Eubie Blake

Brooklyn New York, 1973

S = Jim Standifer
B= Eubie Blake

S Now what are these two recordings here Mr. Blake?
B This one is Eubie Blake alone playing piano alone. Its called from rags to classics I do play some classics on, there. If I get -a chance I'll play it because they think I can only play ragtime

S What is the other one.
B The other one is Noble Sissle, my partner. The book is written about this years ago. These are rare numbers you don't hear any more.

S This is the book by
B And Bob Kimble

S In fact I believe those photographs are in that book, aren't they.
B Yeh

S What else. Are you giving concerts now also.
B Oh, yes. I do concerts, I do colleges. On December 2 1 do a concert at Carnegie Hall with Bob, Bill.... He does his segment and I do my segment and then we play together, two different pianos.

S Two piano pieces. I am just showing some things around the room that I see here on your walls. All these memorabilia that you got from different people over the country. They are remarkably beautiful photograph of you, as well as other awards that are part of this very charming room here. Your piano that you composed most of your rag on, of course. This is a painting up here. Who did this painting?
B I can't think of his name. He's got a place down in the village. I've never been down there., Never had a chance. When I go down there it is after his hours.

S 17 Beaker St., called the Village Art Theatre. This is a remarkably fine likeness of you, I think.
B That was done in half an hour.

S You even have things hanging in the walls of your halls. You have such a fine collection of things here. I am sure that
B You want to take your machine out there.

S I am getting the photographs actually from here. I can hardly wait until I get these to the University of Michigan. Thank you very much for
B You are perfectly welcome. I am glad to do this with you. I am glad that you are a musician that knows what I am talking about. I talk to people and they don't know what I'm talking about. I talk so far back. When I talk about music, if a musician, like a girl was here yesterday going to do some orchestral arrangements for me because I don't have time to do them. I talked to her and she knows what I am talking about. But very seldom I meet anybody to talk to like you that understands what I am talking about. I tell them, the only thing I can attribute it to is my father told me in slavery he never had on a pair of leather shoes until the Civil War. This is What my father told me. They had to give him some. All the slave holders weren't bad, but his master was kinda tough. Give them nothing. Never had. no leather shoes, til he went in to the Civil War.

S What did he wear?
B Carpet shoes. Made out of carpet.

S And they were hand sewn together?
B I don't know how it was done. I wasn't there. But I know they wore carpet shoes, some of them. Some slaves, the masters were nice to them. My father wasn't so nice

S How many children were there in the family?
B 11. My mother bore 11 children without any prenatal care.

S Were you the oldest?
B No, I'm the youngest. That is the strange part. I'm the youngest. My mother. had 11 children. Now I only know the name of one. He evidently was the first child because his name was Johnny. The rest I have never seen or nothing, no pictures or nothing, they died in infancy I told you about my father, never had on a pair of leather shoes-. My mother had 11 children an never had any prenatal care. My mother lived to be 78 years old.

S Where were they living at this time? Were they down south?
B I don't know. I know I was born in Baltimore. Where the rest of them were born I don't know. Virginia is where my mother and father married. That's another thing about years ago. I want the people to know this. I am not chastising people or having any hate against them because the white people down there thought they were right. A man alone can't live by his convictions. What I want to, my mother and father were married, absolutely married. Years ago, they told me, they must have told me because I wasn't there, after slavery people wanted to live legitimately.

S Are you saying your parents were married after you were born?
B No, before. All the children were born before after slavery. Then my father and mother, according to what they told me, they didn't jump over the broom, that is a true story about them jumping over the broom. They put a broom down and the preacher says, whoever was head talker, step across the broom and.....take it to the threshhold and then they were married.

