Jazz at the Théâtre Graslin: a founding story
Identifieur interne : 002420 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 002419; suivant : 002421Jazz at the Théâtre Graslin: a founding story
Auteurs : Colin NettelbeckSource :
- French cultural studies (Chalfont St. Giles) [ 0957-1558 ] ; 2000-06.
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- African americans, American occupation, American presence, Badger, Black soldiers, Color gentleman, Color line, Early jazz, Emotional enthusiasm, Entertainment value, European edition, February, First world, French army, French audiences, French culture, James reese europe, Jazz phenomenon, Memphis blues, Musical center, Musical history, Musical viewpoint, Nantes, Noble sissle, Populaire, Programme, Same time, Sisley huddleston, Unbroken tradition, University press, York infantry band, York infantry regiment.
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DOI: 10.1177/095715580001103203
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<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Nettelbeck</surname><given-names>Colin</given-names></name><aff>Department of French and Italian Studies, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia</aff></contrib></contrib-group>
<pub-date pub-type="ppub"><month>6</month><year>2000</year></pub-date><volume>11</volume><issue>32</issue><fpage>201</fpage><lpage>217</lpage><custom-meta-wrap><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>sagemeta-type</meta-name><meta-value>Journal Article</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>search-text</meta-name><meta-value>201 Jazz at the Théâtre Graslin: a founding story SAGE Publications, Inc.2000DOI: 10.1177/095715580001103203 Colin Nettelbeck Department of French and Italian Studies, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia The entry of jazz into France cannot be encapsulated into any single moment.' John Philip Sousa took ragtime to the Paris World Fair in 1900, and was also responsible for the cakewalk becoming a European dance fashion as much as an American one.-' But there was a long minstrel show tradition in the nineteenth century, and well before any of the sounds and rhythms of African-American culture had crossed the Atlantic and caught the imaginations of avant-garde musicians in France, such as Debussy, Stravinsky and Satie, European music had integrated, through the compositions of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, many of the quirky features of Louisiana folk music.' Indeed, the prehistory of the European jazz age is alive with the shadows of the emerging forms of an art that would come to dominate the entire following century. Towards the end of the First World War, the first American group to identify itself explicitly as a jazz band - Louis Niitchell's Jazz Kings - began to play in Paris, in what would become an extended sojourn, culminating in the early 1920s in a residency at Le Perroquet. This club operated on the 1 I am grateful to Julia Martin for the research and the discussions involved in the elaboration of this study, and especially for her work in Aix and Chambéry. 2 There are many useful accounts of early ragtime and its antecedents. See, for instance, David A. Jasen and Trebor Jay Tichenor, Rags and Ragtime: a Musical History (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), passim; Edward A. Berlin, Ragtime: a Musical and Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), passim; Marshall and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: the Story of American Vernacular Dance (New York: Schirmer Books, 1968). 3 Gottschalk, a child prodigy and virtuoso pianist had gone to France as a teenager in the early 1840s, and had had a significant impact on Chopin and Berlioz. His fellow musician from New Orleans, Ernest Guiraud, would be one of Debussy's teachers. See for instance John Wilds, Charles L. Dufour and Walter G. Cowan, Louisiana Yesterday and Today: a Historical Guide to the State (Baton Rouge/London: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 167-8; also Jasen, op. cit., 10. 40202 premises of the Casino de Paris, in the rue de Clichy, at the foot of Montmartre, which over the next two decades would become the heart of the burgeoning Paris jazz scene. From a purely musical viewpoint, the impact of the Paris-based black American musicians was remarkable, and the rapid growth of a peculiarly French jazz culture was to be very much dependent upon it.' In his 1928 memoir,5 Sisley Huddleston gave vent to a mock-Villonesque lamentation, colourful and informative: Where are the hurdy-gurdy organs which used to be played in every courtyard? They have vanished with the duel and the fiacre. Where are the quadrilles and the cancan, danced with a dazzling display of froufrous at the Mabille and the Tabarin? Where are La Goulue and Nini Patte-en-1'Air. and the M6me Fromage, and Valentin-le-D6soss6, and others of whom old Parisians still speak with affection? Most of them are dead long ago, and La Goulue was last seen in a miserable travelling menagerie. Nobody cares to see the flutter of frilly lace and the swirl of tempestuous linen. The nude has replaced the agitation of petticoats, and negro jazz and tangoes from South American houses of ill-fame have triumphed over the waltz and polka. A hundred of the lowest and most fashionable haunts of Montmartre and the Champs-Elys6es are alive from noon to night with champagne and dancing parties. But jazz in France - as paradoxical as this may appear - has never been simply a musical question. This is what is revealed emblematically in another of the 'founding moments' of French jazz awareness: the performances, in early 1918, by the band of the 369th New York Infantry Regiment, led by James Reese Europe. In general terms, the episode is quite well known, and it has received a considerable amount of coverage in various American sources: in military memoirs, in studies of early jazz, and, of course, in Europe's biography.' Its deeper implications for understanding of the ways in which jazz impacted in France have not, however, received sufficient attention. At issue is not simply the question, ably addressed by William H. Kenney III within the musical 4 For a thoroughly documented account of the musical history of jazz in France, see Ludovic Tournès, New Orleans sur Seine: histoire du jazz en France (Paris: Fayard, 1999). 5 Sisley Huddleston, Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios (New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1928), 18. Huddleston was a correspondent for various British and American newspapers. 6 See, for example, Arthur W. Little, From Harlem to the Rhine. the Story of New York's Colored Volunteers (New York: Covici Friede, 1936), 126-35; James Lincoln Collier, The Making of Jazz: a Comprehensive History (UK: Papermac, 1987), 314-5; Tyler Stovall, Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), 10-23. William H. Kenney III, 'Le Hot: the Assimilation of American Jazz in France, 1917-1940', in American Studies, xxv (1) (1984), 5-6; Reid Badger, A Life in Ragtime: a Biography of James Reese Europe (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 165-71. The French historian Gérard Conte appears for his part to have largely followed the Americans: 'Jim Europe et les Hellfighters', Le Jazz Hot, octobre 1968, 8-9. 