Remembering the great composer/songwriter Harold Arlen on the day of his death 25 years ago.

Born Hyman Arluck in 1905, Arlen’s twin brother died in childbirth. His father was a cantor in Buffalo, N.Y., but Arlen’s musical interests ran more to new-fangled jazz than traditional religious. He began his career as Hyman Arluck, changed to Harold Arluck and then to Harold Arlen.

His songs included Get Happy, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,  It’s Only a Paper Moon, Stormy Weather, Let’s Fall in Love, Blues in the Night, That Old Black Magic and the soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz, including the song voted the best of the 20th century, Somewhere Over the Rainbow (early in his career Arlen lived with Ray Bolger, who played The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz).

His writing partners included Johnny Mercer, Truman Capote, E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, Ira Gershwin and Ted Koehler; his music has been the subject of albums from vocalist Ella Fitzgerald to pianists Oscar Peterson and  Kenny Drew.

Arlen perhaps wasn’t as famous as his music. The website Haroldarlen.com tells the anecdote of Arlen riding with a cabby who happily whistled Arlen’s composition Stormy Weather. When Arlen asked him if he knew who wrote it, the cabby confidently guessed Irving Berlin, then Cole Porter. When told it was written by his fare, Harold Arlen, the cabby said: “Who?”

Arlen’s interest waned after the death of his wife, Anya, in 1970. He was 81 when he died in 1986 at his New York apartment.

Harry Belafonte, from Haroldarlen.com: “I consider Harold Arlen one of the three great geniuses of American music — the other two, George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein . . .”

Source: Haroldarlen.com, from the book Harold Arlen: Happy With the Blues by Edward Jablonski

Remembering Eubie Blake on the anniversary of his death in 1983.

Blake’s is a uniquely American story — born to former slaves (the date is disputed; often credited to 1883, official records indicate 1887), he became an American icon. He lived long enough and composed well enough to be honored with a musical on Broadway and his picture on a 32-cent stamp (it was 1995).

Blake started playing ragtime in a bordello in Baltimore as a teen, he ended as a frequent guest of late-night television and Saturday Night Live.  A step down in class, perhaps.

Said Blake: “I made more money in one night (in the bordello) than my father made in a week working as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks. I hid my earnings under the linoleum in the parlor. Finally, when the pile got too high, I showed them the money. It was several hundred dollars. They no longer insisted I only play religious music.”

In 1915 he teamed with Nobel Sissle in vaudeville; soon they broke racial barriers on Broadway. Their 1921 musical Shuffle Along was the first big hit by and about African-Americans, and helped the careers of Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson, among others.

Among Blake’s compositions: I’m Just Wild About Harry, Charleston Rag, originally titled Sounds of Africa (link above played by Blake at age 98 or 94), You Were Meant for Me and Memories of You.

In 1946, Blake ceased entertaining — like Brett Favre, his retirement didn’t last — and enrolled in NYU. He graduated within three years.

In 1969, his days of fame largely past, he recorded The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake, and was introduced to a new generation. A  Blake revival began; in 1981 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Said Blake, a notorious cigarette smoker: “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”

He died in 1983, five days after his birthday — his 100th or 96th.

 Blake: “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, ­ 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.”

Remembering Paul Robeson, on the anniversary of his death.  A renaissance man. All-American football player at Rutgers, also the class valedictorian — he was the only black in the Class of 1919. Played football professionally to support himself while at Columbia Law School, from which he graduated in 1923, with classmate William Douglas, future Supreme Court justice. Actor, singer, activist (his father was an escaped slave who graduated from college). Played Othello on stage, also starred in film. Supported the Spanish Republicans; his support of the Soviet Union was misguided, but his insistence on civil rights for blacks in America, of course, was not. His passport was revoked in 1950 — the State Department resented his criticisms of the treatment of American blacks while overseas. NBC, among others, blackballed him. Invoked the fifth amendment when called to testify before the House un-American Activities Committee. Before he did, he answered a Congressman who suggested Robeson stay in the Soviet Union if he liked it so much: ”Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part just like you.” Immensely popular in Europe, but lived the last decade of his life in the States mostly in solitude. Died in 1976 at age 77. More than 2,000 mourners packed a Harlem church, and many more stood outside, listening to loudspeakers.