musician; bandleader; music director; composer; union organizer; soldier
Personal Information
Born William James Reese Europe, February 22, 1880, in Mobile, AL; died as a result of stab wounds, Boston, MA, 1919; son of Henry J. (a reporter, barber, teacher, and postal worker) and Lorraine Europe; married Willie Angrom Stark; children: (with dancer Bessie Simms), James Europe, Jr.
Career
Became professional musician, New York City, c. 1899; became musical director, 1904; joined Memphis Students orchestra, 1905; served as musical director for The Shoo-Fly Regiment, 1906-1907, and Black Politician, 1907-1908; organized and elected first president of musicians union the Clef Club, 1910; directed Clef Club orchestra at Carnegie Hall, 1912; musical director and composer for dance team Irene and Vernon Castle, 1913-1915; recorded for Victor record label, 1913; founded Tempo Club orchestra, 1914; joined New York National Guard, 1916; served in 369th Infantry in France, 1918-1919; recorded for Pathe label and toured with 369th Infantry band, 1919.
Life's Work
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, James Reese Europe emerged as the most renowned African American bandleader of New York's entertainment world. Famed for his syncopated orchestral accompaniment of the dancing team of Irene and Vernon Castle, Europe became a major figure in promoting the popularity of social dancing and engendered a ragtime-based music that contributed to the emergence of jazz. During World War I, his 369th Infantry band was hailed by French and American troops as the finest ensemble in the Allied Army. A founding member of the black musicians union the Clef Club, Europe became a major force in refining and bolstering the image of African American musicians. As legendary ragtime pianist Eubie Blake stated in the biography Eubie Blake, "To colored musicians he was as important--he did as much for them as [civil rights leader] Martin Luther King."
James Reese Europe was born on February 22, 1880, in Mobile, Alabama. His father, Henry J. Europe, worked as a news reporter, barber, and teacher and subsequently acquired a position with the Mobile Post Office. When Europe was nine years old, Europe's father accepted a job with the National Postal Service, and in 1899 he moved his family to Washington, DC. Europe received formal piano instruction from his mother, Lorraine, and studied his father's improvisational skills on fiddle and banjo. In 1891 famed bandmaster John Phillip Sousa moved near the Europe home. Sousa's musicians often gave instruction to promising young African American children. One of the selected students, Europe received violin instruction from Sousa's band director, Enrico Hurlei.
At Washington's respected M. Street High School, Europe joined the school drill company and served as the corps color sergeant. As Reid Badger pointed out in A Life in Ragtime, "Europe's cadet training would later prove useful when he sought to organize the 15th New York Infantry regiment in World War I." After school the young man helped organize church concerts at Lincoln Memorial Church and presented violin recitals with his sister, Mary.
When his father died, 19-year-old Europe sought to support the family by becoming a professional musician. He left home to join his brother, John, a successful cabaret pianist, in New York. At first Europe auditioned at clubs on violin, but later, in an effort to accommodate popular taste, he switched to mandolin and piano. Like numerous aspiring African American musicians, composers, and entertainers, he became a fixture at Jimmy Marshall's Hotel on 53rd Street. In an era when black musicians were barred from white unions, Marshall's served as an important meeting place where musicians found work and discussed music. Located in the heart of "Black Bohemia," the Marshall Hotel was, wrote David Levering Lewis in When Harlem Was in Vogue, "two large brownstones, gas-lit, red-plushly overfurnished in the style of the day, an elegant boarding house with just a touch of refined bordello." With the help of the distinguished company at Marshall's, Europe secured private jobs at parties, which introduced him to the financial elite of eastern white society.
Europe's first theater engagement came in 1904 when he directed the musical farce Trip to Africa--an experience that opened new horizons for Europe, who, over the next six years, devoted himself to the development of black musical theater. In 1905 he joined the 20-member orchestra of Ernest Hogan's song-and-dance troupe, the Memphis Students--the ensemble's name was a reference to the famous Fisk Jubilee Singers, who hailed from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Featuring Europe and the talented singer Abbie Mitchell, the Memphis Students found great success at Hammerstein's Roof Garden at Broadway and 42nd Street. During this long-running engagement, Europe led an orchestra consisting of mandolins, harp guitars, banjos, a saxophone, and drums.
