James Hubert "Eubie" Blake / Jazz pianist and composer

(1883 - 1983)

*Biography:*	Eubie Blake was born on February 7, 1883 in Baltimore, Maryland and died on February 12, 1983. The son of a former slave, Blake became a renowned Jazz pianist and a composer. Eubie Blake began organ lessons at the age of six, and was soon syncopating the tunes he heard in his mother's Baptist Church. While in his teens, he began to play in the Ragtime Style, then popular in Baltimore sporting houses and saloons. One of his first professional jobs was as a dancer in a Minstrel Show in Old Kentucky. During that time, Blake began to compose music, with his first published piece, "Charleston Rag," appearing in 1899. While in his twenties, Blake began performing each summer in Atlantic City, where he composed songs like "Tricky Fingers" in 1904, and came in contact with such giants of ragtime and stride piano such as Willie "The Lion" Smith, Luckey Robert, and James P. Johnson. His melodic style and penchant for Waltzes were influenced by the comic operettas of Victor Herbert, Franz Lehare, and Leslie Stuart. During this time, Blake began to perform songs in his mature style, which was marked by broken-octave part, and elarpeggiate figures, as well as sophisticated chord. In 1910, Blake married Avis Lee, a classical pianist. In 1916 with the encouragement of bandleader, James Reese Europe, Blake began performing with Noble Sissle in "The Dixie Duo," a piano-vocal duet. Sissle and Blake performed together on the B.F. Keith Vaudeville Circuit, and also began writing songs together. In 1921, Sissle and Blake joined with well- known comedy team of Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles who wrote "Shuffle Along," which became so popular in both its Broadway and touring version, that at one point, three separate companies were crisscrossing the country performing it. In 1924, Sissle and Blake teamed up with Lew Payton to present, "In Bamville," which later was known as "The Chocolate Dandies."

*Bibliography:*	Kimball, Robert, and William Bolcom. Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake. New York 1973, Marva Griffen Carter.