Thanks for posting this interview, Sterling. I truly wished that Rudi Blesh would've let Eubie answer his questions fully without continuously interrupting.
He was really polite, but you can hear his impatience pop up every now and then. Understandably, he's almost overly concerned with their feelings and made sure they understood the social context for Black artists.
@@SQUAREHEADSAM1912 I was referring to what W.E.B. DuBois called "Double Consciousness." Black people must anticipate White people's thought processes and evade danger before the potentially offended White person thinks and acts in default ways that are harmful to Black people. Traditionally, this means that in a country where we still don't have full access to citizenship (especially for Blake and his contemporaries), we must work twice as hard to get half as far and accommodate people who are enslaved by their sense of entitlement and bias with little to consequences for the harmful things they can do to a person who is deemed an "other." We still must operate among Whites as though we are one infraction away from having everything taken away from us. It's still that way to a large extent which is why the tradition of ragtime didn't last beyond the inaugural fad (1893-1918) and the revival in the 1950s. That music was a cultural product that was specifically curated to satisfy White consumers desire for something new and different, but not so different that they couldn't participate, regardless of whether they had the talent or not. The same goes for the cake walk, the first Black dance fad and every other Black cultural product that has been sold in the U.S. since. What gets sold is never the best we have to offer, because the best of what makes Black people who we are is far to frightening for people who are used to having and eating their cake. That, in a nutshell is why pop music sucks now.
The lady pianist whom Eubie Blake mentions at 4:51:10, who was Teddy Wilson's wife, (AFTER talking about legendary unrecorded(?) Harlem pianist Alberta Simmons, who was NOT Teddy Wilson's wife!), was Ms. Irene Eadie (Wilson). She DID make a couple of recordings in Chicago accompanying singers, and she played really well. I don't know if any more than those still exists today. The two sides I know about (there may have been more than this), were both accompanying Eloise Bennett, and were issued on Paramount record 12412. They are: master 2745, take 2: "Love Me Mr. Strange Man" and master 2746, take 1: "Effervescent Daddy". Both dating to circa October 1926. This is an extremely rare record and I imagine very few original copies survive today. However, one of the owners of them allowed Document Records to reissue this on one of their numerous CD compilations, in this case the first volume in their series "Female Blues Singers" (Vol. 1), DOCD-5505. So here are these tracks. "Love Me Mr. Strange Man": th-cam.com/video/15FCPWNkNcs/w-d-xo.html "Effervescent Daddy": th-cam.com/video/phyR9k8xX8g/w-d-xo.html On his currently-defunct website "Chicago South Side Piano", webmaster Paolo Fornara had a theory that this was actually James Blythe on piano under pseudonym (probably since he hadn't heard of Irene Eadie before, although I have!) and when I listened to the sides, as a 15+ - year enthusiast of Mr. Blythe's piano style, I would say for certain it is NOT him, but is another pianist with a different style I don't recognize. Therefore, if Ms. Eadie is credited as the pianist on the record label, surely it was her. She doesn't seem to have been famous enough for any record label to use her name as a pseudonym for anyone else, or for any other purpose. I just hope there are other recordings of her out there somewhere: web.archive.org/web/20231003130343/www.chicagosouthsidepiano.com/jimmy-blythe-eloise-bennett/
I will say she DOES show a lot of James Blythe influence in her playing (and probably vice-versa!), as well as a lot of J. Harry ("Mr. Freddie") Shayne's piano style, as well as Jelly Roll Morton, and other 'horn style' pianists of that era. It is no wonder that with this lady as his wife, Teddy Wilson, also became a 'horn style' pianist as well.
Here's her Wikipedia page. Her original name was Violet Irene Armstrong (no relation to Louis, I'm sure), and later she was known as Irene Armstrong Kitchings. She used the last name "E(a)die" as a stage name. Turns out she WAS alive at the time of this interview (she passed in 1975), too bad none of the parties here knew that at the time (although hopefully they found out later? Did Mike Lipskin ever interview her?): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Kitchings
That's really cool that Eubie Blake shouts her out as a piano "shark" from a decades-old memory, even if he couldn't remember her name. I think the two recordings back this up; she really plays some excellent things behind Ms. Bennett. If Irene Armstrong (Eadie) was really only 18 when these were recorded (her birth year is in question as to whether it was 1903 or 1908), she was really accomplished at that age, another prodigy along the lines of Vee Lawnhurst. Even if she was 23, it's still great playing by any standard.
