Sissle and Blake: Shuffle Along
Series: American Music Publisher: A-R Editions, American Musicological Society
Shuffle Along
Edited by Lyn Schenbeck, Lawrence Schenbeck
MU29/A085 Sissle and Blake: Shuffle Along
978-1-9872-0028-7
Full Score (2018)
9x12, lxxxix + 533 pp.
$320.00
SKU
MU29/A085
Performance Parts (Available Separately)
MU29P/A085P
Keyboard-Vocal Score (2020)
iv + 168 pp.
$120.00
MU29R/A085R
Rental Parts (2021)
Set of 23 parts: 1110 0210 timp./bells, drum set, piano 33221 errata
The Broadway musical Shuffle Along—with book by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, lyrics by Noble Sissle, and music by Eubie Blake—premiered on 23 May 1921 at the Cort Theatre on 63rd Street and became the first overwhelmingly successful African American musical on Broadway. Langston Hughes, who saw the production, said that Shuffle Along marked the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. Both black and white audiences swarmed to the show, which prompted the integration of subsequent Broadway audiences. The dances were such a smash that choreographers for white Broadway shows hired Shuffle Along chorus girls to teach their chorus lines the new steps. “Love Will Find a Way,” the first successful unburlesqued love song in a black Broadway show, was so well-received that audiences demanded multiple encores. The show’s influences went far beyond Broadway: Some of the period’s most influential black musicians, including dancer Josephine Baker, vocalist Paul Robeson, composer Hall Johnson, and composer William Grant Still, all got their start in Shuffle Along. The editors have assembled the full score and libretto for this critical edition from the original performance materials. The critical report thoroughly explains all sources and editorial decisions. The accompanying scholarly essay examines the music, dances, and script of Shuffle Along and places this influential show in its social, racial, and historical context.
Act One
No. 1. Overture (Orchestra)
No. 2. Opening Chorus: “Election Day” (Chorus)
No. 2a. Song, Dance, and Exit of Chorus (Chorus)
No. 3. “I’m Just Simply Full of Jazz” (Miss Ruth Little, Chorus)
No. 4. “Love Will Find a Way” (Jessie Williams, Harry Walton)
No. 5. “Bandana Days” (Uncle Ned, Tom Sharper)
No. 6. “Uncle Tom and Old Black Joe” (Uncle Tom, Old Black Joe)
No. 7. “In Honeysuckle Time” (Tom Sharper)
No. 8. “Gypsy Blues” (Jessie Williams, Miss Ruth Little, Harry Walton)
No. 9. Finale of Act One (Entire Company)
Act Two
No. 10. “Shuffle Along” (Traffic Officer, Chorus)
No. 11. “I’m Just Wild About Harry” (Jessie Williams, Chorus)
No. 12. “Sing Me to Sleep, Dear Mammy” (Harry Walton)
No. 13. “Everything Reminds Me of You” (Harry Walton, Jessie Williams)
No. 14. Selections by the Four Harmony Kings
No. 15. “If You’ve Never Been Vamped by a Brown Skin, You’ve Never Been Vamped at All” (Sam Peck)
No. 16. “Oriental Blues” (Tom Sharper, Chorus)
No. 17. “I’m Craving for That Kind of Love” (Miss Ruth Little)
No. 18. Entrance of Sissle and Blake (Orchestra)
No. 19. A Few Minutes with Sissle and Blake
No. 20. “Baltimore Buzz” (Entire Company)
Appendix: Additional Musical Numbers
No. 14a. “Goodnight, Angeline” (The Four Harmony Kings)
No. 14b. “When the Saints Come Marching In” (The Four Harmony Kings)
No. 16a. “Serenade Blues” (Tom Sharper or Miss Ruth Little)
No. 17a. “Daddy, Won’t You Please Come Home?” (Miss Ruth Little)
No. 19a. “Vision Girl” (Tom Sharper)