41203 frame,' of how French musicians came to assimilate the rhythms and techniques of jazz playing, but rather the larger concern of the encounter of two cultures, historically very different, but both of them charged with powerful energies, at a time of unprecedented global change. As Jeffrey H. Jackson has successfully argued: Jazz in 1920s Paris either raised or contributed to a whole set of anxieties about the nature of French culture after the war. Jazz was foreign, American, the sound of modernity and the primitive jungles all at once depending on who was writing or speaking about the music. Symbolizing a new and confusing era, jazz provided a malleable image, easy to invoke, for those who despaired at the shape of French entertainment in particular and French society more generally.8 8 The 369th New York Infantry Regiment was formed in Harlem as an all black unit in June 1916, and gained recognition as a unit of the National Guard in April 1917. It was mustered into U. S. service in July 1917, and drafted, with the entire National Guard, into the U. S. Army in August. It sailed for France in November of that year, and after a series of naval mishaps, arrived in France in late December. The U.S. military establishment suffered from severe racial problems - including impediments to black and white troops serving in the same units and institutional discouragement of allowing combat training for black soldiers at all. Like many other African-American units, the 369th began its service in France in stevedoring and port service, in Saint-Nazaire. Its eventual participation in the fighting war at the front, which lasted from 9 April 1918 until the end of September, was made possible only by its integration into the French Army. This service was moreover extremely distinguished, earning the regiment a collective citation and the Croix de Guerre.9 The regimental band had been formed early in the unit's existence, and James Reese Europe, who had joined the regiment out of community- building idealism, had been recruited as its leader by the enterprising commander, Colonel William Hayward. Europe was already a major figure in the New York popular music scene, as a performer, composer and band leader, with a long list of successes in club work and musical theatre. The decision to create a band made up of first-class instrumentalists was a deliberate one, and involved an extensive advertising campaign.10 Europe had also recruited his close friend and colleague Noble Sissle as assistant, and secured the services of Francis Eugene Mikell, another experienced and 7 Kenney, loc. cit. 8 Jeffrey H. Jackson, 'Making enemies: jazz in inter-war Paris', French Cultural Studies, x (2) (June 1999), 199. 9 This account draws largely on material extracted from Little, Stovall and Badger. 10 Badger, op. cit., 145-8. 42204 well-trained professional. By the time the 369th reached France, the band had become a precision instrument, with an extensive and varied repertoire, which included anthems and military marches, but also traditional African-American songs (performed with vocals), original compositions by Mikell and Europe himself, and ragtime and blues. Performances were highly syncopated, and also included segments where the musicians were released from the constraints of their scores, and allowed to improvise. The concert in Nantes, on 12 February 1918, marked the beginning of a five-week tour that would take the band across France to Aix-les-Bains, where it spent several weeks entertaining the troops and the local population. The Nantes performance was in honour of Lincoln's Birthday,l' and was part of a local municipal charity drive for the war effort. From the point of view of the regiment, the event was a great success. The commander, Captain Arthur Little, recorded his impression of the enthusiastic reception given to the band's concert in the city's Opera House: Most of the audience seated in the (...) reserve section were in evening dress. The galleries were crowded, and all standing room was occupied. I doubt if any first night or special performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York ever had, relatively, a more brilliant audience. The French people knew no color line. All they seemed to want to know, was that a great national holiday of their ally was being celebrated - and that made the celebration one of their own. The spirit of emotional enthusiasm had got into the blood of our men; and they played as I have never heard them play before." The perceived absence of a 'color line' is a central factor in the sense of triumph experienced by members of the band. Although Stovall rightly points out the problematic nature of the myth of a 'color-blind France', and claims convincingly that 'the idea of France as a refuge from American racism had far more to do with conditions in the United States than conditions in Paris',13 there is no doubt that the musicians' impression of being accepted and praised for their artistry and originality was integral to their 'emotional enthusiasm'. Noble Sissle, for his part, reached the conclusion that the band's performance brought the French something more than military aid: Colonel Hayward has brought his band over here and started 'ragtimitis' in France; ain't this an awful thing to visit upon a nation with so many burdens? But when the band had finished and people were roaring with 11 There was widespread celebration of Lincoln's birthday across the places in France where American troops were quartered. See The New York Herald (European Edition), 13 February 1918, 4. 12 Little, op. cit., 128. 13 Stovall, op. cit., xiii-xiv. 43205 laughter, their faces wreathed in smiles, I was forced to say that this is just what France needs at this critical time." These American assessments of the event, based as they are on feelings of shared patriotic and artistic values, are relevant, and as far as they go, accurate enough. However, it needs to be pointed out that there is no direct evidence adduced of how the French themselves experienced the occasion. When one turns to such evidence as exists,15 it becomes apparent that the reception of the music by the audience in Nantes was a rather more complex phenomenon than has so far been taken into account. In 1918, the city of Nantes boasted a population of around 150,000 and two local daily newspapers, Le Populaire (edited by a certain Monsieur Veil), and Le Phare de la Loire (Maurice Schwob). Through these two sources, we get a clear idea of the atmosphere surrounding the event and of the importance accorded it within the framework of the local community. We also learn a good deal more than is available in the other sources about the state and nature of Franco-American relations at the time. Both papers included announcements of the forthcoming concert at the Graslin Theatre for some days beforehand, under the heading 'Manifestation franco-americaine'. Obviously, the major preoccupations of the papers on these days remained the news of the war and of the national political scene. Minor happenings in Nantes itself continued to be reported, and indeed were the subject of more extensive coverage than the upcoming concert. For example, on 9 February, on the same page (2) as the announcement in Le Populaire, there was a lengthy article about Marie Gu6rin's foiled attempt to steal two pairs of shoes from the 'Au Chat Noir' shoe shop. Written in a lively, detective-story style, the piece recounted how Marie and her accomplice very nearly succeeded in their theft, but were caught by an observant assistant, who spotted a long brown lace hanging from inside Marie's sleeve. Nonetheless, the build-up to the concert was handled with an eye to ensuring its success. On the 9th, both papers included a full programme of the concert (with a number of misspellings).'6 The next day, they attempt to 14 Badger, op. cit., 167. 