TT 209: More on SHUFFLE ALONG

Nice to see Eubie Blake in the New York Times! John McWhorter uses the recent release of When Broadway Was Black by Caseen Gaines for a good think piece on Shuffle Along: “The Black Musical That May Have Inspired Gershwin.”

I studied up on Shuffle Along a few years ago when I wrote about Eubie Blake for JazzTimes:

James Weldon Johnson said that Shuffle Along “legitimized the African-American musical,” while Langston Hughes credited the show as the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. Its biggest hit, “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” would go on to be a familiar piece of Americana and the theme song of Harry Truman’s presidential campaign.

Ivan Harold Browning kept his voice in shape, and recorded "Love Will Find a Way" in 1971 with Blake on piano, 50 years after they brought the house down on Broadway.

Again, from my article:

Shuffle Along has never been revived successfully, in part because later African-American performers considered it just one step from a minstrel show (although everyone credits its importance). What transpires as Browning declaims “Love Will Find a Way” while Blake charmingly and sensitively accompanies his old friend isn’t jazz, and it isn’t minstrelsy either—it’s just great Black music from a vanished age. Listening to Browning and Blake together explains something about the history of race relations in America that no words can ever express.

The most astonishing Blake on video is the early fantasy on "Swanee River." Simply incredible.