Eubie Blake

An exhibit of inmate art is scheduled to go on display with a reception June 16 at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, 847 N. Howard St. Inmates in Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services facilities have produced more than 100 pieces for the exhibit. The art will be for sale at the cultural center from June 17 to June 30. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Jazz, poetry and more Unleashed: Chezia Thompson Cager Meets KRE brings together Cager, the Kevin Robinson Jazz Ensemble and the Fire Poets for a free program at 6 p.m. at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, 847 N. Howard St. Call 410-225-3130.

The city is seeking to privatize, or find another organization to assume responsibility for, the Eubie Blake Cultural Center, a multipurpose arts facility at 409 N. Charles St.Dorothy Jordan, director of public information for the Urban Services Agency, which runs the center, said yesterday that talks have begun with Coppin State College about taking over the center. "But no decisions have been made," she said.The center could also move to the Brokerage, near the Inner Harbor inwhich the city plans to open a children's museum.

"All this is in Baltimore," the recorded voice of the late Eubie Blake proclaims in Olney Theatre Center's Eubie! Excerpted from a vintage interview with the Baltimore-born ragtime composer and performer, the line is one of the production's many pieces of historical documentation - including projected photos and sheet music, as well as a lobby exhibit featuring the figure of Blake, seated at a piano, from Baltimore's National Great Blacks in Wax Museum....

Mission: To provide instruction in the visual and performing arts, including dance, voice, piano, theater, and arts and crafts; to provide space for local and traveling exhibits that are of interest to the community; to serve as the home of the Eubie Blake Museum - a repository of memorabilia of the ragtime and musical theater composer and other jazz greats born in Baltimore, including Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, Chick Webb and Avon Long; and to preserve...

Norman E. Ross envisions a future when the Eubie Blak National Museum and Cultural Center occupies a prominent corner of the Brokerage marketplace center. The museum would have its own cafe, featuring live performances by jazz and classical performers. And it would have the most extensive standing exhibit on jazz performers this side of New Orleans.Mr. Ross, the founder and curator of the 15-year-old institution, envisions a place that would be a cultural center in the purest sense of the word -- showcasing performing arts, as well as the visual.

"All this is in Baltimore," the recorded voice of the late Eubie Blake proclaims in Olney Theatre Center's Eubie! Excerpted from a vintage interview with the Baltimore-born ragtime composer and performer, the line is one of the production's many pieces of historical documentation - including projected photos and sheet music, as well as a lobby exhibit featuring the figure of Blake, seated at a piano, from Baltimore's National Great Blacks in Wax Museum....

Maryland National Bank has joined forces with Maryland Housing Research Corp. to build West Baltimore's newest affordable housing development, Eubie Blake Place.Named in honor of the Baltimore-born ragtime composer, the $3.6 million development will include a mixture of new and renovated homes that will range in price from $45,000 to $55,000.Construction began last month in the 1500 block of W. Lexington St., part of the Franklin Square neighborhood. Residences will also be built in the 1600 and 1700 blocks of W. Lexington St. and the 100 and 200 blocks of N. Gilmor St.Maryland National agreed to provide $1.9 million for construction financing, with participation from Baltimore's Community Development Financing Corp.

EUBIE BLAKE CULTURAL CENTER409 N. Charles St. "Local Color and Other Colors."Claire Freeman, a prize-winning Maryland folk artist whose career didn't begin until she turned 50, has 35 of her paintings on display (through July 30) in this show that opens with a reception today from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Described by critics and artists as a true primitive painter with a style all her own, Ms. Freeman has never had any formal art training. Among the works featured here is "A Photo Finish," which will be donated to the planned American Museum of American Visionary Art; she won the juried grand prize "Governor's Award" in 1984 for this work.

A late morning fire shut down the Eubie Blake Cultural Center on North Charles Street and injured five city firefighters yesterday.The fire started in a second-floor dressing room of the building just after 11 a.m. yesterday, said Capt. Hector Torres, a Baltimore Fire Department spokesman.Captain Torres said three firefighters were trapped briefly after entering the building through a third-floor window and had to escape through the window.Two of the firefighters, Lt. William Hughes and John Buckingham, were treated at the scene for heat exhaustion.

