[late evening listening] dearieme presents eubie blake and alberta hunter

Have you ever walked into a room and there was something happening, such as two people at a piano and everyone around seems to have shut up and is listening intently, almost in awe and you think to yourself - these two are quite special? Then they start playing and you see you're in the presence of excellence?

Eubie Blake composed the melody to the Charleston Rag and in fact was ragtime itself around 1914 and later.

He said:

So one day I was playing; ­ my mother'd gone out to work, see ­ and what she was doing home that time in the morning, I don't know. She came in, says ­ and heard me playing: "Take that ragtime out of my house!" That's the first time I ever heard the word "ragtime." And she made me; she made me stop.

He claimed his age was four years older than he was so that when he died at 100, he was, in fact, 96.

The lady in the clip is Alberta Hunter, a famous jazz singer of the age who performed with most of the greats of the day. One aside is that she is a lesbian community icon today and was as public about it as one dared be in that day.

Here's another side to Eubie Blake from 1932: