Eubie Blake | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | James Hubert Blake (1887-02-07)February 7, 1887 |
| Died | February 12, 1983(1983-02-12) (aged 96) Brooklyn,New York City, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz,popular,ragtime |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, musician |
| Instrument | Piano |
| Labels | Emerson,Victor |
James Hubert "Eubie"Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) was an American pianist and composer ofragtime,jazz, andpopular music. Blake began his career in 1912, and duringWorld War I he worked in partnership with the singer, drummer, and comedianBroadway Jones. After the war he began a collaboration withNoble Sissle with whom he wroteShuffle Along (1921), one of the firstBroadway musicals written and directed by African Americans.[1] When his collaboration with Sissle ended in 1927, he resumed a partnership with Jones which lasted until either 1932 or 1933. He reunited with Sissle briefly forShuffle Along of 1933, and later the pair worked together in theUnited Service Organizations duringWorld War II. Blake's compositions included such hits as "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find a Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The 1978 Broadway musicalEubie! showcased his works, and in 1981, PresidentRonald Reagan awarded Blake thePresidential Medal of Freedom.
Blake was born at 319 Forrest Street inBaltimore, Maryland. Of the many children born to formerslaves Emily "Emma" Johnstone and John Sumner Blake, he was the only one to survive childhood. John Sumner Blake was astevedore on theBaltimore Docks.[2]
Blake claimed in later life to have been born in 1883, but records published beginning in 2003—U.S. Census, military, andSocial Security records and Blake's passport application and passport—uniformly give his birth year as 1887.[3][4][5][6][7]
Blake's musical training began when he was four or five. While out shopping with his mother, he wandered into a music store, climbed onto the bench of an organ, and started "foolin’ around". When his mother found him, the store manager told her: "The child is a genius! It would be criminal to deprive him of the chance to make use of such a sublime, God-given talent." The Blakes purchased a pump organ forUS$75.00, making payments of 25 cents a week. When Blake was seven, he received music lessons from a neighbor, Margaret Marshall, an organist for theMethodist church.[8] At age 15, without his parents' knowledge, he began playing piano at Aggie Shelton'sBaltimore bordello. Blake gained his first big break in the music business in 1907, when world champion boxerJoe Gans hired him to play the piano at Gans's Goldfield Hotel, the first "black and tan club" in Baltimore.[9] Blake played at the Goldfield during the winters from 1907 to 1914, and spent his summers playing clubs in Atlantic City. During this period, he also studied composition in Baltimore withLlewellyn Wilson.[10]
According to Blake, he also worked themedicine show circuit and was employed by aQuaker doctor. He played amelodeon strapped to the back of the medicine wagon. He stayed with the show only two weeks, however, because the doctor's religion didn't allow the serving of Sunday dinner.[11]
Blake said he composed the melody of "Charleston Rag" in 1899, when he would have been only 12 years old. He did not commit it to paper until 1915, when he learned musical notation.[12]
In 1912, Blake began playing invaudeville withJames Reese Europe's Society Orchestra, which accompaniedVernon and Irene Castle's ballroom dance act. The band playedragtime music, which was still quite popular. He made his first recordings in 1917, for thePathé record label and forAmpico piano rolls. In the 1920s he recorded for theVictor andEmerson labels, among others.[13] His 1917 Pathé records billed as the Eubie Blake Trio possibly were made withBroadway Jones as the drummer.[14] Jones, who was primarily a vocalist and comedian but had a background as the leader of a dance band, was Blake's performing partner duringWorld War I. After having already formed a music partnership, the duo created avaudeville music and comedy act which they toured in 1918.[15] Blake later became a regular performer at a Harlem nightclub owned by Jones in 1923-1924.[16]
Shortly after World War I, Blake ceased his partnership with Jones and formed avaudeville musical act, the Dixie Duo, with performerNoble Sissle. After vaudeville, they began work on a musical revue,Shuffle Along, which incorporated songs they had written, and had abook written byF. E. Miller andAubrey Lyles. When it premiered in June 1921,Shuffle Along became the first hit musical onBroadway written by and about African Americans. It also introduced hit songs such as "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find a Way".[17] Rudolf Fisher insisted thatShuffle Along "had ruined his favorite places of African-American sociability in Harlem" due to the influx of white patrons. Its reliance on "stereotypical black stage humor" and "the primitivist conventions of cabaret," in the words of Thomas Brothers, made the show a hit, running for 504 performances with three years of national tours.[18]