15 Conte (loc. cit.) bemoaned the fact that he had been unable to find 'le moindre document probant concernant cette tournée qui est, sans doute, la toute première dans l'histoire du jazz en France'. He was persuaded that there might be interesting information to be found in provincial daily newspapers, but neither he nor anyone else appear to have followed this idea up. My thanks to Sarah Potaznic and Nicole Ménard for their help in procuring the material from Nantes. 16 The announced programme was as follows: Première partie. - 1. Marche 'Sambre et Meuse' (Goudet); 2. Stars and Stripes (Souzat [sic]); 3. Indian chant (Ganne); 4. Negromance (Europe); 5. Songs of the South, par l'orchestre 6. Plantation Echoes; 7. Songs, New York Inf., quintette; 8. Echoes of old Broadway (Kern); Sergeant Noble Sissle 9. March Clef Club (Europe) orchestre. Deuxième partie. - 1. Marche 'American Expeditionary' (Mikell); 2. Ouverture 'Morning-Normand Night' (Soupe); 3. Negro Oddities, par l'orchestre; 4. Cornet solo 'Old Kentucky Home', le quintette; 44206build the reputation of the music (although they describe it as having a status 'en quelque sorte analogue ~ celle des 6quipages de la flotte en France'), and of the musicians (Europe and Mikell being described as 'deux artistes 6minents'). On the llth, Le Populaire provides more detail about the scope of the event, stressing the significance of honouring the memory of President Lincoln, and the presence, at the event, of the notables of Nantes, various allied generals, and the Consul-General of the United States: what had seemed originally to be an entertainment for charity purposes has begun to take on a greater political dimension. At the same time, the article ends on an intriguing couple of notations: Une musique am6ricaine, conduite par un chef am6ricain, et dont la ' reception transatlantique est considerable, ex6cutera un programme ' typique, compose de morceaux et de chants americains.. Tous les musiciens du 'New York Infantry Band' sont des 'color . gentleman' [sic] que les Nantais tiendront a honneur d'entendre, d'acclamer > et d'applaudir. It is interesting to speculate what the journalist had in mind. This is the only reference, in the entire reporting of the event, to the fact that the musicians were black. Given the emphasis on the Americanness of the orchestra, the conductor and the music, the reference to 'color gentleman' seems bizarre. Is it simply a bit of novelty and exoticism for publicity purposes? Could it be that the writer is simply transmitting a piece of information given by the band itself, taking pride, as African-American, in its national ambassadorial role? Certainly there is no suggestion of any real 'colour consciousness', or anything that would invalidate Captain Little's observation that the French 'knew no color line'. For Le Populaire, James Europe's orchestra and music were as American as Lincoln's Birthday. Moreover, recognition of the importance of this anniversary was underlined on the next day (12 February), when Le Populaire published a long article by J. Tallendeau entitled 'L'anniversaire d'Abraham Lincoln'. This piece marks the clear subordination of any entertainment value of the concert to the act of remembrance of Lincoln, as demonstrated by the detailed biography of the president, which culminates in his portrayal as the champion of the abolition of slavery. Stress is placed on the solidarity shown for American grief, at the time of Lincoln's assassination, by Europeans, and in particular by the 10,000 subscribers, in Nantes, to a memorial gold medal given to Lincoln's widow in 1866. The discourse of the whole article asserts5. Santa Lucia by Sextette (Verdi); 6. Songs: Jeanne d'Arc, Camp Heiling Day (Mikell); 7. Drum Dult Oyon Drumer [sic] (Herbert-Stephen-Wright), Sergeant de Broit; 8. Marseillaise. Star Spangled Banner, par l'orchestre. According to Sissle (Badger, p. 167], the concert also included, at its climax, the 'Memphis Blues'. 45207 an unbroken tradition of Franco-American friendship, and the conclusion confirms its continuation: Les Nantais de 1918 sont heureux, en saluant la m6moire du pr6sident Lincoln, d'acclamer en m6me temps les Etats-Unis d'Am6rique, leur venerable pr6sident Wilson et nos chers alli6s. Vive I'Am6rique et les Americains. ~ , . The celebration of Lincoln's birthday on 12 February began with a banquet hosted by the Mayor at 6.45 pm at the H6tel de France. It was a gala affair, with tables bedecked with flowers, and some sixty guests, amongst whom were the Prefect, the French military and naval chiefs stationed in the region, the civic and business leaders of Nantes, and the Consuls of Britain, Italy and Belgium. On the American side, the guests of honour were General Walsh, commander of the American base in Saint Nazaire, and the Consul-General of the United States, who was accompanied by his vice-consuls, together with a large group of American army and navy officers. After dinner, over champagne, the American Consul-General delivered, in French, a carefully crafted speech, the full text of which was published in both newspapers the following day. After saluting the history and vitality of Nantes, the Consul-General underlined the traditional friendship binding France and his nation, a friendship pre-dating La Fayette and based on the common ideal of liberty, an 'alliance of hearts' which will last forever because it is not man-made, but God-given ('ordonn6 non par 1'homme mais par le Grand Maitre de 1'Univers'). Just as France helped America when it was fighting for its independence, so now the Americans have come to help France, and they do so altruistically, out of love for the nation and its people ('sans aucune arribre-pens6e'). This is not however a territorial war, but a question of protecting modern civilization against the barbarity of Prussian militarism: 'Nous sommes venus pour aider la France a sauvegarder la d6mocratie dans le monde.' Homage is paid to the passion and bravery of the French army and to the endurance and suffering of the people; reassurances are given about American determination to remain with France in the fight until the final victory. France will rise again: ... le nom de la France brillera avec un lustre plus éclatant que jamais dans les annales des Ages comme 1'emblbme des droits de 1'homme. In the tail of the speech, however, there is, if not a sting, at least a dimension that in retrospect seems to prefigure both the emergence of an American consciousness of its potential as an international force, and the determination to create a new world order in which Franco-American 'affinity', and indeed the role of France, will have diminished importance: Nous vaincrons et les couleurs de la France et d'Amerique ainsi que celles de la Grande-Bretagne, de 1'Italie. de la Belgique, du Br6sil, du I 46208 Japon et des autres 6tats alli6s flotteront