Noble Sissle

Noble Sissle ranked among the foremost jazz composers and orchestra leaders during the formative era of American popular song and stage entertainment. He began professionally as a vaudeville vocalist, yet his songwriting ability eventually steered him to Broadway. There he formed a partnership with Eubie Blake that produced a decisive breakthrough. Before their arrival, Black performers rarely secured a foothold on the Great White Way, but the 1921 production Shuffle Along reversed that pattern. Headlined by Florence Mills, the show introduced three lasting numbers—“In Honeysuckle Time,” “Love Will Find a Way,” and the enormous success “I’m Just Wild About Harry.” In Shuffle Along and its successor The Chocolate Dandies, the team supplied songs, dances, and sketches that reflected the rising sounds of ragtime and jazz, whereas most other all-Black Broadway revues continued to ignore those developments.

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1889 to a Methodist Episcopal minister and a schoolteacher, Sissle attended DePauw University and Butler before devoting himself to music. By 1915 he was working in Baltimore with Eubie Blake, an ensemble that also featured stride pianist Luckey Roberts at times. Their first hit, “It’s All Your Fault,” was introduced by Sophie Tucker. Between 1916 and 1919 Sissle performed and toured with James Europe, remaining with the bandleader until Europe’s death.

Sissle and Blake co-wrote and produced both Shuffle Along and The Chocolate Dandies. Shuffle Along opened on Broadway in 1921, completed more than 500 performances—an exceptional run for the period—and helped launch the careers of Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Adelaide Hall, and Florence Mills. Three years later the partners mounted the lavish The Chocolate Dandies, which gave Josephine Baker a starring role.

Outside the theater, Sissle recorded more than thirty vocals in the early and mid-1920s, frequently accompanied by Blake. The pair also appeared in pioneering sound-film shorts that rank among the earliest jazz performances preserved on screen. Sissle led several bands and traveled to Europe repeatedly; his constant touring eventually ended the partnership with Blake, who preferred to remain in the United States. His circle included Cole Porter and Fred Waring, and in 1930 the Prince of Wales sat in as guest drummer at one of his concerts. After returning to America, Sissle was featured on a 1931 broadcast from the Park Central Hotel, thereby breaking the establishment’s color barrier. In the mid-1930s Lena Horne sang with his orchestra, which also included Buster Bailey, Tommy Ladnier, and Sidney Bechet. From 1938 to 1950 the band served as the featured attraction at Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe club, aside from wartime USO tours. In 1950 Sissle succeeded Bill “Bojangles” Robinson as honorary mayor of Harlem, and in 1953 he performed at Eisenhower’s inaugural. He became WMGM’s first Black disc jockey in 1960, operated his own publishing company, and owned a nightclub. Repeated muggings prompted him to close the club and retire to Florida to be near his son. The 1973 volume Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake recounted his wide-ranging career. Sissle’s compositions continue to appear on anthologies devoted to early stage, revue, and popular music.