Running Head: Eubie Blake

Eubie Blake
Jeremy Dorsey
Professor Hayes
Jazz 201 Section 001
February 23, 2012

Eubie Blake’s real name was James Hubert Blake. He was born on February 7th, 1887 on 319 Forrest Street, Baltimore, Maryland to former slaves John Summer Blake and Emily Johnstone. Eubie Blake was the only surviving child of 8. Blake states that he was born in 1883, but documents state he was indeed born in 1887. The reasoning for him saying he was born earlier is still undefined. Eubie Blake was known for his piano skills and his talent with composing. Blake became interested in jazz when he was just four or five years old while he was out shopping with his mother, he wandered into a music store, climbed on a bench of an organ, and started “foolin” around. When his mother found him, the store manager said to her “The child is a genius.” Blake first purchased a pump organ for 75.00 making payments of 25 cents a week. When Blake was seven, he received music lessons from their neighbor teacher, Margret Marshall, an organist form the Methodist church.
In 1901 Blake danced and played melodeon with Dr. Frazier's Medicine Show. In the following year, he joined the touring company in Old Kentucky, which took him briefly to New York City. From New York, Blake returned to Baltimore and received a job as a relief pianist for Big Head Wilbur at Alfred Greenfield's saloon, an establishment built by light weight boxing Champion Joe Gans. After two years at Greenfield's, Blake found steady work at Annie Gilly's sporting house. In this is Ragtime, Blake related how he “ragged” popular songs and classics from Wagner to Viennese waltzes. Able to compose numbers in any key, and possessing a finger span of twelve notes, which was unheard of in this time period, Blake earned a reputation as one of the finest ragtime pianists of the eastern school.
In 1911, Blake wrote his piano rags, “The Chevy Chase” and “Fizz Water.” During the next few years, Blake was kept busy through seasonal work in Baltimore and Atlantic City where he performed at such places as Ben Allen's Boathouse and the Bucket of Blood. The great stride pianist, James P. Johnson heard Blake in Atlantic City during the summer of 1914. In 1916, after Sissle joined James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra, he urged the famed bandleader to hire Blake. Accepting the offer, Blake came north to join the Harlem-based orchestra. “As performers, both Sissle and Blake fit the Europe model of the black professional entertainer perfectly,” wrote “Reid Badger in A Life in Ragtime.” Blake had both experience performing and writing for whites, and they both understood how to please them without demeaning their own personal or professional dignity. Blake soon received promotion from solo pianist to assistant orchestra leader. “Jim Europe was the biggest influence in my musical career,” stated Blake in Eubie Blake: Keys of Memory. “He was at a point in time at which all roots and forces of Negro music merged and gained its wildest expression.”
At 15, Blake was playing in local saloons and brothels, eventually teaming with songwriter Noble Sissle to produce the first Broadway musical ever to be written and directed by African Americans, Shuffle Along, in 1921. Eubie Blake was known around the turn of the century, “Little Hubie” began sneaking out of the house every night to play piano at a bordello in Baltimore's tenderloin district. “I didn't dare tell my parents about the job,” he said. “I was still a teenager--but I made more money in one night than my father made in a week working as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks.” My mother took in washing to earn a few dollars. I hid my earnings under the linoleum in the parlor. Finally, when the pile got too high, I showed them the money. It was several hundred dollars. His parents no longer insisted in only play religious music. He composed “Sounds of Africa” (later titled “Charleston Rag”) in 1899. Since Eubie did not learn how to write music until he was 15 that means he was indeed not born in 1883 because in 1899 he was not 15 years old. Stating that the original document saying he was born in 1887 is correct.
Blake got his first big break in the music business when world champion boxer Joe Gans’ hired him to plat the piano at Gans’ Goldfield Hotel, the first “black and tan club” in Baltimore in 1907. In 1912, Blake began playing with vaudeville with James Reese Europe’s “Society Orchestra,” which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle’s ballroom dance act. That band solely played Rag Time music. After WWI Eubie hit the Vaudeville circuit with band leader Noble Sissle. They billed themselves as the Dixie Duo, with Sissle singing and Blake at the piano. It was the beginning of a long, very successful partnership. They refused to appear in “blackface.” They came out in beautiful tuxedos and spoke proper grammar to assure that they were strictly business and 100 percent serious about what they were doing.