plus sereinement que jamais dans un monde ou existera la libert6 individuelle ainsi que 1'autonomie des nationalit6s, dans une Soci6t6 des Nations dans laquelle les trait6s seront consid6r6s comme sacr6s et ou 1'arbitrage fera place a la force, dans une atmosphere dans laquelle pourront r6gner 1'honneur et la justice. Vive la France! Vive la Bretagne! Vive la Ville de Nantes! That the Wilsonian post-war programme should find its way into the Consul-General's speech is not surprising, nor that the speech should have been greeted by warm applause, and it can be doubted whether the good people of Nantes were anything but flattered by the three-part final salutation, which so clearly moves from the national to the local. The shadow of difference between the American position and the French one is made clearer when we look closely at the reply speech given by the Mayor of Nantes. This took place in a very different setting. After the all- male dinner at the H6tel de France, the dignitaries made their way to the Theatre Graslin. They were late, arriving only at 9pm, a half-hour after the time announced for the beginning of the concert. The theatre was bustling with an overflow crowd, women in their finery, men in dinner suits or uniforms, while James Europe's band sat patiently, already in formation, on the stage. Unperturbed, the Mayor proceeded to deliver a good ten minute speech. He begins by reminding the audience of a welcome given in Nantes to the Americans on the previous 4th of July, at which he had evoked the long tradition of Franco-American alliance and the particular role of his town in the transatlantic exchange of trade and ideas. Using the example of Lincoln, he then introduces his first major theme, liberty, and while as a conscientious mayor he is careful to play on local pride (notably by recalling the incident of the medal given to Lincoln's widow), his real goal is more universal: Nous voulons, dans tout l'univers, comme il se fit dans le Nouveau Monde, unir au lieu de diviser, abattre les vieilles forces de domination et de tyrannie avec leurs obscures combinaisons de machiav6lisme, et faire triompher contre elles les jeunes forces de droiture, de clart6 et, pour tout dire, I'honn6tet6 politique. America comes into this framework as a selfless provider of resources, undemanding and uncomplicated, to participate in the sacrifice for the abstract ideals of justice and liberty. The idea of partnership introduces the Mayor's second theme, which is that of equality. There are differences between the Old World and the New, but their destinies are convergent: Nous comprenons qu'a votre activit6, la terre d'Am6rique offre un champ plus vaste, ou circulent des s6ves moins 6puis6es, ou le labeur est sans 47209 entrave, et ou la fortune se lbve radieuse a tous les horizons. Mais il y a chez nous des joies d6licates et rares auxquelles, nous esp6rons, vous aurez pris gout. L'Europe et I'Am6rique ne peuvent 6tre des rivales: elles - associeront leurs efforts, elles 61aboreront la Societe des Nations: et ce sera, d'abord, la Societe des Peuples qui ont voulu la libert6 du monde, la Societe des Allies. The explicitly European dimension of the mayor's thinking is notable. The . opening onto the New World does not imply any weakening of Europe as a centre, but rather the prospect of an exchange of goods and culture that will produce 'plus de bien-6tre et des sentiments plus fraternels'. Liberty, equality, fraternity: unlike the American Consul-General's intimations of a new global order, the mayor's speech is structured by the universalist values of the French Revolution. It is through these values that France, in welcoming the American presence into a land whose beauty has been ruined and pillaged by 'the enemies of humanity', can offer hope for the future: Patience, messieurs! les parterres refleuriront, et demain, vous et tous nos alli6s, vous emporterez de chez nous les roses et les lauriers de la terre de France. The confidence of this final statement, which brought wild applause from the audience, comes from the fact that the mayor's candid and heartfelt acknowledgement of the terrible pain experienced by France in the war (it is described as 'Ie Jardin de la Douleur') does not undermine his ultimate faith in the values that France stands for. France still has something to offer, even to America the saviour. Indeed, while the American Consul-General declared eternal affinity between his nation and France, one can interpret the mayor's speech as redolent of the passion of a declaration of love: 'laissez-nous esp6rer', he proclaims, 'que votre jeune ardeur ne se d6tournera pas de notre vieille civilisation.' Phbdre to Hippolyte was scarcely more direct, and the image of the mayor's vision of the future could hardly be more symbolic of a seduction: Comme autrefois, notre ville, Port d'Occident, vous ouvrira largement ' 1'estuaire du plus gai de nos fleuves de France, de celui qui donne acc6s au coeur meme de 1'Europe. It was in this context, then, of a spirit of victory shared, of an unconditional partnership and an open-ended commitment, that the New York Infantry Band struck up its first tune - the stirring French march 'Sambre et Meuse'. Little wonder that the concert, delayed though it was, got off to such a good start. In the newspaper coverage of the concert, Le Populaire contents itself with some general remarks about the audience's appreciation of the band's energy, clarity and precision, the 'picturesque' and 'colourful' originality of the I 48210 music, and the quality of the musicians. It is noted that each piece received multiple ovations. In congratulating James Europe, the reviewer stresses the success of the evening as a charity benefit (its original purpose), and recounts the collection taken up during the interval: Entre les deux parties du programme, une quete a ete faite par de gracieuses et charmantes jeunes filles, qu'accompagnaient des officiers am6ricains et deux mutil6s de la guerre. Elle a ete, nous dit-on, tr6s . fructueuse ... In short, for Le Populaire, the concert, while a point of focus, was only one aspect of the wider phenomenon of the manifestation of Franco-American friendship: 'une des pages de guerre les plus 6mouvantes, et aussi les plus r6confortantes, dans la vieille cite de Nantes'. Le Phare de la Loire pays more attention to the music, and indeed, the journalist appears to attempt, in his description of it, to evoke through his own prose something of the variety and dynamism of the performance: Peu ou point de flutes, mais en 6change, des rang6es imposantes de clarinettes, bugles et pistons, trombones ~ coulisse, un fond solide de cors a piston et de basses g6antes et, dans cette masse 6tincelante de cuivres, de tambours agiles, des instruments a percussion de toutes sortes, voire meme un basson faisant, avec les saxophones, un excellent voisinage. Et ce n'est pas tout encore: le chant y alterne agr6ablement avec 1'harmonie, represente par un quatuor vocal de choix, dont on a vivement appr6ci6 la fine qualite d'organe et la souplesse de talent, passant du sentimental au pittoresque, et du pittoresque au comique, avec autant d'aisance que de piquant 6clectisme. The entertainment value of the band, playing across such a range of instruments (including voice) and of emotions, was moreover further enhanced by the integration of dance: Ces chanteurs, par-dessus le march6, deviennent danseurs a l'occasion, et c'est ainsi que leur gigue finale a beaucoup amus6 la salle en leur valant de sa part une frenetique ovation. Europe's earlier experience as a creator and director of musical spectacle in New York was obviously put to good use in Nantes. Moreover, the Phare de lo Loire commentator reserved a special mention for what he saw as the specifically American parts of the programme, which he found fresh and surprising ('la saveur de l'in6dit'). But he was impressed, too, with the band's encore, a 'fiery rendition' of the popular French song 'Madelon', in which he saw not only Lieutenant Europe's thoughtfulness and sensitivity towards his hosts, but also his 'perfect understanding of French music'. Despite all this, the ultimate meaning of the evening did not reside in the music or the performance. The concert ended with the playing of the two national anthems to an audience standing in silent respect, and the journalist 49211 describes this as a 'religious symbol' - of the conjoining of France and America in a sense of common purpose and direction. It was this feeling of unity that provoked the 'endless applause' that brought the evening to a close and that marked it an 'indelible date' in the memory of Nantes. There was of course no recording made of the concert (or in fact of any of the music played by the band in France), but it is possible to get an idea of how it sounded from the recordings made by Path6 in 1919 after the band returned to the United States." Some of these pieces (for instance, Memphis Blues and Plantation Eclloes) were on the programme of the Nantes concert. For today's listener, the music may appear both familiar and quaint, although its hard-swinging energy and drive remain ear-catching.'8 Badger has pondered the question of what the French audiences would have found unusual and suggests that technical effects such as slurs, unconventional tonguing and rhythmic shifts, as well as the use of blue notes and mutes to colour tonal patterns, would have been significant contributing factors." From a musical viewpoint, this seems more than plausible, especially in the light of the incident that Europe later recounted of his discussions with the leader of the band of the Garde R6publicaine after a concert for 50,000 people in the Tuileries Gardens in October 1918: After the concert was over, the leader of the band of the Garde R6publicain [sic] came over and asked me for the score of one of the jazz compositions we had played. He said he wanted his band to play it. I gave it to him, and the next day he again came to see me. He explained that he couldn't seem to get the effects I got, and asked me to go to a rehearsal. I went with him. The great band played the composition superbly - but he was right: the jazz effects were missing. I took an instrument and showed him how it could be done, and he told me that his own musicians felt sure that my band had used special instruments. Indeed, some of them, afterward attending one of my rehearsals, did not believe what I had said until after they had examined the instruments used by my men.2° Badger also queries whether Europe's music can be canonically defined as jazz, concluding that it is a 'primitive sort of big band jazz' .2 ' Gracyk pursues 17 Much of this music has been reissued on 'Lieut. Jim Europe's 369th U.S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" Band - the Complete Recordings', Memphis Archives MA7020, 1996; 'James Reese Europe featuring Noble Sissle', IAJRC Records, 1012, 1996. 18 Tim Gracyk, in the cover notes for the 'Hellfighters' CD, remarks: 'This CD allows today's listener to imagine what a Europe concert was like. A difference is that Europe's full band is not present since recording technology could not accommodate so many instruments. Also missing, but important for Europe's concerts, are the singing groups called Jim Europe's Singing Serenaders and the Four Harmony Kings.' 19 Badger, op. cit., 195. 20 Quoted by Badger, 193-4. 21 Loc. cit., 195. ? 50212 a similar line, classifying Europe as 'a significant pre-jazz artist, a transitional figure'.22 Such questions are obviously not specious, and are pertinent to jazz historiography, but what matters here is that Europe's music is clearly situated at the beginnings of the French experience of African-American culture, and that this experience occurs early in jazz's birthing period. There is thus a historical coincidence of the emergence of early jazz and of an early French interest in jazz, but this cannot be seen as a simple case of cause and effect: that is, it cannot be taken for granted, even from a musical perspective, that French audiences were attracted by what would later come to be defined as the specificities of jazz. Badger entitles one of his chapters 'Filling France full of jazz',23 but in truth, jazz, for much of its first decade in France, was only one more element in the extraordinary period of artistic renewal that had begun to flourish during the Belle Epoque, and that had continued more or less unabated during the First World War. Satie, Cocteau and other members of the French avant-garde took to jazz because it was a new colour for them to add to what they believed to be an infinitely extensible rainbow of novelty. It was another ingredient in what Van Dongen called 'the cocktail epoch'. 24 It is none the less evident that the James Reese Europe band and its performances were part of a cultural encounter that for French audiences did at least two important things. Firstly, it contained the promise of breaking the horrendous deadlock that four years of relentless trench warfare had revealed as the apparently irrevocable fate of European history. Secondly, it actually appeared to open a window onto a new world full of hope. The symbolically named American band leader conjured up the image of a Europe in which the inhabitants of the old continent could project themselves into an other apparently capable of an untrammelled future. Badger notes 'a certain irony, and yet a certain appropriateness, in the fact that it was a black American lieutenant named Europe - a commander of machine-guns, that most perfect symbol of depersonalized mechanical warfare - and his band that brought the welcome compensation of jazz to war-torn France.'25 There were, however, deeper ironies at work, on both the French and the American sides. From the French angle, the main irony derives from the failure to dissociate in any way the music itself from an American presence which was identified as entirely altruistic and liberating. Europe's band was seen as part of a seamless and ideal image that melded the noble story of Abraham Lincoln's achievements in the abolition of slavery and the Wilsonian aspirations for a world forever at peace, and all of that in the context of an 22 Gracyk, 9. 23 Borrowed from a contemporary account of the impact of the New York Infantry Band. 24 Cited by Huddleston, op. cit., 20. 25 Badger, op. cit., 196. 51213 unbroken tradition of a history shared with France. The story that the French constructed around the encounter of Nantes is summed up in the headlines used to describe the event in both the local newspapers - 'Manifestation franc o-am6ricaine': it is a story of joint ventures, both past and future, and it is based on a belief in common values and in unshakeable friendship. One does not need to look very far forward from that night in February 1918 to see how much the enthusiasm of the mayor and people of Nantes was based on illusion: the winning of the war was not to be matched by good management of the peace, and Wilson's failure to persuade his own Congress of the virtues of a League of Nations would mean that the process at Versailles produced an increase in conflict rather than a diminution of it, setting in train the gradual isolation of France and the step-by-stumbling- step progress towards the Second World War. We saw above that the dinner speech of the American Consul-General contained elements that might have given the French reason to be more cautious about their hopes of a special relationship with the new Great Power: that they missed the hint would make the subsequent disillusionment all the harder. Europe and his band came out of that night elated by their reception, and convinced that their French audience was free of any colour prejudice. They were right about that, and could justifiably reach the conclusion that the performance was proof of their full status as Americans. At the same time, in their own psychology, they could be proud of their contribution, as black Americans, to this foreign perception of Americanness. Their pride was to be reinforced when the band, along with the rest of the 369th Regiment, was integrated into the French army, and comported itself with such valour on the battlefields of Champagne and beyond. And there would have been additional comfort in their observation of French dismay and puzzlement over the notoriously bigoted treatment of black American soldiers by their white countrymen. 26 However, the sense of being valued for their humanity, their skills as musicians, their bravery as soldiers, and their friendship as Americans, would be a source of frustration and embitterment once they returned to the United States. The years following the war were to produce some of the worst race-based violence in the nation's history, with multiple riots, burnings and lynchings.27 After Nantes, the band travelled to Aix-les-Bains as part of the entertainment for the newly established leave area for the American Expeditionary Forces. It arrived with the first group of soldiers (283 of them - all white) and led the procession that marched through the town under the enthusiastic gaze of the assembled citizens and dignitaries: Les acclamations ont retenti sur le passage du cort6ge - reported the 26 cf., Stovall, op. cit., 18. 27 Ibid., passim. Also Badger, op. cit., 212. 52214 journalist of Le journal d'Aix-les-Bains - associ6 a la musique des n6gres d'Amerique et a celle d'Aix-les-Bains.28 The sixty-member band were the only African Americans in the area during their sojourn in Aix,29 and as had been the case in Nantes, their music received special attention from the locals. L'Avenir d'Aix-les-Bains, for instance, picked out the dancers of the opening night's concert: On y a applaudi les deux tapins de la musique nbgre, qui ont ex6cut6 un duo de tambours prodigieux d 'adresse. 30 Le Patriote r6publicain, for its part, praised the concerts in Chamb6ry on 26 February, when the band performed both for the population of the town and for a reception offered by the American authorities to their French hosts: L'orchestre d'Aix, compose de nbgres, était venu le matin et avait d6jA donn6 un concert a la population. 11 a jou6, a la reception, ses plus brillant morceaux et a fait entendre ses chanteurs qui sont de v6ritables virtuoses.3' And when the band departed on 17 March after opening a soir6e de gala the previous evening, Le Journal d'Aix-les-Boins gave it a warm farewell: Ce fut la dernière journee de cet excellent orchestre, si habilement dirig6 par son chef, M. Europe. La musique noire, en effet, a quitt6 Aix le lendemain; elle laisse parmi nous les meilleurs souvenirs et nous lui exprimons la reconnaissance de la population aixoise.32 As distinct from the Nantes experience, however, Europe's performances were commonly identified as 'Negro', and they were not singled out for any extended analysis, but rather presented as part of a general entertainment pattern that was varied and intensive and that involved as many - if not more - French artists and performers as Americans.33 The leave and recreation operation in Aix was large-scale, with a weekly turnover of thousands of soldiers. The band was part of this, and it was there essentially 28 Le Journal d'Aix-les-Bains, samedi 23 février 1918. Also L'Avenir d'Aix-les-Bains, 23 février 1918. 29 This fact is mentioned in an archival document from 28 février 1928, which also specified that the band stayed at the Hôtel Exertier. (Archives départementales de Savoie, Chambéry, 321 R 29- Séjour permissionnaires). Black soldiers were not sent to the area until much later, in December 1918. (See James A. Sprenger and Franklin S. Edmonds (eds), The Leave Areas of the American Expeditionary Forces 1918-1919: Records and Memoirs (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1928), 18. 30 L'Avenir d'Aix-les-Bains, 23 février 1918, 1. 31 Le Patriote républicain, samedi 2 mars 1918, 1. 32 Le Journal d'Aix-les-Bains, 23 mars 1918, 2. 33 Reactions to the band's presence in Aix and Chambéry are generally more provincial than in Nantes, a fact that can perhaps be ascribed to the relative smallness of these towns, which together had only a third of the population of Nantes before the Americans' arrival. 53215 to perform for compatriots, not for the French." Although American occupation of the local theatres was theoretically shared by the townspeople, the latter were being swamped by a whole range of new things - American culture, including baseball and gridiron, but also previously inaccessible aspects of their own culture, such as some of the fine chdteaux which, thanks to American occupation, were opened to the public. Town life was turned upside down: if some local merchants benefited by raising their prices,35 American habits of washing, drinking, and otherwise amusing themselves were cause for concern and, occasionally, alarm. For local spectators of so much American activity, any lasting focus on James Europe's music would have been difficult. From Aix, the band proceeded to its tour of military duty. In late August, it went to Paris, and, among other performances, played in a major festival organized by the YMCA for the Allies in the Tuileries. This was essentially an American event, and was reported as such by the American press." Europe's band opened the day's proceedings and also the concert section. But it was only one of five military bands - and not even the only band to play jazz3' - and there were many other entertainments, including operatic singing and fencing exhibitions. The French press reports emphasize the mixed nature of the event: the variety of music emerges as an emblem of a new order of things in which national perspectives are blurred, and different cultures blended and layerered. Jazz is one element in a fusion whose meaning is yet to be revealed. Le grand festival en plein air organise cet apr6s-midi, en 1'honneur des - soldats alli6s, dans le Jardin des Tuileries par la division am6ricaine de Paris des YMCA a attire une foule considerable de Parisiens d6sireux en , meme temps de feter les h6ros de cette guerre et de secourir les victimes 34 Thus it is not surprising that the New York Herald's report of the American arrival in Aix should give prominence to Europe and his band: 'Led by a picked band of negro musicians, the first contingent of American soldiers on leave from the trenches paraded through the streets of Aix-les-Bains this morning, to the stirring airs of "Hail, the gang's all here!" and other national anthems. (...) 