This ragtime legend died 24 years ago, but thanks to a cast of raconteurs, he and his story will live on. On Wednesday, Olney Theatre Center starts celebrating the career of James Hubert "Eubie" Blake, a ragtime composer and performer. Broadway veteran Tony Parise directs and choreographs Eubie! - an adaptation of the 1978 musical revue. His intentions were to re-create the production with a modern twist for today's audiences. "It deserves to be heard by a new audience and a new generation," he said.

You might say that the musical Bricktop was born in a trunk. The trunk had belonged to an African-American singer named Ada "Bricktop" Smith and was purchased a few years ago by the library at Atlanta's Emory University, which is where native Baltimore playwright Calvin A. Ramsey saw it. Ramsey had never heard of the singer, but when he started going through her trunk, he says, "I saw all these telegrams from Cole Porter, letters from Arlene Francis and...

On a recent Saturday morning, a group of 3- and 4-year-old girls stands in first position with their hands resting on the dance bar at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center in Baltimore. Instructor Sharayna Christmas, 25, stands across the room, her fingers poised on the play button of her boom box. She presses the button and Stevie Wonder sings "As." The girls sing along with the music, all the while making a circle with their arms over their heads. "You can rest your mind assure," Wonder sings, and they clasp their hands together and rest them under their cheeks.

`Real City, Dream City' Nonprofit organization Art on Purpose's latest project is a collection of postcards created by city residents in a number of neighborhoods. Young and old Baltimoreans took photographs of their neighborhoods and selected some of the images to be made into postcards. Some of the cards will be on display starting today at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center as part of the project Real City, Dream City. Real City, Dream City I opens today and runs through Oct. 28 at the Eubie Blake Center.

VISITING ARTIST'S LECTURE Vincent Desiderio is the featured speaker at this year's Eugene Leake Visiting Artist's Lecture Monday at the Johns Hopkins University. His lecture will include a digital display of his paintings from 1977 to 2006. The presentation, titled "Aspects of Narrativity," will detail ways that Desiderio's personal experiences, specifically the upbringing of his disabled son, have influenced the ideas and emotions conveyed in his paintings. ....................... The lecture is Monday at 5:30 p.m. in room 101 of the F. Ross Jones Building, Mattin Center, on the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles St. For details, call 410-516-6705.

Photos capture cost of prison The lowdown -- America incarcerates a larger percentage of its citizens that any other country -- and we pay a steep price for it. Photographer Andrew Lichtenstein's totes up the harrowing toll in an exhibition at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center that takes a hard look at the prospects of men who leave prison with little more than a bus ticket. If you go -- The True Cost of Prison opens today and runs through Nov. 5. The Eubie Blake center is at 847 N. Howard St. Admission is free.

The telephone number given in Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section for the July 28 audition for "Pledge of Allegiance" was incorrect. The number to call is 467-1324.The Sun regrets the error."I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America," the acclaimed exhibit by prize-winning photographer Brian Lanker, will open Sept. 5 at the Eubie Blake National Museum and Cultural Center.Norman Ross, coordinator of the center at 409 N. Charles St., says the exhibit of 75 photos of prominent black women in all fields is "by far" the most important the center has had in its 13-year history.

EUBIE BLAKE, Cab Calloway, Chick Webb. They and countless other Baltimore jazz greats will be honored at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, which dedicates its new home on Howard St. this weekend. Friday's grand opening and Sunday's family day highlight the new possibilities of the Eubie Blake center, which has been leading a vagabond existence ever since a fire in 1993 forced it out of its previous home. With 21,000 square feet in a building that once was part of the Maryland General Hospital, the Eubie Blake center will finally have room to thrive and grow.

An exhibit of inmate art is scheduled to go on display with a reception June 16 at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, 847 N. Howard St. Inmates in Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services facilities have produced more than 100 pieces for the exhibit. The art will be for sale at the cultural center from June 17 to June 30. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.