Though Europe continued to perform with the Memphis Students, he became active in a number of other black musical productions. Between 1906 and 1907, he served as music director of Bob Cole and Rosamond Johnson's three-act comedy The Shoo-Fly Regiment, and in 1907 and 1908, he provided this service for S. H. Dudley and Steven B. Cassin's production The Black Politician. In 1908 Europe was invited to become a charter member of the "Frogs," an 11-member club dedicated to promoting the Negro theatrical profession and its image as a serious art form. That year he also spent a great deal of time preparing the orchestra and cast for the debut of Cole and Johnson's comedy production Red Moon. Following the show's successful eastern and midwestern tours, it had a week-long engagement at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway.
In 1910 Europe gave up his musical duties to help found the Clef Club, a black musicians union. Elected as the organization's first president, Europe sought to achieve higher musical standards, equitable salaries, and better treatment from white employers. Europe upheld a strict dress code, stipulating that musicians wear tuxedos on jobs booked in advance and suit and bow ties for pick-up dates. Located across the street from the Marshall Hotel, the Clef Club became a central booking agency, concert hall, and musician meeting place. As Eileen Southern pointed out in The Music of Black Americans, the Clef Club "boasted that it could furnish a dance orchestra of from three to thirty men upon request at any time, day or night." Unlike other elite African American musical associations, the club accepted both reading musicians--mostly trained on violin, cello, viola, and double bass--and non-reading instrumentalists who played banjos, mandolins, bandoris, and harp guitars.
Under Europe's direction, the club's initial 100-man orchestra took the name the Clef Club Symphony Orchestra. It was an unconventional aggregation that consisted of mandolins in place of first and second violins. Its also featured violins, banjos, harp guitars, cellos, trap drums, and timpani. Not long after its formation, the group expanded to include an organ, two flutes, two clarinets, and ten pianos. In Jazz to Swing, Thomas J. Hennessey explained Europe's demand that musicians play only the written score, writing, "while Europe saw some distinct musical characteristics, particularly in rhythm, he stressed the written arrangement and exact performance over spontaneous improvisation." His repertoire included marches, rags, vaudeville numbers, minstrel tunes, operatic medleys, and popular songs. When not composing and organizing music for the orchestra's next performance, Europe involved himself in community work and appeared as a guest director for various black bands.
On May 2, 1912, Europe and the Clef Club Orchestra appeared at Carnegie Hall, marking the first time an African American ensemble had performed at the famous concert hall. In A Life in Ragtime Reid stressed the importance of the Carnegie Hall concert for Europe, and how "unlike the earlier club concerts, there would be no lengthy vaudeville or minstrel program, nor any all-night dance to accompany the orchestral performance." Always concerned with maintaining a proper image, Europe broadened the musical scope of the program, offering a dignified repertoire of secular and religious, traditional and modern, and vocal and instrumental performances. Jammed to capacity, black and white concertgoers sat together in the hall, their thundering applause hailing the syncopated music of Europe's 125-man orchestra. The success of the Carnegie Hall concert brought prestige to African American musicians who found new employment opportunities at elite white hotels and private parties in the U.S. and Europe.
Following a successful second Carnegie Hall concert and a triumphant eastern tour with the Clef Club Orchestra in 1913, Europe joined forces with the internationally acclaimed ballroom dance team of Irene and Vernon Castle. Restricted by the non-ragtime rhythms of white ballroom orchestras, which failed to offer the syncopation required for their modern dance numbers, the Castles, on hearing Europe's ensemble, were immediately drawn to the proficiency and unique sound of the group's instrumentation. Hired by the Castles, Europe provided them with accompaniment that took the New York social world by storm. As Hennessey noted in From Jazz to Swing, "While black musicians had played for white dancers before this, the enormous visibility of the Castles and Europe had a profound impact on the opportunities for black musicians, opening doors perhaps more directly than Teddy Wilson's appearance with [swing bandleader] Benny Goodman."
When the Castles and their wealthy benefactors opened a dance school, the Castle House, Europe's Society Orchestra became the in-house accompaniment. "At swank Castle House," wrote David Levering Lewis in When Harlem Was in Vogue, "long lines of young and old, rich and struggling filed through to be served tea by a socialite, to bunny hug or camel walk to Europe's music, to watch the Castles trot and, with luck, even dance with them--all for two dollars." Months later, when the Castles opened the Sans Souci, a short-lived nightclub on 42nd Street, Europe provided music for that establishment as well.
On December 29, 1913, Europe and his orchestra began a series of recordings for Victor records, marking the first time in history that a major record label had secured a contract with an African American musician and an all-black orchestra. The Victor sides, as Hennessey explained, "are a valid sample of tangos and fox trots that Europe played. The sound is clearly stiff instrumental ragtime," adhering to the written score and featuring two violins, cornet, clarinet, trombone, piano, five banjo-mandolins, cello, string bass, and drums. Apart from recordings, Europe gained further popularity when the Castles, against the opposition of the city's white musicians union, brought his orchestra to Broadway to play at Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre.
Soon Europe became one of the hardest-working musicians in New York City. Resigning from the Clef Club, he established his own organization, the Tempo Club. In April 1914, he embarked on "The Castle Whirlwind Tour," which took his orchestra on a four-week, 30- city engagement that traveled as far west as Omaha, Nebraska, and as far north as Toronto, Canada. With his baton swinging, tall and dignified Jim Europe received widespread praise for the sophistication of his 200-man orchestra. The acclaimed tour culminated with a dance held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. As music and cultural historians have noted, the tour not only contributed to the national dance craze, it directly led to the development of the trap drum set as an integral part of the black dance orchestra; until then, the drum kit had been a novelty item of vaudeville theater.
Over the next two years, Europe continued to perform with the Castles and made numerous appearances with his Tempo Club Orchestra. Because of the popularity of Europe's orchestras, he eventually pressured New York's white-led American Federation of Labor (AFL) musicians union to accept black members. Though this triumphant step did not end the practice of unequal pay and working conditions for blacks, it did offer greater work opportunities to African American musicians, who were becoming in great demand around the city.
By the summer of 1915, at least 15 Europe-organized bands were performing at theaters and private parties on the East Coast. Among those working with Europe were Noble Sissle and ragtime pianist Eubie Blake, who described the famed bandleader, as quoted in Reid's A Life in Ragtime, as an adept businessman and "a master thinker." The vogue of African American theater, however, would soon fall into quick decline. In 1916, as World War I raged in Europe and motion pictures drew crowds away from concert stages, many black musicians found themselves out of work.
On September 18, 1916, Europe joined the newly formed 15th Infantry (Colored) of the New York National Guard. Assigned as a private to a machine gun company, Europe did not join the army with the intention of becoming a military musician; rather, he believed that the establishment of an African American military unit in Harlem would inspire greater civic pride among blacks. Commissioned a machine gun regiment lieutenant, he was asked, in the spring of 1916, to join the regimental band. He initially declined, explaining that his duties at the Tempo Club afforded him little time for such a venture. But a few months later, realizing the positive image that could be promoted by such a unit, he joined the band as a sergeant (at this time no officers were commissioned in army bands).
Over the next months, Europe joined the regiment's musicians, such as former musical associate Noble Sissle, in recruiting bandmembers. In 1917 he traveled to San Juan, Puerto Rico, in search of reed players. Returning to New York with new recruits, he joined the 15th, which embarked for field training near Poughkeepsie, New York. Europe joined the 3rd Battalion at Camp Wadsworth in South Carolina following a period of training and band rehearsal at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
On New Year's Day 1918, Europe stepped off a troop ship onto French soil at the port city of Brest, where, in the midst of cheering crowds, he led the band in the playing of the French national anthem, the "Marseilles." For the next few months, the band toured throughout France, performing for crowds of enthusiastic soldiers, school children, and townspeople. Due to the American military's racial policies prohibiting the mixing of black and white troops, the 15th New York became incorporated into the U.S. Army 369th Infantry and was subsequently assigned to the French Army's 16th Division. To take charge of his machine gun company, Europe left the regiment band under the leadership of bandmaster Eugene Francis Mikell. On the front lines in the Argonne Forest, Lieutenant Europe became the first African American officer to lead black troops into combat. On one occasion, armed with a pistol, he went on a night patrol in no-man's- land, crawling on his hands and knees as the shells of enemy guns burst overhead.