'The Mayor, members of the town council and the American Staff were at the railway to give the greeting. And it was at this station that the first pleasant surprise awaited the boys. Drawn up on the platform, all "set" to tear loose on anything from "Hail Columbia" to "Hail the gang's all here" was the Negro band, recruited from all over the United States, in Cuba and Puerto Rico by the leader, Lieutenant Europe, who is none other than the head of Europe's Orchestra, known to any person who ever went to the 44th Street Roof in far away New York. 'If you ever danced all night to the music of Europe's players, you will not wonder that the soldiers marched untiringly a good part of the morning. There's one thing certain, even if Aix is not the musical center of Europe, Europe is the musical center of Aix from this morning on.' (17 Feburary 1918), 1. 35 Le Petit Savoyard, 9 mars 1918, 2. 36 The New York Herald (European Edition], 25 and 26 August 1918. 37 Jazz was also performed by the band of the 329th Regiment, and by a group from the Casino de Paris. ? 54216 des canons allemands à grande port6e, auxquelles est destin6 le produit des droits d'entr6e. De nombreux soldats des armees alli6es avaient r6pondu ~ 1'aimable invitation de la grande association americaine: 'poilus', 'yanks', 'tommies', 'arditis', belges, serbes, grecs, polonais, tch6coslovaques, mont6n6grins, voire japonais, se pressaient dans les larges all6es des jardins, et leurs uniformes vari6es, passant par toutes les nuances, de Khai jusqu'au bleu horizon se mariaient agr6ablement sous la verdure des grands arbres.38 The difference in perspective between the American reports, full of burgeoning national pride, and the French ones, which reflect the sense of the need of co-operation, is, as we have already suggested, portentous. It would not be long before the ephemeral nature of the friendship embodied in the Tuileries festival would be revealed. On their return to the United States, the band led the 369th in a triumphant victory parade all the way up Fifth Avenue to Harlem. Europe resumed his career as a professional musician, using the military band, now styled the 'Hellfighters', as his main vehicle. The new life was, however, short-lived. He had arrived back in New York in February 1919, and by May he was dead, tragically murdered in a trifling dispute with Herbert Wright, one of his own drummers.39 Although clearly a personal affair, this incident is not without resonances of the anger and frustration that beset so many of the African Americans who, having discovered during their service in France both self-respect and the respect of others, found themselves again in a situation of oppression and injustice. It was this situation that, as Stovall demonstrates, led to many black Americans establishing themselves in France, especially in Paris, in the community of exiles that would be the crucible of jazz as a real international art form. What the 'jazz in Nantes' episode shows us, however, is that the encounter of the two cultures extends well beyond the question of art. The reporting of the 'Franco-American manifestation' does not ignore the originality of the music, and nor does it treat it as something simply exotic. Rather, it attempts to construct around it a form of meaning: it uses the music as a way of affirming the positive relationship between the two cultures. In more than one way, this event can serve as a model of how French culture would come to deal with the jazz phenomenon in the 1920s and 1930s. There would of course be real enthusiasts of the music itself - commentators like Hugues Panassi6, and numerous musicians, from the barely convincing, such as Jean Wiener, to the brilliantly innovative like Django Reinhardt. Jeffrey H. Jackson, as we have seen, has shown how, 38 Le Temps, 26 août 1918, back page. 39 See Badger, op. cit., 214-15. 55217 beyond the music, jazz acts as a social metaphor. But the jazz phenomenon comes to have its full meaning in the French cultural context only when it begins to be inscribed, by the French themselves, into French modes of expression. This would occur in a variety of ways - in the writing of people like Cocteau, Michel Leiris and Paul Morand, in the music of Milhaud and Satie, in various films that integrated jazz into their narrative. When Cocteau wrote to his mother that she should tell inquirers that he was the leader of a black jazz band and that it was the best job he ever had,40 he was not so much fantasizing about life as a musician, as expressing a direction into which he wished to push his creative imagination: jazz here is transmuted into a modernist paradigm of future and freedom. It is read as an inspiration, an invitation to do something else. However much it may be an object of admiration and excitement, it is above all something to be appropriated into the French cultural story. 40 Cited by Alexandra Anderson and Carol Sattus (eds), Jean Cocteau and the French Scene (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 25.</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-wrap></article-meta></front><back><notes>
<p>1 I am grateful to Julia Martin for the research and the discussions involved in the elaboration of this study, and especially for her work in Aix and Chambéry.</p>
<p>2 There are many useful accounts of early ragtime and its antecedents. See, for instance, David A. Jasen and Trebor Jay Tichenor, <italic>Rags and Ragtime: a Musical History</italic> (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), <italic>passim;</italic> Edward A. Berlin, <italic> Ragtime: a Musical and Cultural History</italic> (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), <italic>passim;</italic> Marshall and Jean Stearns, <italic>Jazz Dance: the Story of American Vernacular Dance</italic> (New York: Schirmer Books, 1968).</p>
<p>3 Gottschalk, a child prodigy and virtuoso pianist had gone to France as a teenager in the early 1840s, and had had a significant impact on Chopin and Berlioz. His fellow musician from New Orleans, Ernest Guiraud, would be one of Debussy's teachers. See for instance John Wilds, Charles L. Dufour and Walter G. Cowan, <italic> Louisiana Yesterday and Today: a Historical Guide to the State</italic> (Baton Rouge/London: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 167-8; also Jasen, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> 10.</p>
<p>4 For a thoroughly documented account of the musical history of jazz in France, see Ludovic Tournès, <italic>New Orleans sur Seine: histoire du jazz en France</italic> (Paris: Fayard, 1999).</p>
<p>5 Sisley Huddleston, <italic> Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios</italic> (New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1928), 18. Huddleston was a correspondent for various British and American newspapers.</p>