In 1923, Blake made three films forLee de Forest in de Forest'sPhonofilmsound-on-film process:Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, featuring their song "Affectionate Dan";Sissle and Blake Sing Snappy Songs, featuring "Sons of Old Black Joe" and "My Swanee Home"; andEubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on Swanee River, featuring Blake performing his "Fantasy on Swanee River". These films are preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection in theLibrary of Congress collection. Blake also appeared inWarner Brothers' 1932 short filmPie, Pie Blackbird with theNicholas Brothers,Nina Mae McKinney andNoble Sissle.[19] That year, he and his orchestra also provided most of the music for the filmHarlem Is Heaven.[20]
In 1927 Blake's partnership with Noble Sissle came to an end when Sissle relocated to Europe. He resumed a collaboration with Broadway Jones beginning with performances atLoew's State Theatre in November 1927.[21] Blake then joined Jones for an extended engagement at theRoyal Poinciana Hotel inPalm Beach, Florida where Jones had often performed since 1915.[22] The pair then formed their own theatre troupe, and toured a new show in vaudeville'sOrpheum Circuit calledShuffle Along Jr. after the earlier musical with some of the same performers from the earlier work.[23] The duo then performed together in numerous musical revues in the early 1930s;[24] including touring ones led byFanchon and Marco[25] and the Broadway musical revueBlackbirds of 1930.[26] Blake also played in a band founded by Jones until either 1932 or 1933 when financial pressures during theGreat Depression led Jones to end the collaboration.[27] The pair later reunited briefly in the mid 1930s for performances with the Monarch Symphonic Band in Harlem.[28]
In 1932 Blake resumed working with Sissle for a brief period as the authors and stars of the musical revueShuffle Along of 1933. It failed to make a profit during the hard times of the depression. They would not work together again untilWorld War II when they reunited to work together in theUnited Service Organizations. Their earlier 1921 song "I'm Just Wild About Harry" became the theme song forHarry S. Truman during his campaign leading up to the1948 United States presidential election.
In July 1910, Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee, proposing to her in a chauffeur-driven car he hired. They met around 1895, when they attended Primary School No. 2 at 200 East Street in Baltimore. In 1910, Blake brought his bride toAtlantic City, New Jersey, where he had already found employment at the Boathouse nightclub.[citation needed]
In 1938, Avis was diagnosed withtuberculosis. She died later that year, at the age of 58. Of his loss, Blake said, "In my life I never knew what it was to be alone. At first when Avis got sick, I thought she just had a cold, but when time passed and she didn’t get better, I made her go to a doctor and we found out she had TB … I suppose I knew from when we found out she had the TB, I understood that it was just a matter of time."[8]
While serving as bandleader with theUSO during World War II, he met Marion Grant Tyler, the widow of violinist Willy Tyler. They married in 1945. A performer and businesswoman, she became his valued business manager until her death in 1982. In 1946, Blake retired from performing and enrolled inNew York University, where he studied theSchillinger System of music composition, graduating in two and a half years. He spent the next two decades using the Schillinger System to transcribe songs that he had memorized but had never written down.[29]
In the 1970s and 1980s, public interest in Blake's music was revived following the release of his 1969 retrospective albumThe Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake.[29]
Blake was a frequent guest ofThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson andMerv Griffin. He was featured by leading conductors, such asLeonard Bernstein andArthur Fiedler. In 1977 he played Will Williams in theJeremy Kagan biographical filmScott Joplin.[30][31] By 1975, he had been awarded honorary doctorates from Rutgers, the New England Conservatory, theUniversity of Maryland,Morgan State University,Pratt Institute,Brooklyn College, andDartmouth. On October 9, 1981, he received thePresidential Medal of Freedom from PresidentRonald Reagan.[32][33]
Eubie!, a revue featuring Blake's music, with lyrics by Noble Sissle,Andy Razaf,Johnny Brandon,F. E. Miller andJim Europe, opened on Broadway in 1978. It was a hit at the Ambassador Theatre, where it ran for 439 performances. It received three nominations forTony Awards, including one for Blake's score. The show was filmed in 1981 with the original cast members, including Lesley Dockery,Gregory Hines andMaurice Hines.