I think Eubie Blake mentions legendary Harlem pianist Alberta Simmons at some point. She is also mentioned by Willie "The Lion" Smith in his autobiography. I did not realize until just today that she was Thelonious Monk's first piano teacher!!! Too bad there are no known recordings of her. 😥 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk
When I was a kid I wanted the Golden Reunion In Ragtime lp for Christmas. My parents complained why couldn’t I want a Bobby Darin or Fabian lp like all the other girls in my school. Then came the 60’s and I had my revenge. “ Hey mom, would you rather buy me a Beatles lp or Rolling Stones lp for my birthday and have me turn the volume way up so you will go deaf or a Biograph lp of Fats Waller piano rolls?” Guess which one she bought me for my birthday?
This is simply unbelievable material. My husband heard Eubie Blake at a pizza place where they had a monthly meeting of the Maple Leaf Club. Who was it discovered Eubie Blake was not 100 years old in 1983 when he died but was actually younger according to his social security application information he gave in about 1938. It is interesting we have access to things like social security applications and census records that disprove a lot of these musicians birthdate claims. Like the Morton baptismal certificate showing he was born in 1890 and not 1885. And Louis not July 4, 1900 but July 6, 1901. But I don’t really care when Eubie said he was born. He is great and composed Memories of You which in my opinion is a lot better than Hoagy’s Stardust.
Too bad Lipskin or another researcher couldn’t have found those rejected Columbia piano solo sides Lucky Roberts made around 1916. Always wished test pressings of those would show up along with the records Jelly Roll Morton made in Los Angeles in 1917. Fats Waller got a acetate recorder for his birthday in the 1930’s but the recordings he made with his machine were only released on Lps of only 99 copies to subscribers of an English jazz magazine. Fortunately my husband was a subscriber at that time and purchased them. He posted three of the recordings from those Ristic lps on his channel.
I have an extremely "cleaned" CD album of all of those Waller recordings that I plan on posting to youtube. I guess in the process of bootlegging it to the CDs sold on the internet, whoever did it thought that "cleaning" the audio was doing favors. If you would ever be willing to transfer that LP set or even sell please let me know.
@@SugarBearMosher - the acetate records were sent to a guy in England and arrived broken. He had to glue pieces back together then put them out unfiltered on 2 Ristic label lp’s . My husband uploaded 3 on his channel. Jazzguy1927. Do a search of jazzguy1927 and Fats Waller and you should find the 3 . Listen to them and compare those 3 with their “cleaned up” counterparts and let me know what you think please. Do you have the Golden Reunion in Ragtime radio promo lp’s that have dialog on them? My husband has them and posted one track from it, Eubie Blake I think, with him talking that is not on the released lp. Also the James P. Johnson Library of Congress recordings from December, 1938; only one title is on a Folkways lp. My husband has James P. Johnson Library of Congress recordings complete with Johnson talking and piano. He posted one on his channel that had not been reissued on lp or cd. Look for James P. Johnson Library of Congress on jazzguy1927.
@@jazzgirl1920s the fats waller recordings I have are far less enjoyable than the raw ones you posted. I have the dual set of Golden Reunion In Ragtime. I plan to get that posted sometime soon.
@@jazzgirl1920s I recorded some of this over the air from WKCR fm in 1989 during their 77-hour Fats Waller marathon. Sadly, I wasn't at home to keep the tape rolling, so I only got the group conversation and (was it?) Lost Love, with Razaf. I recall that the side I didn't record included Waller drunkenly playing through the opening to Shuffle Along, presumably to honor Eubie.
See description- all of the Lipskin interviews came from Mike himself with the aid of Robert Pinsker for helping pass the files along with permission from Mike.
I don't think there is any official citation information, it was a personal audio recording collection that was recorded on equipment owned by Mike Lipskin. I would just go off of the information included in the video description.
@@whototeruI currently have up unreleased sessions of Donald Lambert done by Mike. There is also a recording session/interview with Luckey Roberts with mostly piano playing. I also have up a Cliff Jackson interview recorded by Mike. I have another lipskin recording/interview with AL Casey I need to get up, one with Willy Gant, and some private recordings of Willie The Lion.
@@whototeru While maybe not exactly 'ragtime era', there are some interviews and film footage of famous piano roll artists of the 1920s performing, on the AMICA TH-cam channel: www.youtube.com/@amica-org/videos A number of original-era roll artists performed at the 1970s conventions in particular.
![Chris Langan - The Interview THEY Didn't Want You To See - CTMU [Full Version; Timestamps]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9miVG2xT5jY/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for posting this interview, Sterling.
I truly wished that Rudi Blesh would've let Eubie answer his questions fully without continuously interrupting.
He was really polite, but you can hear his impatience pop up every now and then. Understandably, he's almost overly concerned with their feelings and made sure they understood the social context for Black artists.
@@whototeruI don’t fully understand the last part, ould you elaborate?