S But your parents didn't go through that type of ritual?
B No, my mother and father were married legitimately. A lot of other people, but some people didn't want to pay for negro, so

S Tell me something about how did you eventually get to NewYork.
B I didn't come to New York, I was born in New York. My mother and father came to New York. Oh, I'm thinking about Baltimore. I met Sissle. He came from Indianapolis. Noble Sissle, that's my partner. He came up the steps, he had a valice, looked like patent leather, tied up with strings and everything. He came and Joe Porter, we were going to work at Riverview Park, a place in Baltimore. I had never seen Noble Sissle. Joe Porter gave everybody in the band, there were only six of us in the band. Sissle held the banjo. He was the the violin player. When he was.... That's another thing people don't know, Sissle was a musician. They think he was just one of those Cap Callaway guys, stomped his foot. He was a real musician, but he couldn't play the banjo, plunk, plunk, plunk, just like that. When Joe Porter gave Sissle an introduction but me, when..... aid....I don't remember the fellows names. Joe Blue meet Noble Sissle, he's going to be our singer. Keep on saying Sissle and the name Sissle registered with me. I walked with him and said Sissle, Sissle, that name rings a bell with me. Didn't I see you name once on a song. He says yes, I wrote one song.

S What was the name of the song?
B I can't think of the nameof it, but he wrote it with some white girl in school and it was published. I had seen a copy.

S Was this a song for a band or piano or
B No just a piano score. He wrote this number. I said then, Gee, what do you.... The music? He said no, I don't write the music, I write the lyrics. Then we shook hands. It was the 13th of March, 1915, and we are still partnerds today. We only had one argument in our....

S Is he living here in Brooklyn?
B No, he lives in Florida with his son. 15th of May 1915 and our first song was called "It's all your Fault." Should I play a little bit on the piano? I can't sing, I've tried. It's all your fault, it's all your fault. You called me pretty names and I told you not to do it. You promised that you'd love me, now I find that you won't do it. It's all your fault, its all your fault. If I could be with you, then I would....and now I'm sad. It s all your fault
So Miss Sophie Tucker was playing the Maryland Theatre when we wrote that, Oh, I forgot to tell, the other fellow, a fellow named Eddie Nelson, a white boy. He was in, he sang while we were, going to play. He wrote some of the lyrics, but it was Sissle's lyrics

S Was this published?
B Sure So, Miss Sophie Tucker was playing the Maryland Theatre, which is torn down now, in Baltimore. Sissle says let's take the song up to Miss Tucker. I said oh, man, you can't go to Sophie Tucker the big star, what are you talking about. He says she can't kill us, lets try. Sissle was more aggressive than I was. He was a fighter, he's a go-getter. I never was that way. If you didn't like my music I just took it and walked away, but he argued with you, and, sell it to you. He was a good salesman. So we went up to see Miss Tucker. When you hear me change my voice this is the way she talked. So Sissle says, will you listen to a song. Yes, Yes, yes, go ahead, go ahead.

S That's Sophie hah
B Oh, yes. She's a big star, you know. We weren't nothing. Yes go ahead, sit down and play. So we sang it. She said, I like that song, I like it, I like it, I'll get orchestrations made this week and do it. This was on a Monday. On a Wednesday or Thursday she had orchestrations ready. We didn't pay for it. I couldn't make no orchestrations then. You are supposed to make orchestrations and give and give it t her if people are going to sing the stuff for you. I Can't make no orchestrations. When she said, she played right in my hands when she said I'll have some boys in the band make an orchestration and we'll put it on.

S Was this "It's All Your Fault"?
B It's All Your Fault. I just sang that song. It was a local hit. I'll bet you there wasn't 10 people in Washington, that's only 44 miles away, ever heard that song. But everybody in New York sang it, It's All Your Fault. We got a hit on our hand! We think its a hit. Nobody heard it but in Baltimore. They bought it. I guess it sold about 30, 000 copies at 2 cents a copy.

S The copy for 2 cents at the store?
B No

S The royalties that you got were 2 cents a copy? What would a piece of sheet music cost you?
B I never was a publisher until now and I haven't had anything published yet. What would it cost then? I don't know. About $5, 000

S One piece of sheet music, for example, would cost me now. If I bought a piece of sheet music it would cost me, say 65 cents or 75 cents.
B This was sold for a quarter, 25 cents.