<p>6 See, for example, Arthur W. Little, <italic>From Harlem to the Rhine. the Story of New York's Colored Volunteers</italic> (New York: Covici Friede, 1936), 126-35; James Lincoln Collier, <italic>The Making of Jazz: a Comprehensive History</italic> (UK: Papermac, 1987), 314-5; Tyler Stovall, <italic>Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light</italic> (Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), 10-23. William H. Kenney III, <italic>'Le Hot:</italic> the Assimilation of American Jazz in France, 1917-1940', in <italic>American Studies,</italic> xxv (1) (1984), 5-6; Reid Badger, <italic>A Life in Ragtime: a Biography of James Reese Europe</italic> (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 165-71. The French historian Gérard Conte appears for his part to have largely followed the Americans: 'Jim Europe et les Hellfighters', <italic> Le Jazz Hot,</italic> octobre 1968, 8-9.</p>
<p>7 Kenney, <italic> loc. cit.</italic></p>
<p>8 Jeffrey H. Jackson, 'Making enemies: jazz in inter-war Paris', <italic>French Cultural Studies,</italic> x (2) (June 1999), 199.</p>
<p>9 This account draws largely on material extracted from Little, Stovall and Badger.</p>
<p>10 Badger, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> 145-8.</p>
<p>11 There was widespread celebration of Lincoln's birthday across the places in France where American troops were quartered. See <italic>The New York Herald</italic> (European Edition), 13 February 1918, 4.</p>
<p>12 Little, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> 128.</p>
<p>13 Stovall, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> xiii-xiv.</p>
<p>14 Badger, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> 167.</p>
<p>15 Conte <italic> (loc. cit.</italic>) bemoaned the fact that he had been unable to find 'le moindre document probant concernant cette tournée qui est, sans doute, la toute première dans l'histoire du jazz en France'. He was persuaded that there might be interesting information to be found in provincial daily newspapers, but neither he nor anyone else appear to have followed this idea up. My thanks to Sarah Potaznic and Nicole Ménard for their help in procuring the material from Nantes.</p>
<p>16 The announced programme was as follows: <italic>Première partie. -</italic> 1. Marche 'Sambre et Meuse' (Goudet); 2. Stars and Stripes (Souzat [<italic>sic</italic>]); 3. Indian chant (Ganne); 4. Negromance (Europe); 5. Songs of the South, par l'orchestre 6. Plantation Echoes; 7. Songs, New York Inf., quintette; 8. Echoes of old Broadway (Kern); Sergeant Noble Sissle 9. March Clef Club (Europe) orchestre. <italic>Deuxième partie. -</italic> 1. Marche 'American Expeditionary' (Mikell); 2. Ouverture 'Morning-Normand Night' (Soupe); 3. Negro Oddities, par l'orchestre; 4. Cornet solo 'Old Kentucky Home', le quintette; 5. Santa Lucia by Sextette (Verdi); 6. Songs: Jeanne d'Arc, Camp Heiling Day (Mikell); 7. Drum Dult Oyon Drumer [<italic>sic</italic>] (Herbert-Stephen-Wright), Sergeant de Broit; 8. Marseillaise. Star Spangled Banner, par l'orchestre. According to Sissle (Badger, p. 167], the concert also included, at its climax, the 'Memphis Blues'.</p>
<p>17 Much of this music has been reissued on 'Lieut. Jim Europe's 369th U.S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" Band - the Complete Recordings', Memphis Archives MA7020, 1996; 'James Reese Europe featuring Noble Sissle', IAJRC Records, 1012, 1996.</p>
<p>18 Tim Gracyk, in the cover notes for the 'Hellfighters' CD, remarks: 'This CD allows today's listener to imagine what a Europe concert was like. A difference is that Europe's full band is not present since recording technology could not accommodate so many instruments. Also missing, but important for Europe's concerts, are the singing groups called Jim Europe's Singing Serenaders and the Four Harmony Kings.'</p>
<p>19 Badger, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> 195.</p>
<p>20 Quoted by Badger, 193-4.</p>
<p>21 <italic>Loc. cit.,</italic> 195.</p>
<p>22 Gracyk, 9.</p>
<p>23 Borrowed from a contemporary account of the impact of the New York Infantry Band.</p>
<p>24 Cited by Huddleston, <italic>op. cit.,</italic> 20.</p>
<p>25 Badger, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> 196.</p>
<p>26 cf., Stovall, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> 18.</p>
<p>27 <italic>Ibid., passim.</italic> Also Badger, <italic>op. cit.,</italic> 212.</p>
<p>28 <italic>Le Journal d'Aix-les-Bains,</italic> samedi 23 février 1918. Also <italic>L'Avenir d'Aix-les-Bains,</italic> 23 février 1918.</p>
<p>29 This fact is mentioned in an archival document from 28 février 1928, which also specified that the band stayed at the Hôtel Exertier. (Archives départementales de Savoie, Chambéry, 321 R 29- Séjour permissionnaires). Black soldiers were not sent to the area until much later, in December 1918. (See James A. Sprenger and Franklin S. Edmonds (eds), <italic> The Leave Areas of the American Expeditionary Forces 1918-1919: Records and Memoirs</italic> (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1928), 18.</p>
<p>30 <italic>L'Avenir d'Aix-les-Bains,</italic> 23 février 1918, 1.</p>
<p>31 <italic>Le Patriote républicain,</italic> samedi 2 mars 1918, 1.</p>
<p>32 <italic>Le Journal d'Aix-les-Bains,</italic> 23 mars 1918, 2.</p>
<p>33 Reactions to the band's presence in Aix and Chambéry are generally more provincial than in Nantes, a fact that can perhaps be ascribed to the relative smallness of these towns, which together had only a third of the population of Nantes before the Americans' arrival.</p>
<p>34 Thus it is not surprising that the <italic>New York Herald's</italic> report of the American arrival in Aix should give prominence to Europe and his band:</p>
<p>'Led by a picked band of negro musicians, the first contingent of American soldiers on leave from the trenches paraded through the streets of Aix-les-Bains this morning, to the stirring airs of "Hail, the gang's all here!" and other national anthems. (...)</p>
<p>'The Mayor, members of the town council and the American Staff were at the railway to give the greeting. And it was at this station that the first pleasant surprise awaited the boys. Drawn up on the platform, all "set" to tear loose on anything from "Hail Columbia" to "Hail the gang's all here" was the Negro band, recruited from all over the United States, in Cuba and Puerto Rico by the leader, Lieutenant Europe, who is none other than the head of Europe's Orchestra, known to any person who ever went to the 44th Street Roof in far away New York.</p>
<p>'If you ever danced all night to the music of Europe's players, you will not wonder that the soldiers marched untiringly a good part of the morning. There's one thing certain, even if Aix is not the musical center of Europe, Europe is the musical center of Aix from this morning on.' (17 Feburary 1918), 1.</p>
<p>35 <italic>Le Petit Savoyard,</italic> 9 mars 1918, 2.</p>
<p>36 <italic>The New York Herald</italic> (European Edition], 25 and 26 August 1918.</p>
<p>37 Jazz was also performed by the band of the 329th Regiment, and by a group from the Casino de Paris.</p>
<p>38 <italic>Le Temps,</italic> 26 août 1918, back page.</p>
<p>39 See Badger, <italic> op. cit.,</italic> 214-15.</p>
<p>40 Cited by Alexandra Anderson and Carol Sattus (eds), <italic>Jean Cocteau and the French Scene</italic> (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), 25.</p>
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