A Short History of Europe

Here's a short, Ken Burns-style documentary on the life, combat service, and legacy of American musician and jazz composer James Reese Europe.  

Born in Mobile, Alabama 15 years after Appomattox, Europe took idiomatically pure African-American music to Carnegie Hall and inspired a generation’s worth of artists to challenge any and all racial barriers in their way. In 1918, he gave up an ever-burgeoning career to created World War I’s African-American 369th regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. The regiment helped popularize jazz throughout France, although he died a year later, stabbed by an unstable band member after a concert in Boston.

Composer and pianist Jason Moran, artistic director of the Kennedy Center Jazz program and a MacArthur fellow, recently turned his attention to James Reese Europe and the Harlem Hellfighters. Moran emerged from the ranks of young New York musicians in the late ’90s with his trio Bandwagon. His willingness to turn jazz inside out was demonstrated by several ambitious projects, such as a reimagining of Thelonious Monk’s 1959 Town Hall concerts, a tribute to Harlem stride master Fats Waller, a ballet, a Ta-Nehisi Coates score, and multiple commissions with classical ensembles.  

We saw Moran in 2017 at the Big Ears festival in Knoxville performing a set of duets with iconoclastic drummer Milford Graves.  Moran will be returning to Big Ears this year to present the music of the Harlem Hellfighters.