Eubie Blake - Charleston Rag
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- Опубліковано 24 сер 2024
- Eubie Blake performing his Charleston Rag that he composed in 1899.
"Philharmonie", Berlin (Germany), November 4, 1972
James Hubert Blake (February 7, 1887 -- February 12, 1983) was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals 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! featured the works of Blake and opened on Broadway in 1978
I can remember my father picked Eubie Blake from the SF airport. He flew from NYC and wasn’t a bit jet lagged. At the time he was in his 90s, sharp as a tack and played the piano like he was a young man. He was absolutely amazing.
Sorry I meant to say a BIT jet lagged
Who cares what year he was born what we all can agree on is he is a musical genius 💯
wow
Mrs.Demetria Lewis 1883
Precisely. I'm sure he used 1883 because if he said 1887, no one would believe he wrote Charleston Rag when he was just 12, even though he did. To me, he's a legend and a great lover of life, always!
I saw Eubie Blake perform this piece at Brooklyn College in 1972, the same year as this performance. I was in my junior year. I still have the program, which he autographed for me! It was a memorable night!
I ´m lucky to today, i was at that concert. He played and spoke as a young man! Great concert, i was just 20 years old, and i never forgot, what i saw!
Weird grammar but totally agree 👍
Awesome!
How old was Eunice at this show?
Eubie
I think, 90 years
Ya know, I feel like I kinda have to learn this piece now...why? Because he and my great-grandfather were best friends, and playing at my g-grand's club in Baltimore was one of his earliest gigs...and from then on the two were good friends, and long after my g-grand died Eubie remained close with the family and visited my g-uncle whenever he was in town!
And so now here I am, a pianist...yep, gotta learn this one! 😄🎶🎶🎶
Godspeed.
I LOVE his enthusiasm for what he did. He had a GREAT love of life! RIP Mr. Blake.
Very grateful for UA-cam there are so many amazing videos that some people have that should be shared and preserved forever. This is one that is just great
I saw him in concert in the 70's his memory wasn't perfect but he was still wonderful!
Awesome
That is one absolute musical genius and one beautiful sounding bechstein!
I remember seeing him on Johnny Carson quite regularly growing up. 🎼🎹🔥
On of the greatest, Eubie Blake.
Play this back at 1.25 speed and we get a lot of the fire from his 1917 piano roll and 1921 record of this great piece. It's phenomenal.
Simply Incredible! Creators of the Greatest Music In History: We are so Honored Thank You Sir.
True.
Saw him at the Nice Jazz Fest Incredible Thank You
Love it ! Brilliant in any age at any age ..
There seems to be little dispute that The Charleston Rag was written in 1899. This means he was 12 years old upon its composition which, to me, makes this an even greater achievement. His hands spanned a twelfth (C to G on the octave above) [source: a friend of mine met him, shook hands, and watched him play]. This performance is delightful. TY.
It was not written in 1899. Eubie did not tell the truth about some things. One was his age and another was the dates to his compositions. He (and others, such as Jelly Roll Morton), would lie about these matters to place themselves into its pioneering history. Charleston Rag was originally called Sounds Of Africa and first appeared in 1917. He embellished on it over the years, as he did with other pieces of his. The style of some of is other rags which he claimed were from pre-1910 are all modern works, or at least modern reworkings of them.
It is none the less possible that Eubie composed an early or primitive form of the piece in 1899, and continued to revise it over the years, before we get to the fully developed versions of 1917 and 1921, which are stylistically, more closely related to the James P. Johnson and Jelly Roll Morton compositions, as well as those of the Novelty pianists, of that time, to Joplin or the other classic ragtime composers of the turn of the century.
The piece is absolutely as early as 1917 (the very earliest version, the Ampico / Rythmodik piano roll, of which there's only one known original extant and dozens of recut copies), but how much earlier we're not sure. I have seen someone else put a 1915 date on it which seems reasonable to me, but 1899 is pretty farfetched. But the date doesn't matter THAT MUCH since even for 1917, this piece is quite advanced, cutting-edge and right up-to-date (as well as, in several ways, ahead of its time). It's also one of the greatest ragtime masterpieces.
@@w.a.a. Supposedly, the composed work (not written) originated in 1899 and was written down 16 years later - quite plausible. The "Sounds of Africa" title came from (I believe) an unscrupulous record label and masters buy out, retitling the work so that money would not have to be paid on it. I don't think Eubie ever referred to the work by that name. What is undisputed is that he was a principal component of an enormous all-black hit show in 1921 called Shuffle Along from which hit songs like "Love Will Find a Way" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry" emanated. Other shows followed. No one in the business disputed Eubie's importance or name.
@@jamesten Will Marion Cook claimed that it was *he* who titled this piece "Sounds of Africa" when he tried to sell it to G. Schirmer around 1906. Cook, who was a hot-head, got into an argument with the publisher about a certain key-change in the interlude between C(1) and C(2), in which Blake modulates from G-flat to E-flat minor, and as a result of the argument the piece (allegedly) was not published. The original manuscript from 1917 bears the title "Charleston Rag," however.
Oh my goodness that is the greatest ending statement after a performance: "That's right" He should follow that with "Are you not entertained?!! are you not entertained?!!" Haha
Just love this!!!!!
