Hessions Looking for Their Own Place in Jazz History

The day Jim and Martha Hession met legendary pianist-composer Eubie Blake was one of the most fortunate of their career. But their 15-year association with the pioneering jazz pianist, who died in 1983 at age 100, also has its downside.

“When people hear you worked with Eubie Blake, they think that you’re going to sound like a turn-of-the-century ragtime band,” vocalist Martha said in a three-way phone conversation with her pianist husband from their Glendale home. “And that’s hurt us in the jazz world.”

“Well, yes, we can do that (style),” she added. “Jim can play Eubie Blake. . . . But Jim’s style is modern, contemporary and post be-bop oriented, different than anybody else because Jim has that strong left hand that stride and ragtime players had. But we have trouble getting the jazz world to listen because they want to pigeonhole the thing.”

Actually, the Hessions pursue dual careers: They are jazz artists as well as jazz historians. They do informative college concerts and clinics exploring jazz and pop styles from the turn of the century and into the ‘40s. They do some as a duo, some with their band and often with tap dancer Chester Whitmore of the Los Angeles-based Black Ballet Jazz dance ensemble.

“Martha does all the vocal styles,” Jim explained. “I do ragtime and stride and boogie-woogie. Chester does the cake walk and the Charleston.”

But they also pursue their own, more contemporary direction with their group, the American Jazz Quintet. Blake, as it turns out, heavily influenced the Hessions in both their roles.

The couple met him at a Los Angeles party in 1968. “Sometime during the party, Jim sat down at the piano and Eubie latched on to him,” Martha said. “By the end of the evening, Eubie had asked Jim to record with him.”

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The most important thing Blake taught them, according to Martha, was how to enjoin the audience. “He showed us how to entertain at the same time you keep your musical integrity at a high level--how to appeal to an audience that’s knowledgeable about jazz and to one that’s never heard it in their lives. He taught us how to use our chops to create that spontaneous joy that envelopes the audience.”

The Hessions want to make sure that their friend’s legacy lives on. To that end they are working with producer-director Donjean Gardner on a documentary on the legendary composer-pianist entitled, “Eubie Blake: In His Own Words.” It is based on the Hessions’ collection of Blake memorabilia and correspondence.

“Eubie was like an advance man for various types of music,” said Jim, who cites Blake’s influence on pianists ranging from Fats Waller to Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner and Thelonious Monk. Blake was not, both Hessions emphasize, strictly a ragtime player.

“Eubie hated the label,” Martha said.