Theirs was the first “Negro class act.” That was a risky thing to do in 1919 when stereotypes were vastly known and to go against them meant risking attracting a smaller audience and less money. In 1921 they teamed up with another black team in “Shuffle Along” which ran for a record 504 performances on Broadway. After launching the show “Shuffle Along Jr.” in 1928, Blake earned $250 a week with the 1930 production of Lew Leslie's Blackbirds, billed as "Glorifying the American Negro. This hit guaranteed Eubie a spot in musical history. It was for this show that Blake and Sissle wrote the famous “I'm Just Wild About Harry.” Eubie and Sissle went on to appear in a 1923 Vaudeville film with Eddie Cantor and Phil Baker billed as a “De Forest Phonofilm.”
Due to the affects of the Depression, the Blackbirds production closed after two-month run. Blake then wrote music for Jack Scholl's "Loving You the Way I Do" which became the Broadway hit of the year. In 1933 Blake, Miller, and Sissle attempted to take a rendition of Shuffle Along on the road. Though a fine production, the show was forced to close. During the 1930s Blake recorded with his own orchestra and wrote shows under the funding of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee, born 1910, died in 1939. Avis died at 58 from Tuberculosis. She died from this because back then they did not have a definite cure for this disease. Blake quoted “In my life I never knew what it was to be alone.” He thought his wife just had the flu, but he was wrong, it was way more serious. He served for the United Service Organization as a band leader. While serving he met and married another woman named Marion Grant Tyler, born 1945, died in 1983. Blake enrolled in New York University, which made his music career drastically slow down. While attending New York University he toured the country lecturing and playing ragtime Blake graduate in two and a half years and his music career picked back up with the Broadway musical hit. “Eubie”
Eubie retired from music in 1940, but realized he could not stay off the stage. In 1969, at the age of 56 Eubie returned. Blake toured the world playing piano and giving lectures on ragtime music. He made an album called “The Fifty Six Years of Blake” and he formed his own company. Blake was one of the principle figures of the ragtime and early jazz revival of the 1970s, giving talks and performances well into his nineties. In 1979, the musical “Eubie” was created from his work. Blake himself made several cameo appearances in performances.
Just five days after a two our concert with an all-star cast celebrating his 100th birthday, Eubie finally retired for good on February 12th, 1893, in Brooklyn, New York. Eubie simply passed away of old age. If you believe that Eubie Blake was born in 183 then yes he passed away when he was 100 years old, but if you go by the documentation of his birth he was 96 years of age at his death. Although he made valuable contributions to music his most valuable contribution was his incredible longevity, which enabled him to pass on his wealth of early ragtime knowledge and experience. No other ragtime pioneer lived nearly as long and during the 1970’s revival when academia and mainstream society was just starting to “discover” ragtime, Eubie Blake was the only one alive who had been there since the beginning. Since ragtime was an underground movement condemned by society, very little of the sheet music remains. Recordings are even scarcer and so much of the technique has been lost. Without “Little Hubie” we would have known practically nothing about early ragtime.
Before Eubie Blake left this earth he composed over 300 songs and musical pieces including “The Charleston Rag,” “Chevy Chase,” “Mirandy,” “Fizz Water,” “Dream Rag,” “Tricky Fingers,” and “Spanish Venus.” Also, he was awarded and accomplished many casualties and even had a high school built in his honor. Some of Blake’s most prized accomplishments were in 1969, Eubie Blake's nomination for a Grammy Award for The 86 Years of Eubie Blake in the category of “Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Small Group or Soloist with Small Group,” 1972, Omega Psi Phi Scroll of Honor, 1981, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 9, 1981, he was awarded by President Ronald Reagan, 1983, he was inducted in the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, 1995, he was inducted into the New York's American Theatre Hall of Fame, and in 1998, James Hubert Blake High School was built in Cloverly, Maryland in his honor, as I stated before. Eubie Blake HS has a strong focus on the performing arts.

References
Eubie Blake [Biography]. (n.d.).
Eubie Blake [Biography]. (2012). Retrieved from
Eubie Blake 1883-1983 [Biography]. (2007, January 18). Retrieved from
James Hurbert “Eubie” Blake [Biography]. (n.d.). Retrieved from