, NY
• Active: '10s, '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s
• Genres: Jazz
• Instrument: Piano, Composer
• Representative Albums: "Blues and Rags (1917-1921)," "Volume 1: Featuring Ivan Harold Browning," "Rags to Classics"
• Representative Songs: "Charleston Rag," "Memories of You," "I'm Just Wild About Harry"

Biography

Eubie Blake had a rather unique career. Although his main importance was as a songwriter for Broadway shows in the 1920s, late in life he became known as the last living link to ragtime. Blake always had a colorful life. He wrote his first rag, "The Charleston Rag," in 1899, spent years playing with medicine shows and in sporting houses, and by 1915 was teaming up with singer Noble Sissle in vaudeville. Sissle and Blake wrote for the 1921 hit show Shuffle Along (the first all-black musical) and it was followed by Revue Negre, Plantation Review, Rhapsody in Black, and Bamville Review. The team of Sissle and Blake, in addition to making recordings, were filmed for some early experimental sound shorts. Among Blake's hit songs of the 1920s were "I'm Just Crazy About Harry," "You're Lucky to Me," and "Memories of You."

Although he made some recordings in 1931, Eubie Blake generally had a lower profile for the next three decades. He worked with Sissle now and then and earned a degree from New York University, but was largely forgotten until 1969. That year he recorded a double LP for Columbia (The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake) that amazed listeners who had never heard of him. During his remaining 14 years, Eubie Blake was a very popular performer, playing and singing ragtime-era pieces, charming audiences, making new records, appearing on Broadway in the 1978 show Eubie (he was 95 at the time), and running his own label, Eubie Blake Music. He continued performing until he was 98, and Eubie Blake made it to his 100th birthday with five days to spare. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

Tricky Fingers Buy this CD

Memories of You Buy this CD

Memories of You Buy this CD

That's Ragtime! Buy this CD

Jazz Piano Masters Buy this CD

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