@@SQUAREHEADSAM1912 I was referring to what W.E.B. DuBois called "Double Consciousness." Black people must anticipate White people's thought processes and evade danger before the potentially offended White person thinks and acts in default ways that are harmful to Black people. Traditionally, this means that in a country where we still don't have full access to citizenship (especially for Blake and his contemporaries), we must work twice as hard to get half as far and accommodate people who are enslaved by their sense of entitlement and bias with little to consequences for the harmful things they can do to a person who is deemed an "other." We still must operate among Whites as though we are one infraction away from having everything taken away from us. It's still that way to a large extent which is why the tradition of ragtime didn't last beyond the inaugural fad (1893-1918) and the revival in the 1950s. That music was a cultural product that was specifically curated to satisfy White consumers desire for something new and different, but not so different that they couldn't participate, regardless of whether they had the talent or not. The same goes for the cake walk, the first Black dance fad and every other Black cultural product that has been sold in the U.S. since. What gets sold is never the best we have to offer, because the best of what makes Black people who we are is far to frightening for people who are used to having and eating their cake. That, in a nutshell is why pop music sucks now.
The lady pianist whom Eubie Blake mentions at 4:51:10, who was Teddy Wilson's wife,
(AFTER talking about legendary unrecorded(?) Harlem pianist Alberta Simmons, who was NOT Teddy Wilson's wife!),
was Ms. Irene Eadie (Wilson).
She DID make a couple of recordings in Chicago accompanying singers, and she played really well.
I don't know if any more than those still exists today.
The two sides I know about (there may have been more than this), were both accompanying Eloise Bennett,
and were issued on Paramount record 12412.
They are:
master 2745, take 2: "Love Me Mr. Strange Man"
and
master 2746, take 1: "Effervescent Daddy".
Both dating to circa October 1926.
This is an extremely rare record and I imagine very few original copies survive today.
However, one of the owners of them allowed Document Records to reissue this on one of their numerous CD compilations,
in this case the first volume in their series "Female Blues Singers" (Vol. 1), DOCD-5505.
So here are these tracks.
"Love Me Mr. Strange Man":
th-cam.com/video/15FCPWNkNcs/w-d-xo.html
"Effervescent Daddy":
th-cam.com/video/phyR9k8xX8g/w-d-xo.html
On his currently-defunct website "Chicago South Side Piano",
webmaster Paolo Fornara had a theory that this was actually James Blythe on piano under pseudonym
(probably since he hadn't heard of Irene Eadie before, although I have!)
and when I listened to the sides,
as a 15+ - year enthusiast of Mr. Blythe's piano style,
I would say for certain it is NOT him, but is another pianist with a different style I don't recognize.
Therefore, if Ms. Eadie is credited as the pianist on the record label, surely it was her.
She doesn't seem to have been famous enough for any record label to use her name as a pseudonym for anyone else,
or for any other purpose.
I just hope there are other recordings of her out there somewhere:
web.archive.org/web/20231003130343/www.chicagosouthsidepiano.com/jimmy-blythe-eloise-bennett/
I will say she DOES show a lot of James Blythe influence in her playing (and probably vice-versa!),
as well as a lot of J. Harry ("Mr. Freddie") Shayne's piano style,
as well as Jelly Roll Morton, and other 'horn style' pianists of that era.
It is no wonder that with this lady as his wife, Teddy Wilson, also became a 'horn style' pianist as well.
Here's her Wikipedia page.
Her original name was Violet Irene Armstrong (no relation to Louis, I'm sure),
and later she was known as Irene Armstrong Kitchings.
She used the last name "E(a)die" as a stage name.
Turns out she WAS alive at the time of this interview (she passed in 1975),
too bad none of the parties here knew that at the time
(although hopefully they found out later? Did Mike Lipskin ever interview her?):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Kitchings
That's really cool that Eubie Blake shouts her out as a piano "shark" from a decades-old memory, even if he couldn't remember her name. I think the two recordings back this up; she really plays some excellent things behind Ms. Bennett. If Irene Armstrong (Eadie) was really only 18 when these were recorded (her birth year is in question as to whether it was 1903 or 1908), she was really accomplished at that age, another prodigy along the lines of Vee Lawnhurst. Even if she was 23, it's still great playing by any standard.
2:27:39 reference to talking to shep edmonds and him mentioning Plunk Henry
WOW WTH NICE UPLOAD
I think Eubie Blake mentions legendary Harlem pianist Alberta Simmons at some point. She is also mentioned by Willie "The Lion" Smith in his autobiography. I did not realize until just today that she was Thelonious Monk's first piano teacher!!! Too bad there are no known recordings of her. 😥 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk
Uncle Eubie never sounded better (and Aunt Marion was in the kitchen cooking up a storm - and on the phone!)
I wish i could have met them. Being born in 1996 made that impossible.
Amazing! Email?
