Jazz is now over 100 years old
There are many histories that have occurred
starting in America and then spreading
across the globe and spawning other
trees of the jazz history, you know, and
but one of the main roots is James Reese Europe
but it's not a figure that is
taught in music conservatories worldwide
right, somehow he's a forgotten character
James Reese Europe is a composer, innovator,
um
and he was writing, you know, popular songs
for lots of people at the turn of the 20th Century
and achieving a lot of fame,
you know,
He's performed at Carnegie Hall with a hundred musicians
you know, in like, 1911 or 1912
he's, like, far beyond everybody but he's
also kind of like, leading the charge,
so James Reese Europe is kind of a fearless innovator
This project is about reflection,
and it's about, um, also casting a
light on a figure that meant so much to
the people who then got a lot of recognition,
and somehow James Reese Europe is a name
very rarely spoken of, but
tremendous in nature for what he brought
to jazz and the future of jazz
The aim of the concert is to
blend these places together,
right, and to make us
know when we're hearing something from
1916 or 1915, and to know when we're
hearing something from today
It's about a mourning for a fallen hero, right,
but it's also a celebration
of that music too,
because much of what he did was
celebratory music,
he was able to really like,
like lift people's spirits when they
heard it, like, people lost their minds
you know, when they heard that music
There's something that happens with jazz history
and the rewriting of jazz history,
that I wanted to make sure that I wasn't a part of
And people signing up to go fight
and bring music, you know, from Harlem
you know, and originating in Harlem
seems like it's the kind of
cultural relationship I should have
Figures like Europe need to have their
names said frequently,
so there isn't a, you know, a forgetting
um
a kind of wiping away, you know
I mean history, of course, fades things over time
but somehow Beethoven doesn't fade, right?
Somehow Bach doesn't fade
They have great publicists
so right now, I'm being a James Reese Europe publicist
It's a diving into the history of his music and
what it meant a hundred years ago, during World War I
what it meant for African-American soldiers to fight
on the side of the French
what it meant to integrate the army, you know, racially
what it meant to fight for a country
that did not necessarily give
the soldiers their rights,
You know, this is about all that complexity
of what World War I offers,
but for African-Americans, it's a, it's quite a potent step
and the Harlem Hellfighters and James Reese Europe
show up on the shores to fight,
but they also bring this music with them,
that goes on to transform the sound of
music, the history of them, and, to say the
name James Reese Europe a hundred years later
is really powerful