Europe was sent to Paris for rehabilitation after a German poison gas attack. Returned to his band, he led the ensemble for a triumphant performance at the Theatre Champs-Elysees. In his recollection of the band's appearance at the internationally renowned theater, Europe stated, as quoted in Readings in Black American Music, "Before we played two numbers the audience went wild. We had conquered Paris." The band appeared at hospitals and various gatherings during its eight-week stint in the French capital. Though they played written arrangements, the band's use of blue notes, slurs, and unorthodox horn-tonguing techniques brought them praise from member of Allied bands and the French people, who, as Reid suggested in A Life in Ragtime, were treated to "a primitive sort of big band jazz."
On February 17, 1919, the highly decorated 15th Regiment of the New York National Guard was welcomed home by thousands who turned out to watch it march up Fifth Avenue. Marching in the closed-shoulder-ranks style of the French Army, the unit proceeded west on 110th Street, and then turned north to Harlem. A member of the 369th, Captain Arthur Little recalled the parade, as quoted in The Black Soldier: "I marched at the head of the 1st Battalion--about 60 paces from Jim Europe's band of 60 pieces of brass and reed, and a field section of 30 trumpets and drums. During the entire progress of the seven-mile march, I scarcely heard ten consecutive bars of music. So great were the roars of cheers, the applause, and the shouts of personal greetings."
Back in New York, Europe toured with his military band and made plans to create a Negro symphony orchestra. He stated, as quoted in The Music of Black Americans, "I have come back from France more firmly convinced than ever that negroes should write negro music. We have our own racial feeling and if we try to copy whites we will make bad copies.... We won France by playing music which was ours and not a pale imitation of others, and if we are to develop in America we must develop along our own lines." But Europe's vision of an all-black symphony was abruptly extinguished on May 19, 1919, when, inexplicably, he was stabbed to death by his 16-year-old snare drummer, Herbert Wright, in the dressing room of Boston's Mechanic Hall.
Despite his untimely death, Europe's commitment to the creation of a unique African American music would ultimately emerge in a new form known as jazz. His contributions to musical theater and African American society-band music would live on in the work of such greats as William Marion Cooke, Noble Sissle, and William Grant Still, and in the sophisticated jazz dance bands of the 1920s and 1930s. His intelligence and professionalism helped break down racial barriers, which enabled thousands of black musicians to attain work in ballrooms throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Works
Compositions
- "My Heart Goes Bumping and Thumping for You," 1904.
- "Obadiah (You Took Advantage of Me)," Gotham Music, 1905.
- "When I Rule the Town" (from the play the Black Politician), 1907.
- "I Ain't Had No Loving in a Long Time" (music by Europe; from the play Red Moon), 1908.
- "Clef Club March," 1910.
- "Castle House Rag," 1914.
- "Castle Lame Duck Waltz," 1914.
- "Castle Walk," 1914.
- "Fox Trot," 1914.
- "Hilo; Hawaiian Waltz," 1916.
- "I've the Lovin'es Love for You" (with Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake), 1918.
- "Jazz Baby," 1919.
- "On Patrol in No Man's Land" (with Sissle and Blake), 1919.
- "All of No Man's Land Is Ours," 1919.
Further Reading
Sources
- David, Jay, and Elaine Crane, The Black Soldier: From the Revolution to Vietnam, William Morrow, 1971.
- Hennessey, Thomas J., From Jazz to Swing: African-American Musicians and Their Music 1890-1935, Wayne State University Press, 1994.
- Lewis, David Levering, When Harlem Was in Vogue, Oxford University Press, 1989.
- Readings in Black Music, compiled and edited by Eileen Southern, W.W.
- Norton, 1971.
- Reid, Badger, A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe, Oxford University Press, 1995.
- Rose, Al, Eubie Blake, Schirmer Books, 1979.
- Southern, Eileen, The Music of Black Americans, W.W. Norton, 1971.
— John Cohassey
