Jason Moran: James Reese Europe & the Absence of Ruin

Jason Moran celebrates his 48th birthday with the West Coast premiere of his latest multimedia project based around his longstanding Bandwagon trio with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, augmented by a 10-piece orchestra, that explores a previously untold story of African-American jazz pioneer James Reese Europe.

Jazz arrived in Europe not with the roaring ‘20s, but amidst the thunder of artillery in 1918, when American Expeditionary Forces helped bring an end to the Great War. For several years Jason Moran has been delving into the story of seminal African-American composer and bandleader James Reese Europe, who landed in France with the Harlem Hellfighters on New Year’s Day 1918. The celebrated all-black unit helped break the stalemate on the Western front, while Reese Europe’s finely honed military music ensemble introduced the new spirit of jazz to a war-weary French nation fascinated with black culture.

Covering the premier performance at the Kennedy Center, NPR stated, "There's more purposeful meaning in Moran's song adaptations than a team of the most avid musicologists could hope to find."