EUBIE BLAKE: DeForest Phonofilm, 1923.
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- čas přidán 12. 05. 2020
- CORRECTED RESTORATION originally by courtesy of the Library of Congress: PIONEERING AFRO-AMERICAN COMPOSER/PERFORMER James Herbert "Eubie" Blake (1887 - 1983) with his long-term collaborator Noble Sissle, wrote and performed in SHUFFLE ALONG (1921). This was one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and performed by Afro-Americans. Eubie was one of eight children born to former slaves, and the only one of his siblings to survive infancy. By the early 1920s he was famous worldwide for his compositions "I'm Just Wild About Harry", "The Charleston Rag" and "Love Will Find A Way". In 1923 he performed in several of the very earliest experimental sound films made by Dr Lee DeForest in New York, of which this example is one. This "Fantasy On Stephen Foster's Swanee River" has been previously reproduced on Internet with bad sound, at the wrong speed, with incorrect picture ratio and with the wrong contrast ratio. Extracting the hum, sprocket buzz, clicks, hiss, distortion and resonances, the remaining audio track really is very good for that distant period. Phonofilms of that time were shot around 19 pics/second, so they are shown way too fast at the modern projection speed. Having a little coronavirus shut-in time up my sleeve, I decided today to sit down with my video and audio editors to rectify all of these imperfections to the best of my ability. This posting was originally uploaded on the Library of Congress site, to whom all queries should be addressed, with many of its audio deficiencies now corrected. And it's very impressive improv piano work by Eubie Blake, too.
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He was a dear family friend and I got the chance to know him a little as a young child. Such a genuine gentleman with a grand heart, quick wit, and amazing gift! Thank you so much for this post.
Did he ever speak of the DeForest shorts he did?
You just became my hero
That's so cool that you knew him!
Eubie Blake at age 40. I saw him perform 49 years later at age 89 in a ragtime piano concert at Brooklyn College, and I got his autograph!
Actually, he was 36. Blake added years to his age in the 1960s to make his then still impressive piano skills look even more impressive.
Eubie Blake was my dad's great uncle.
Keep in mind folks, at this point in his career, he'd already been going strong and popular for 20 years or more. this restoration is priceless.... thank you for not trying to colorize it, it has plenty of color on its own.
Thanks for this fine restoration. Our family is very proud of Uncle Eubie's great talent.
Delighted that this has reached his family, even more delighted at your reaction. Many thanks, from Melbourne, Australia.
Hello Noble Sissle Family. I used to be known as Bob Long and I knew Eubie in Los Angeles during the seventies. We were together on a number of occasions. Shirley Rhodes, Sammy Davis Jr.'s manager, and wife of George Rhodes, Sammy's arranger/conductor brought Eubie into a club in Westwood to hear me. I had won First Prize in the Scott Joplin Piano Competition and was getting well known in ragtime circles. At one point I delivered a Baldwin spinet piano to Eubie's west coast home, shortly after he flew in from Baltimore to do the talk show circuits. This was mid-seventies. I have a question - in the archives of Eubie Blake somewhere, the New York Public Library I think, there is a recording I donated to Eubie when he was still alive and it wound up in the archives. I would like to tell my audiences about that, but I'm not sure which institution houses the Eubie archives. I think there are several. It would be under the name of Bob Long. Would you folks happen to know where I might find that recording? I do not want to extract it, it was given with love, I merely want to know where it is! That way I can tell people about it and it will prove that Eubie valued my talent! Thank you, Flint Long
@@flintlong2937did you ever find your recording?
Amazing talent, it's a pity that film studios did not adopt the DeForest phonofilm technology, we could have had sound movies much earlier in the decade
Theodore Case was the inventor. It wasn't until Case split from DeForest that the system was sold to the Fox Film Corporation.
Wow an flutter would be unacceptable in commercial system, but it might be caused by dimensional changes in the film stock with age.
Piano genius and one of the greatest pioneers of modern music.
he even met another one of the greatest
Simply AMAZING! What a find. What tallent!!
The speed and control of his playing is insane.
Seriously amazing technique. Classical technique from a Jazz pianist. What a combo! Cuts an elegant silhouette at the piano. A joy to hear and watch. Thanks for the great video!
When it starts all over again for Black people and we begin to relearn what was lost at the end of the 20th century, Eubie Blake will be a God!
This early sound film technology is pretty fascinating. Good print quality.
Wow, Eubie is amazing. And it's great that this clip survived for us to enjoy.
Thanks for this upload! It's really good quality! 🔥
Remarkable - Thank You. I did see Eubie at the Nice Jazz Fest
Wonderful. I wonder why sound films didn’t begin with major studios in 1923. The technology was there.
