Selena Gomez Has a Promising Career and a Hot New Album

07 October 2010

An art exhibit at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center in Baltimore

BARBARA KLEIN: Welcome to American Mosaic in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I’m Barbara Klein.

Today, we play music from the new hit album by singer/actress Selena Gomez…

And answer a question about the beautiful Florida city of Key West…

But first we remember jazz great Eubie Blake and learn about a cultural center named in his honor.

Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center

(MUSIC: “Charleston Rag”)

BARBARA KLEIN:The Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center is in Baltimore, Maryland. It is named after one of the most important African American jazz and ragtime musicians of the twentieth century. Before his death in nineteen eighty-three, Eubie Blake was believed to be the only musician still living who had played ragtime music. Mario Ritter has more.

MARIO RITTER: Eubie Blake was born James Hubert Blake in Baltimore in eighteen eighty-seven. He began playing piano when he was about five years old. He was playing professionally by the age of sixteen. In nineteen twenty-one, he and Noble Sissle wrote the musical play “Shuffle Along.” It was the first Broadway musical written, produced and performed by all African Americans.