Theater: Hot Feet, Vamps and Ragmatazz

EUBIE!

Music by Eubie Blake

The opening-night curtain call at Eubie! would certainly have astonished the patrons of Miss Aggie's bawdyhouse in Baltimore, where James Hubert Blake played ragtime piano at the turn of the century. Thin as a blade, remarkably spry and mentally trigger-quick, Eubie confounds his 95 years. At Broadway's Ambassador Theater he mounted the stage, accepted a single rose in tribute, engaged in amiable banter and joined cast and audience alike as they roared out their affection by paraphrasing his biggest hit: "I'm just wild about Eubie."

Had the score been published when it was originally composed, people might first have...

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