Eubie Blake

Information about Eubie Blake

James Hubert Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12 1983), was a composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. With long time collaborator Noble Sissle, Blake wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along in 1921; this was one of the first Broadway musical ever to be written and directed by African Americans. 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 musical Eubie!, which featured the collective works of Blake opened on Broadway in 1978.

Birth

Born James Hubert Blake at 319 Forrest Street in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 7, 1887, to former slaves Emma (1861-1927) and John Blake (1838-1917). He was the only surviving child of eight who all died in infancy. In 1894 the family moved to 414 North Eden Street, and later to 1510 Jefferson Street. John Blake worked earning US$9.00 weekly as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks.

Music

Blake's musical training began when he was just four or five years old. While out shopping with his mother, he wandered into a music store, climbed on the bench of an organ, and started "foolin’" around. When his mother found him, the store manager said to 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 for US$75.00 making payments of 25 cents a week. When Blake was seven, he received music lessons from their neighbor, Margaret Marshall, an organist from the Methodist church.[1] At age fifteen, without knowledge of his parents, he played piano at Aggie Shelton’s Baltimore bordello.

Blake said he first composed the melody to the "Charleston Rag" in 1899, which would have made him 12 years old, but he did not commit it to paper until 1915, when he learned to write in musical notation.

In 1912, Blake began playing in vaudeville with Jimmy Europe's "Society Orchestra" which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle's ballroom dance act. The band played ragtime music which was still quite popular at the time. Shortly after World War I, Blake joined forces with performer Noble Sissle to form a vaudeville music duo, the "Dixie Duo." After vaudeville, the pair began work on a musical revue, Shuffle Along, which incorporated many songs they had written. When it premiered in 1921, Shuffle Along became the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans. The musicals also introduced hit songs such as "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find a Way."[2]

In 1923, Blake made three films for Lee DeForest in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. They were 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", and Eubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on Swanee River featuring Blake performing his "Fantasy on Swanee River". These films are in the Library of Congress collection.

Personal life

In July 1910, Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee (1881–1938), proposing to her in a chauffeur-driven car he hired. Blake and Lee met around 1895 while both attended Primary School No. 2 at 200 East Street in Baltimore. In 1910 Blake brought his newlywed to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he had already found employment at the Boathouse nightclub.

In 1938 Avis was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died later that year at 58. Of his loss, Blake is on record saying, "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."[1]

Blake continued to play and record until shortly before what everyone considered his 100th birthday (see below), actually his 96th. He died in 1983 in Brooklyn just five days after celebrating his 96th birthday. He was interred in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.
 
— Eubie Blake

Age discrepancy

In later years Blake listed his birth year as "1883" and his 100th birthday was celebrated in 1983. Most sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica,[3] and a U.S. Library of Congress biography,[4] incorrectly list his birth year as "1883". Every official document issued by the government, however, records his birthday as "February 7, 1887". This includes the 1900 Census, his 1917 World War I draft registration, 1920 passport application, 1936 Social Security application, and death records as reported by the United States Social Security Administration.[5] Peter Hanley writes: "In the final analysis, however, the fact that he was only ninety-six years of age and not one hundred when he died does not in any way detract from his extraordinary achievements. Eubie will always remain among the finest popular composers and songwriters of his era."

Timeline

Legacy

In 1995 Eubie Blake was honored with a United States postage stamp. James Hubert Blake High School was built in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1998. Eubie Blake HS has a strong focus on the performing arts, and its instrumental music ensembles are perennial award winners. He was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. His 1969 album, The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake, was a 2006 entry into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.

See also

  • Age fabrication.

References

1. ^ Dr. Karl Koenig. The Life of Eubie Blake. The Maryland Historical Society. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
2. ^ Southern, Eileen. Eubie Blake. in Kernfeld, Barry. ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition, Vol. 1. London: MacMillan, 2002. p. 231.
3. ^ Peter Hanley. "Everybody’s just wild about Eubie", Monrovia Sound Studio. Retrieved on 2007-02-10. 
4. ^ Eubie Blake, 1883-1983 [biography]. U.S. Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2007-06-29.
5. ^ Social Security Death Index Search. RootsWeb.com. Retrieved on 2007-0629. A database search on James Blake, 113-05-1371 returns: JAMES BLAKE, 07 Feb 1887, Feb 2006, (V) 10017 New York, New York, 113-05-1371, New York.