S Let me ask you, getting back to your parents. How did you happen to learn piano? Particularly, how did you get into playing rag?
B First question,, When my mother and father, I don't remember this. My mother and father talked about this. I was so small I don't remember. So they would go to market late at night. We were very poor. All we had to do was to say we were colored and that, everybody that was colored was poor then. One or two guys made a little money. Hustlers and like that. So anyhow, we were going down Broadway, that is the widest street. I've been caught up around the world playing the piano, that is the widest street I have ever seen in my life, but it is only from Baltimore Street, which divides Baltimore north and south. Have you ever been to San Francisco? It's market street, its wider than Market, four street cars can run on Market St. Canal Street in New Orleans. You ain't never seen a street this wide. I have a reason for telling you that. So my mother and father go to market late at night so as to get the things cheaper, -the food cheaper, because the farmers don't want to take it back to the farm. I'm toddling, I could walk now, toddling behind my mother and father. Then I say wait man, I have to plant this again, because you have to plant people and the audience forgets what you say. I don't remember this story myself, my mother and father told me this story, and that is the last time I am going to mention it. So, anyhow, my mother looked back and she don't see me. The she screamed. This white man would come and ask her what's the matter. She says my so-n', I don't see my son. He says I just saw him go in the music store across the street, there were any automobiles then. At that time of night there weren't any wagons. I heard this music and went across there and I saw the man demonstrating the organ. I saw him working his feet, but don't pay attention. His hands, and I tried to play. So my mother went over there and this man was a good salesman too. He says, he's a genius. I ain't never had my hands on no instrument in my life. He's a genius. My mother said, and Sissle says I shouldn't say it this way, I'm talking like my mother talked. Neither one of them had an education, both of them couldn't read or write. She says, I don't want him to be no piano player, instead of saying piano she said pie ano. My father had a little more than my mother and he would tell her, not pie ano, it is piano. You talk your way and I'll talk my way. This guy told my mother oh, I was a genius and I was going to be, he wanted to sell the organ, I wasn't nothing. I had never put my hands on no instrument. We didn't have no organ at home. Anyhow, he talked by mother out of her address Now, this is on a Saturday night. Monday morning he backs the wagon up to the house and put a organ in it, $75.... organ, I'll give them that plug, it is out of but I would never say it if it was in. Weaver organ, $75, we paid $1 down and 25cents a week.

S Boy, I wish we could do something like that today.
B Now that is how I started. Then I am getting big now. I'll play the first tune I ever played in my life. My father hated this tune.

S Were you taking lessons?
B No. Can you hear this now, will you get this? Give me the cue to go. Now that is the first tune that I ever played in my life. Now you noticed how I played with one finger. Well, all my lifetime I could hear other parts, Don Redman said my ears was a menace to me. I could always play ahead something else in the music. So I tried two fingers, then applied three fingers. I'm about four or five years old now. I got so all my lifetime I could hear four part harmony. Musicians don't believe this but I always could hear something else added to the melody, so I kept on tinkering and tinkering and I got the bass. Then I got so that I would play that one tune, but I can't play but only that one tune. The lady next door named Margaret Marshall heard me and she said, Sister Blake, that's my mother, Sister Blake that boy, she played organ in the church. We were Baptist and she was Methodist. People want to know what difference that made. It made a lot of difference in those days. My mother wasn't so hot for me to learn because she always said it was the devil's work.

S You mean playing the piano?
B The piano, yeh. We didn't have no piano, it was the organ. But Margaret had a piano. White people, where her mother worked, the white people used to go to Paris.

S Now who was Margaret?
B Margaret Marshall was the lady that taught me to read music.

S . Was this one of the white families?
B No. Her mother worked for the white people and when the white people left to go to Paris to live they gave Mrs. Marshall, Margaret's mother, the piano. Margaret could play organ, she played pipe organ in the church. That is how she got the piano.