Very talented pianist
Thanks for this GREAT clip! I have subscribed and liked!
Beautiful restoration-thanks!
Incredible.
Surprisingly good, even with the wow and flutter issue.
Bravo!
To Eubie & to you for working to get this as good as it is!
Super cool
Wow!
Thank you. Excellent work!
Thank you for taking the time to do all the corrections, this is wonderful! I've always been interested in audio and video restoration but I unfortunately don't know how to do it or how to learn how to do it xD
Thank you for your meticulous and wonderful restoration of this priceless clip.
I should hasten to add (to your description) that this is very likely not 'improv piano work', but is almost certainly a 'concert paraphrase' or 'transcription' that Eubie Blake worked out over a long period and practiced. I doubt he's actually improvising much here. That should not detract from how great this is. I am not aware of this paraphrase/transcription being published, but *maybe* his manuscript still exists in with his papers.
Why do you assume this isn't improvised?
I have noticed that many Jazz pianists, Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson and ‘Fats’ Waller would have a structural arrangement of a piece of music but lightly improvise. For example, ‘Fats’ Waller recorded ‘Tea For Two’ three times, 1935, 1937 and 1939. They are basically the same and slightly different.
@@IPhonola To me, the whole debate on 'whether this is improvised' or of 'what value has this AS JAZZ' is an irrelevant tedium. This is fine music, beautifully played, sensitively interpreted in a context of racial oppression beyond the ability of living memory to comprehend. I find the 'is this really jazz' and 'this ONLY has value AS JAZZ' debates exceedingly tiresome, silly, and largely irrelevant. They originated with dixieland-style music bigots in the late 1930s, of the Hugues Panassie type, and I hope they die out with the passing of the generation who propagated this bullshit.
@@AusRadioHistorian exactly, that comment reeks of backhanded racist bs... Blake definitely improvised this....
I am also glad to see a "soundie" prior to Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer".
@@lynnkie The fact that there were two performances recorded which were almost identical, perhaps.
I think this is what they used to call a 'paraphrase de concert'.
The man was a genius, also taken into account the rags he wrote as early as 1899, that were in a class itself and ahead of their time.
Nice
Et dire qu'il a vu jouer Scott Joplin !!!
This is the world's first music video (film). April 15, 1923.
No, not by a LONG margin. There were talkie experiments back to 1900 - the Phono-Cinema Theatre of Paris, the Gaumont Chronophone films of 1905 - 1909, then the Edison Kinetophone filmes of 1912 - 1915. There were also the British Hepworth Vivaphone films made around 1911, some of which have been restored by the BFI. Of the Edison films with sound on cylinder, particularly, many items were musical, shot in New York. And Eubie's films for DeForest were not the first of the DeForest Phonofilms. Just among the earliest. For an example of Hepworth song clip from 1911, refer: czcams.com/video/Z7w3SQHa6_k/video.html
For an example of an Edison Kinetophone music video - one of many - here are THE EDISON MINSTRELS in 1913: czcams.com/video/-JFAnlGjPwY/video.html
And here's a Gaumont Chronophone "phonoscene" from 1905, featuring the Paris cabaret artist, Dranem: czcams.com/video/_kv0Mxc3j2A/video.html
The oldest known music video film is this test made at the Edison labs "Black Maria" studio late in 1894, featuring William Kennedy Laurie Dickson on violin while two co-workers dance to demonstrate film synchronisation: czcams.com/video/n1kT9craX5A/video.html
But Chico Marx still has him beat......
Not even close. Eubie is more important as a composer.
@@essbo53 Agree 100%
This guy must have been old enough to meet Scott Joplin...
He actually did! I just saw a video from Terry Waldo, also a ragtime player, who had this Eubie Blake as piano teacher in the 1950's. And he said that Eubie met Scott Joplin and also Jerry Roll Morton. Eubie always told he was born in 1883, but actually he was born in 1887.
According to him he met Mr. Joplin only once, in 1915 in New York at a house party, where several other great ragtime pianists were also present and they all goaded Mr. Joplin (who was very ill at the time and wouldn't live much longer) to get up and play. He said 'boys: I don't play', and repeated that over and over until they finally got him to render a bit of "Maple Leaf" which apparently he didn't play well at that time due to how he was feeling that day from his illness. But he managed to feel better enough by 1916 to make the 7 hand-played piano rolls we have (although only the Aeolian of "Maple Leaf" seems totally realistic and taken straight from the recording piano; the 6 Connorized rolls are mathematical arrangements based partially on recording piano output, with notes added by the editor/arranger, and so are only partially true to what he may have played, although very interesting).