  • Brugger, Robert J. (1988). Maryland, A Middle Temperament: 1634-1980. Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 473-476. ISBN 080183399X. 
  • Rose, Al (1979). Eubie Blake. New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 0028721705. 
  • Salute to Eubie Blake; The Rag Times; May/June 1969
  • New York Times; December 27, 1982, Monday. "Eubie Blake Birthday Party. In honor of Eubie Blake's 100th birthday, St. Peter's Church, at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street, will hold a 24-hour celebration beginning at midnight Feb. 6. The tribute to the composer will feature a host of musicians, vocalists and dancers, including Billy Taylor, Bobby Short, Dick Hyman, Honi Coles and the Copacetics, Bill Bolcom and Joan Morris, Max Morath, Marianne McPartland, Maurice Hines and Cab Calloway. Mr. Blake, born in Baltimore Feb. 7, 1882, may attend."
  • New York Times; February 13, 1983, Sunday. "Five days after his 100th birthday was celebrated with gala performances of his music, Eubie Blake, the composer and pianist whose career covered a span from the ragtime era in the 19th century to the contemporary Broadway theater a year ago, died yesterday at his home in Brooklyn"

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composer is a person who writes music. The term refers particularly to someone who writes music in some type of musical notation, thus allowing others to perform the music. This distinguishes the composer from a musician who improvises or plays a musical instrument.
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A lyricist is a writer who specializes in song lyrics, usually paid for by a band to write a custom song(s). A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist.
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Ragtime (alternately spelled Rag-time) is an American musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1899 and 1918. It has had several periods of revival since then and is still being composed today.
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Jazz is an original American musical art form that originated around the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in and around New Orleans.

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Jazz has been called "America's only original art form.
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Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and are disseminated by one or more of the mass media. It stands in contrast to art music[1]
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Noble Sissle (born July 10, 1889 in Indianapolis, Indiana, died December 17, 1975 in Tampa, Florida) was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer and playwright. He is noted for his collaboration with songwriter, Eubie Blake.
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Shuffle Along
'

Music Eubie Blake
Lyrics Noble Sissle
Book Aubrey Lyles
Paul Gerard Smith

Productions 1921 Broadway
1933 Broadway revival
1952 Broadway revival Shuffle Along was the first major African American hit musical.
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Broadway theatre[1] is the most well known form of professional theatre to the American general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows.
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African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.[1] In the United States the term is generally used for Americans with sub-Saharan African ancestry.
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Eubie!
'

Music Eubie Blake
Lyrics Noble Sissle
Andy Razaf
Johnny Brandon
F.E. Miller
Jim Europe
Book Revue

Productions 1978 Broadway

Eubie!
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Broadway theatre[1] is the most well known form of professional theatre to the American general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows.
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  • 457 - Leo I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

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Vaudeville was a genre of variety entertainment prevalent in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s.
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James Reese Europe (22 February, 1881 – 9 May, 1919) was an American ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer. He was the leading figure on the African American music scene of New York City in the 1910s. Europe was born in Mobile, Alabama.
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Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers of the early 20th century. They are credited with invigorating the popularity of modern dancing. Vernon Castle (May 2, 1887 - February 15, 1918) was born William Vernon Blyth
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Ragtime (alternately spelled Rag-time) is an American musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1899 and 1918. It has had several periods of revival since then and is still being composed today.
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Noble Sissle (born July 10, 1889 in Indianapolis, Indiana, died December 17, 1975 in Tampa, Florida) was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer and playwright. He is noted for his collaboration with songwriter, Eubie Blake.
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Shuffle Along
'

Music Eubie Blake
Lyrics Noble Sissle
Book Aubrey Lyles
Paul Gerard Smith

Productions 1921 Broadway
1933 Broadway revival
1952 Broadway revival Shuffle Along was the first major African American hit musical.
..... Click the link for more information.
Broadway theatre[1] is the most well known form of professional theatre to the American general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows.
..... Click the link for more information.
Lee De Forest, (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor with over 300 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them.
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DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back into sound waves when the movie was projected.
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