S So she was a church organist.
B Pipe organist. Played with her feet and all.

S And then she taught you. How did she come
B She taught me lessons.

S Did you mother ask her
B 25cents a lesson

S Did she just sort of recognize your talent?
B She came and told my mother, Sister Blake this boy is talented and he should learn how to read music. So my mother said I don't want him to be no pie-ano plunker. You see my mother was I used to worry about her after I got to be around 13, 14. 1 said she's nuts. I used to thin she was crazy because everything was the Lord this and the Lord that and I used to look and say we ain't got nothing. Half the time we didn't have nothing to eat in the house. My father had carbuckles and he can't work. My mother would go out and wash white peoples clothes and all. I see my laundry come in here and a little baby could have carried it. $6 or 7, two baskets like that, $1.25 for the two baskets. Now back to what I was talking about. That is how I started to play. Your second question was how did you start to play ragtime.

S But before you answer that did Margaret play ragtime music?
B Oh, my God, no. Ragtime was nothing then. Anybody played ragtime was nothing. You know why that was? Because the power to be couldn't play it so they running the thing so they quieted it down.

S In other words, it wasn't an important art form. When did ragtime music, did you find it in the bars or the stage or
B House of ill repute, back room bars, small time bars, because the other bars where the white people had, ....that kind of music.

S So in other words, they would come maybe to you these houses of ill repute or whatever to hear a little more
B Yeh, we played ragtime for them. Then I had a quartet. I can demonstrate, I hate to go to the piano. Now a big time Negro would die, see. (You got your audio on now) A big time negro would die so you had a band play and I was a kid now: Now that's what they played going out to the graveyard. Now the same band:

S In other words, I remember hearing Louie Armstrong doing Did He Ramble and on the way they would play it, you did very well:
B .....Bob Cole wrote that. Cole and Johnson. I know both of them fellows.

S So it was the style in those days to on the way to the graveyard to play this dirge like music and then come back to
B The same thing. Whatever they played going out they played coming back the same thing. They would have the music on the horns, I forget what they called it, attached to the horn. They got to read the music on this, they ain't used to playing that kind of music. Coming back, now that they know..... all stuff like that. We originated it.

S People didn't feel like this was being disrepectful to the dead, coming back finger pomping and all that.
B No. Oh, yeh, the real people did. But I said a big time Negro like Dan Dungy. Dan Dungy was a big time gentleman of leisure.

S I notice in the movies I have seen these kinds of funeral services where going to the funeral everybody is very solemn, very sad and coming back everybody's finger popping. The church condoned this kind of behavior?
B Yeh, let me show you something. I am going to play it just like they showed in my mother's church

S Is that
B Its ragtime.

S ....together on our knees. But you said that is ragtime or you put a ragtime beat to it.
B Sure, now watch. Played it at my mother's church that way

S Give me a couple of bars more straight. Let us pray.... Now rag it up
B Now that is the way they did it in my mother's church. They started off right, but they had a little rhythm. They always had a little rhythm. We are the only race of people. What is your name?

S Jim
B Jim, we are the only race of people that throw away heritage.

S Now that is a big statement. What do you mean by that.
B All right. We originated, not in this country, it wasn't originated in this country. In Africa, rhythm. Rhythm. Complicated rhythms. My teacher who taught, me the.... system of music at NYU and he took five musicians, there were only two negros in there, myself and Milton Ready, at that time. He says I want to show you that we haven't got what you got but we are getting it. Look..... Now you know what you could do. You could go any place in the world, people don't know what you are doing or nothing and start a rhythm and watch

S How would you explain or respond to the question, what is rags, or what are rags?
B Rag is nothing but synchopation. When the right hand or treple, it doesn't have to be a hand. I'll pick a number everybody knows this. That's not ragtime, but as soon as..... and he did do it, See, that's ragtime. Now I'll give you another one. You remember I told you the first, as soon as you synchopate and you carry the rhythm, the harmony and the bass cleft, that's ragtime. Listen, my favorite composer I love this man
Mrs. B .That's only 28 years ago, I think you said 2.
B You going to make me out a liar for two years.
Mrs. B What did you say we were married 29 years?
B Will be
Mrs. B December 28

S She was just pleasingly plump when you met her Eubie
Mrs. B No, I was only size 14

S And you were Mary Ann Tylor, weren't you
Mrs. B Yes.