Wow, looking forwards to listening to all this! Thanks for posting all this great stuff!
I love hearing them play around with "The Man I Love"
When I was a kid I wanted the Golden Reunion In Ragtime lp for Christmas. My parents complained why couldn’t I want a Bobby Darin or Fabian lp like all the other girls in my school. Then came the 60’s and I had my revenge. “ Hey mom, would you rather buy me a Beatles lp or Rolling Stones lp for my birthday and have me turn the volume way up so you will go deaf or a Biograph lp of Fats Waller piano rolls?” Guess which one she bought me for my birthday?
Ha! That's a riot.
This is simply unbelievable material. My husband heard Eubie Blake at a pizza place where they had a monthly meeting of the Maple Leaf Club. Who was it discovered Eubie Blake was not 100 years old in 1983 when he died but was actually younger according to his social security application information he gave in about 1938. It is interesting we have access to things like social security applications and census records that disprove a lot of these musicians birthdate claims. Like the Morton baptismal certificate showing he was born in 1890 and not 1885. And Louis not July 4, 1900 but July 6, 1901. But I don’t really care when Eubie said he was born. He is great and composed Memories of You which in my opinion is a lot better than Hoagy’s Stardust.
I feel Eubie deserves his claim to be 100.
Too bad Lipskin or another researcher couldn’t have found those rejected Columbia piano solo sides Lucky Roberts made around 1916. Always wished test pressings of those would show up along with the records Jelly Roll Morton made in Los Angeles in 1917. Fats Waller got a acetate recorder for his birthday in the 1930’s but the recordings he made with his machine were only released on Lps of only 99 copies to subscribers of an English jazz magazine. Fortunately my husband was a subscriber at that time and purchased them. He posted three of the recordings from those Ristic lps on his channel.
I have an extremely "cleaned" CD album of all of those Waller recordings that I plan on posting to youtube. I guess in the process of bootlegging it to the CDs sold on the internet, whoever did it thought that "cleaning" the audio was doing favors. If you would ever be willing to transfer that LP set or even sell please let me know.
@@SugarBearMosher - the acetate records were sent to a guy in England and arrived broken. He had to glue pieces back together then put them out unfiltered on 2 Ristic label lp’s . My husband uploaded 3 on his channel. Jazzguy1927. Do a search of jazzguy1927 and Fats Waller and you should find the 3 . Listen to them and compare those 3 with their “cleaned up” counterparts and let me know what you think please. Do you have the Golden Reunion in Ragtime radio promo lp’s that have dialog on them? My husband has them and posted one track from it, Eubie Blake I think, with him talking that is not on the released lp. Also the James P. Johnson Library of Congress recordings from December, 1938; only one title is on a Folkways lp. My husband has James P. Johnson Library of Congress recordings complete with Johnson talking and piano. He posted one on his channel that had not been reissued on lp or cd. Look for James P. Johnson Library of Congress on jazzguy1927.
@@jazzgirl1920s the fats waller recordings I have are far less enjoyable than the raw ones you posted. I have the dual set of Golden Reunion In Ragtime. I plan to get that posted sometime soon.
@@SugarBearMosher -yes put those dual radio promo lps of Golden Reunion on TH-cam. There is talking on that not on the issued lp.
@@jazzgirl1920s I recorded some of this over the air from WKCR fm in 1989 during their 77-hour Fats Waller marathon. Sadly, I wasn't at home to keep the tape rolling, so I only got the group conversation and (was it?) Lost Love, with Razaf. I recall that the side I didn't record included Waller drunkenly playing through the opening to Shuffle Along, presumably to honor Eubie.
Where do you get these?
See description- all of the Lipskin interviews came from Mike himself with the aid of Robert Pinsker for helping pass the files along with permission from Mike.
These came from Mike Lipskin, via me (with Mike's explicit permission, of course!)
I would like to cite this. May I have the title and location information please?
I don't think there is any official citation information, it was a personal audio recording collection that was recorded on equipment owned by Mike Lipskin. I would just go off of the information included in the video description.
The date location and people included are in the description.
@@SugarBearMosher Are there more of these with Blake or other musicians from the ragtime era?
@@whototeruI currently have up unreleased sessions of Donald Lambert done by Mike. There is also a recording session/interview with Luckey Roberts with mostly piano playing. I also have up a Cliff Jackson interview recorded by Mike. I have another lipskin recording/interview with AL Casey I need to get up, one with Willy Gant, and some private recordings of Willie The Lion.
@@whototeru While maybe not exactly 'ragtime era', there are some interviews and film footage of famous piano roll artists of the 1920s performing, on the AMICA TH-cam channel: www.youtube.com/@amica-org/videos A number of original-era roll artists performed at the 1970s conventions in particular.