I'm currently reading Reid Badger's informative and vivid
biography of early jazz composer, violinist and bandleader James Reese Europe, and I'd been looking for some recordings of Europe's music. Now I have found them, both on a
CD, and on a
website written by Tim Graczyk. On the website it's possible to listen to Europe's World War I compositions "On Patrol In No Man's Land", "All Of No Man's Land Is Ours", and a couple of dozen others. These vigorous, robust, syncopated arrangements from the very dawn of jazz - beautifully played, with warm, brilliant tone, by the African-American 369th Infantry "Hellfighters" Band of 1918-19 - give a whole new meaning to the term "big band". There is even a
Russian Rag.
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