I remember seeing him on many TV shows when I was a kid, youth and young man.
From the time I was a teenager I was a Eubie Blake, especially because my uncle who was a music teacher and was from East New York Brooklyn was a big fan of his. In 1978 I was working for Air France in New York and he was arriving from a jazz festival. I was assigned to wheel his wheelchair from the gate which was quite a distance. It was such an honor and as I'm wheeling him through customs, all of these tall young sexy black women we're coming over to him and hugging him and kissing him. When we were in the JFK parking lot he looked at me and said, "now I get all this huggin and kissing. Where were they when I was young and could do something about it?" He was as hilarious as he was charming and talented. It was the memory of a lifetime.
It makes me sad that Scott Joplin did not live ling enough to receive that kind of applause on a modern stage.
Eubie Blake is a legend! Thanks to whoever posted this.
Fantastic! Great Eubie Blake❤
Amazing!!!!
Wonderful!
The greatest rag time pianist since Scott Joplin and he had actually met Joplin in 1910.
Love his “Memories of You”.
Imagine hearing a rag written in 1899, played by the man who wrote it. What an incredible snapshot of history!
To be able to play like that at 85.
Love him all my life...
He was probably the greatest jazz pianist of his time!
"THAT'S RIGHT!"
I wonder if he ever met Scott Joplin? He appeared in the 1977 Scott Joplin movie starring Billy Dee Williams.
Yeah I googled it, it said he met Joplin in 1910 in this place near Washington D.C
@@Stay_GreatMasonator and again in 1917, when Joplin was terminally ill. He said by that point he couldn’t play anymore, he never heard how a more youthful Joplin would’ve played.
From what I understand, he met Scott Joplin ony once at a house party in 1915 in Harlem I think. Or maybe it wasn't a party but it was some kind of get-together. Several other pianists were there but I'm not sure who it was. Maybe Luckey Roberts, Hughie Woolford and a young James P Johnson, if I had to guess. According to Eubie Blake, after several other people played, some folks asked Mr Joplin to play a number. Due probably to both his advanced stage syphilis and being surrounded by ragtime virtuosi, he said "Boys, I don't play". They basically finally convinced him to play, and he played a little bit of Maple Leaf Rag, but he could barely get through it by this time due to his condition. Perhaps he was having an off day, since he was able to make a genuine hand played roll of Maple Leaf for Aeolian Uni-Record about a year later. But in any case, I think the other pianists present were disappointed and felt bad for him. I'm sure he was playing great in 1901-1904 and thereabouts.
Рад что понравилось , тезка.
He wasn't being honest about his age (or maybe it was a genuine mistake), but it was later discovered that he was slightly younger than he claimed to be. He was aged 96 when he died.
only?
I don't think that's true... My Aunt conceived & directed EUBIE!! And I got to meet him plenty of times at the show. I was at his 99th B'day. Who knows. People thought he died at 102 & 104 back then too.
Funny, my Mom would always lie about her age too-- but she would tell people that she was younger not older. LOL
Rag is interesting but not much more to my ear. Many pieces by other composers (and how they play them) all sound quite similar. This is unique! Music lives in this amazing composer and pianist who held my attention all the way through. They say rag is for listening not dancing, but it sure got me movin - from spirit to body! What a gift to me to happen upon him today!
The woman who wrote the Transformers G1, Visionaries, My Little pony, Jem and the Holograms theme songs used to sit on his lap and play piano when she was 3 years old.
every study of Blake proves he w as born in 1887 same year as Joe lamb. Absolutly correct he was born 1887 not 1883
Certainly, and he plays more like the other recorded ragtime pianists born in the 1885-1895 or so period, than he does those who were born before about 1885. Of course it's not a hard and fast rule, but certain generations of pianists had things they tended to do a lot in their playing. He still has a unique style, but what I mean is that his playing shares much more in common with, for example, Luckey Roberts, Hughie Woolford, Charley Straight, Cliff Hess, Pete Wendling, Ben Light etc etc than it does with for example, Joe Jordan, Fred Hylands, Frank P. Banta, Egbert Van Alstyne, Oreste, Brun Campbell, Mike Bernard, etc etc. to name a dozen or so of the couple hundred or so original ragtime pianists for whom we still have even a few recordings and/or piano rolls.
1:35
Didn’t he personally know Scott Joplin?
Yes, he did. I don't know how much time they spent together, but he told me that he met Joplin at a party in New York, which I believe he recalled as being around 1908.
David Thomas Roberts
2:27 later to be reused for "In The Mood"
Eighteen n' NineTY Nine!
Il y a une erreur , Eubie Blake est mort à plus de cent ans , il était né le 7/02/1883 et mort le 12/02/1983 .
Merci pour votre précision.
He was born in 1883 not 1887
No, he was born in 1887. He began to lie about his age around WWI, as did other men, to get out of military service. He lied about his compositions as well. Charleston Rag is not from 1899. It's from around 1917.
Wikipedia says 1887
@@w.a.a. Even if he was born in 1887 that would have made him 30 years of age in 1917--more than fit to handle a rifle.
1:36 Music starts here