Eubie Blake

This concert was taped at the Theatre De Lys in Greenwich Village, featuring Jim Hession, Mike Lipskin, and Terry Waldo, three young pianists who all hung around with Eubie Blake picking his brain rather than formally studying with him, as Blake explains during his set. Waldo proves to be up to the challenging material he chose to open the show: Eubie's "Dictys On 7th Avenue" and Luckey Roberts' very difficult "Spanish Venus." Mike Lipskin, probably the best known of the three protégés, tackles "Snowy Morning Blues," Blake's "If You've Never Been Vamped By a Brownskin," and a zany original with a goofy lyric, "Am I Blue." Hession's Beatles medley of "Martha My Dear" and "Here Comes the Sun" is the oddest moment of the evening, though his medley of "Liza" and "Fascinating Rhythm" seems to bail out his opener. Eubie, of course, cuts them all on stage with his energetic "Kitchen Tom" and "That Lindy Hop," but it's his performance of a turn-of-the-century hit, "He's a Cousin of Mine," that wins the audience, complete with his hilarious vocal interpretation. Unfortunately, this record, along with the rest of the Eubie Blake Music releases, has been unavailable since shortly after Blake's death on Feb. 12, 1983. ~ Ken Dryden, All Music Guide