Harry Gibson

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Harry "The Hipster" Gibson (June 27, 1915 – May 3, 1991) was a jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter. When performing in a wild, unrestrained style, Gibson portrayed stride piano and boogie woogie.

He began playing stride piano in Harlem in the late 1920s, as the youth Harry Raab, his birth name, was used.

Fats Waller discovered him in 1939 and brought him down to Gibson, where he made a splash and changed his surname to Gibson throughout the 1930s, adding the barrelhouse boogie of the time to his set.

He appeared at jazz clubs on 52nd Street ("Swing Street") in 1939 to 1945, most notably the Three Deuces, managed by Irving Alexander Alexander, and Leon and Eddie Davis' run at Leon Enkin and Eddie Davis. In the film Junior Prom, Harry Gibson sings Keep The Beat, backed by Abe Lyman and his Orchestra.

Early life

Gibson was Jewish. He came from a musical family that owned a piano repair shop. He began playing piano in the Bronx and Harlem as an infant. He appeared in his first professional piano recital at age 13 with his uncle's orchestra. He started playing boogie woogie and speaking in a jive style. When he was a youth, he was allowed into black speakeasies in Harlem to play piano.

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Career

Gibson appeared regularly in Harlem nightclubs in the 1930s, shortly after Prohibition was over. He punctuated his piano stylings with a running line of jive patter, dating back to the late-1930s jazz musician Tempo King's recordings, especially "I'll Sing You a Thousand Love Songs" with its ferocious exclamations. Gibson made King's vocal mannerisms his own after the King's death in 1939.

Gibson used to playing Fats Waller tunes, and when Waller first heard Gibson in Harlem in 1939, he recruited him to be his relief pianist at club dates. Gibson played at Manhattan jazz clubs on 52nd Street ("Swing Street"), most notably the Three Deuces run by Irving Alexander, and Leon Enkin and Eddie Davis' run on Leon and Eddie. During one of his auditions for a nightclub appearance, where he performed piano for a girl singer, he gave his true name, Harry Raab. "I'm calling you two Gibsons" after the club owner insisted on a "showbiz" name, yelling, "I'm calling you two Gibsons!" Harry adopted Gibson as his trade name.

Gibson was known in the 1940s for writing unusual songs that were not popular at the time. He was also known for his distinctive, wild performing style, his energetic and unorthodox piano styles, and his intricate blend of hardcore, brute boogie rhythms with ragtime, stride, and jazz piano styles. He stole the boogie woogie beat of his predecessors, but he made it frantic, similar to 1950s rock and roll. In "Riot in Boogie" and "Barrelhouse Boogie," he shows examples of his wild style. "The Baby and the Puppy" is an example of his eccentric singing style. "I Stay Brown, the Hipster" and "Get Your Juices at the Deuces" were among his songs that he performed.

Gibson recorded often, but there are few graphic representations of his work. He shot three songs in New York for the Sounders film jukeboxes in 1944, and he came to Hollywood in 1946 to appear as himself in the Hollywood film musical Junior Prom. He predates white rock-and-rollers by a decade: the Soundsies he recorded are remarkably similar to Jerry Lee Lewis' raucous piano numbers of the 1950s.

Gibson actually left his ethnicity to embrace black music and culture, as Mezz Mezzrow did. He grew up near Harlem, New York City, and his regular use of black jive talk was not an effect; it was something he learned from his fellow musicians. This is based on his album "I Stay Brown All Year Round." He coined the word hipster between 1939 and 1945, and his stage name was "Harry the Hipster."

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