S What did you do as Mary Ann Tylor?
Mrs. B Met Eubie Blake.

S And he took you away from it all.
Mrs. B Yeh, he took me away from it all, but I was in show business for Five minute with Florence Milson.... to Broadway. That came about purely by accident. I wasn't a glamour girl or a dancer or a singer or what have you.

S What are some of things that you did do. You did do some singing and dancing?
Mrs. B Oh, yeh. I did what the rest of the chorus girls did.

S Was the pay good?
Mrs. B By other standards, yes. I'd come out of business college and got a job for $15 a week so $35 looked very attractive.

S Did you have to do many dances or sessions per day. How many shows per
Mrs. Blake: Oh, I don't know. They'd use you in one of the shows, that was my first show and I was only in one other. I think there were maybe 7 or 8 assemble numbers.

S Weren't you the secretary of W. C. Handy
Mrs. B Well, yes, I was. That was after the bottom dropped out of show business.

S That was Handy's birthday, was just on the 16th.
Mrs. B That's right, the 16th of November. I was with him off and on for five years. Quite an interesting person he was also.

S While you were a chorus girl then, did you, how many were in a line.
Mrs. B We actually had very few girls, cuz he was so hard to please that he never got a
full chorus line. There were l4 girls in the chorus and that was a limited number.

S Were you like the Zigfield folly girls. In other words did you have to have a certain shyness
Mrs. B Now you are trying to glorify me. You can't do that. As I said that was a ways a means to an end at the time.
B She was a pony.
Mrs. B That's front line dances, that is what ponies are. But, speaking of that, was such a short part of my life

S Was that the Troublesome Ivory
B Rag

S When was that written.
B Years and years ago.

S Lay a little Troublesome Ivory on me.
B You know I have people ask me why do all the colored play on the black keys all the time. I say well I'll tell you one reason is because they are mostly from the south. You can't hit no white keys done south, I'll tell you that.

S You don't hit too many white things of any kind
B gonna be glad for that

S When you are playing rags, do they differ. Your version or your way of playing rag
B I play it altogether different every time. That's what throws the other piano players off. I don't do it intentionally. Things come to me and I play extemporaniously. I play a lot of extemporanious music.

S Now, historically, do you think in the early days of rag this is the way that they were played.
B No, this is my modern time.

S This is Euble Blake's standard rag
B Listen, this is a

S But this is your personal stamp.
B Yeh. The white people named his ragtime classical written.

S Why did they call it
B I dont know. They want that style put in there by name. It is a terrible thing to be. Listen, I had you as my slave and all at once you get to be a..... you the big guy. I can't take it, so I said now you know when they play, this is mine. Its nothing, anybody can do it. But I want to get my name in there. I want to get my style -in there.

S So this is the rag ala Euble, so to speak. Let me ask you I notice in your recording with Columbia you, there is sort of a boogie rag or a rag with a boogie beat. Give me a little boogie on the bass there
B Now that is what we call boogie. What they call boogie now. That's what they call boogie. Now this is what we call boogie. That's rag. Ladies and Gentlemen, that's rag.

S Let me ask you one other question then I would like co speak to you and Mrs. Blake together at home and ask you about some of these beautiful things that you have in your room. Let me ask you. In taking a song like Semper Fidelas or Stars and Stripes forever, how woud you rag that up. How would you take a song like Semper Fidelas because they did say that rag have a close relationship to Suosa's marchs and things.
B I'll play Semper Fidelas for you, not in ragtime That was rag. That is ragtime

S Play a little of it straight for me.
B See the difference. Listen. It shouldn't be in that part, it should be

S So if I put in there a little synchopated, you've ragged it up so to speak
B That is not synchopated.