Blake performed withGregory Hines on the television programSaturday Night Live on March 10, 1979 (season 4, episode 14).[34][35]
Blake continued to play and record until his death, on February 12, 1983, inBrooklyn, five days after events celebrating his purported 100th birthday[36] (which was actually his 96th birthday).
He was interred inCypress Hills Cemetery inQueens, New York. His headstone, engraved with the musical notation of "I'm Just Wild About Harry", was commissioned by the African Atlantic Genealogical Society.
Blake was reported to have said, on his birthday in 1979, "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself",[37] but this has been attributed to others and has appeared in print at least as early as 1966.[38]
Source:[50]
"Did you have brothers and sisters?""Ten. But I never saw any of them. None of them lived to be over three or four months old."..."Tell me about your parents, your memories of them.""I loved my mother and father. I had the best mother and father! My mother would kill you, then sit down and cry. My father never knew where his hat was. He'd come in, and instead of hanging his hat he'd put it anywhere. Then I'd look under a chair somewhere and find his hat. I was crazy about him. John Sumner Blake. Don't leave that Sumner out—he'll turn over in his grave. My father was fifty years old when I was born. My birthday is his birthday: seventh day of February, 1833, for him, '83 for me. He was a big, tall man, never was sick in his lifetime. He was a stevedore, a boss stevedore, unloaded boats—piecework. So many feet of lumber, so many cents. My father made nine dollars a week when he worked. He lived to be eighty-three years old." "Had both of your parents been slaves?" "Well, my mother would say, 'I was never no slave.' That's the only willful lie I ever heard her tell. Then my father would say, 'Did you pick cotton?' 'Yes.' 'Did the white man pay you?' 'No. My father'd wink at me."...
Episode 14 - Gary Busey; Eubie Blake; Gregory Hines - Sat, Mar 10, 1979 - 90 mins Gary Busey hosts; Eubie Blake and Gregory Hines perform "I'm Just Wild About Harry." Bill Murray interviews Mr. Ed's widow, Mrs. Ed; a panel of men discusses women's problems.
(Photo by: Fred Bronson / NBCU Photo Bank / NBC Universal via Getty Images)
Mr. Blake's lawyer, Elliot Hoffman, said the composer died shortly after noon. Mr. Blake, who had suffered a bout of pneumonia, was too ill to attend Monday's birthday celebrations but he heard a concert in his honor at the Shubert Theater by way of a special telephone hookup.
Blake, Eubie - D.F.A. - 1978
1980 - Leonard Bernstein - Eubie Blake - John Brademas
Eubie Blake, one of the greatest exponents of ragtime, has spent more than three quarters of a century performing and composing in show business. Starting as a young pianist, he moved on through vaudeville, night clubs and musical comedies to television, concerts, jazz festivals and recordings. A native of Baltimore, Blake composed is first piece of music, 'Sounds of Africa,' in 1899 at the age of 16. Among his honors are membership in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, The Ellington Medal awarded by Yale University and the U.S. Army's medal for Distinguished Civilian Service.
1982 - BLAKE, Eubie - Commencement - D.Mus.
The Eubie Blake stamp was issued on September 16, 1995.
The community narrowed its choice to two late Maryland artists: jazz legend James Hubert 'Eubie' Blake and Muppets creator Jim Henson. Henson won a straw poll, forcing Principal Goodman to fend off jokes about 'Muppet High.' But just before the name became official, the Henson foundation declined the honor. Goodman says despite the last-minute switch, she was pleased with the outcome. Until, that is, someone pointed out a potential nickname for the school: U-B High. 'So we go by Blake,' says Goodman.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