S One more time, give me that little part.
B That is in F sharp. I taught it in D flat but when I do it with a big band I play it A flat
B Do you know what it is

S Down homey?
B I told some people in Chicago. I said you people take up all the low down things and you write them in the newspaper. A man and his wife was there. I says now come here, I'll tell you....You know what.....is.

S Let me ask you another quick question and then we are going to turn over You mention that the rags sort of grew up in the house of ill repute. In back rooms. You played these during entertainment periods or. When these were played in these houses, were they used at social gatherings
B People sitting around, nothing by men and ladies of the evening. You played these

S I like that word, ladies of the evening
B I have to say that, I can't say..... and I don't say, there are a lot of things I don't say, they write them down.. so they are teaching us culture, so that is our culture. The know what they are doing.

S This is a digression. Maybe you should answer the other question. In other words in these back rooms someone was playing the piano while the social functions were going on in the back rooms, right.
B Yeh, nothing out of the way. Just sitting and talking and drinking like they do in any other place.

S What do you think about some of the sheet music that have some very racey, like the house nigger, the black cases on the old sheet music of the 1920s and 30s. Do you remember those days.
B Do I remember them, yeh.

S Why did you musicians put up with it. Could you do anything about it?
B I'm glad you asked that. You come to me and say to me, Eubie I got so and so, you got the money will you buy. I don't know what will you give me for it. But you dress nice. I'm the big shot I got the money and I'm running the whole world. So I said I want you to have big lips,.... minstreal show, call it like that. He say no, then you don't sell what you are doing. We had to do that to send our children to school. We had to take on things that we didn't like.

S In Shuffle Along for example, the picture we see of Shuffle Along did you
B that was 52 years ago. That is what makes me mad with some of these young people

S But you had to do this as a means of
B You don't like it ok, and the man keeps his money. And your children don't go to school And you don't eat at home. I'm going to tell you something. Jim Europe was one of the brightest men, he could see far. My father could do it too without an education. Listen to this Now Jim would send for all the operatas from abroad. He would send for Sherman, the biggest publishing house in the world, I don't know anything bigger than Sherman. The white people, we're playing now at the Waldorf. Jim says now you are a musician, you've got to talk to us. You see this piano score, this could be a book. Now I wouldn't take too much time naming the players. All different instruments, I'm conducting..... I pick up the part and play it over and over, a whole score, with the words and everything, no orchestration, and they play it right off there. Play it again Eubie; I play it again, three ox four times, you got it fellows. Now they got it, they play the whole book. You have to write parts out, don't you, you're a musician. They guys reading the part and he's learning how it goes. Now we play the Waldorf, that's off Broadway and 44th Street. Held say, somebody would walk up to him and he's say, now the show just opened that night. We get the books two weeks ahead from Sherman. Do you know the Merry Widow Waltz. The show opened at night and so and so. So one guy says wait a minute, ask the lady how it goes and she said Oh, yeh, we play that, and we'd play it. You know what they would say, isn't that wonderful. Now these characters, there's one of them. There' s one of them right there. Isn't it marvelous the colored boy don't read a note. We ha to do that. They didn't want to think that Negoes read music. You know who could read music according to the publishers. Jim.... told us that trick. different fellows, top musicians, they got their numbers there and they couldn't read, but the rest of us could read, all of us could read.

S You all could read, but very often you didn't have
B You didn't let the white people know that. They wanted to think that, so that is how we fooled them.

S So you played the game out of necessity.
B We played in their hands. Soon as they say well the show open tonight Wait a minute, ask the lady how it goes. And she says.. Oh, yeh, we play it a little bit. Play it all the way through now how do I Oh, no, yeh
Mrs. B I'm still trying to find out, like you knew already.

S Right, in fact we knew more tape than we should have.