James Reese Europe and the Infancy of Jazz Criticism

Black Music Research Journal
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Just after World War I, when proper jazz journalism did not yet exist, composer and orchestra leader James Reese Europe served as an articulate, even prophetic voice. Though not a writer, comments Europe made on jazz to the press helped cast it as a legitimate art form rather than a threat to society, as it was then sometimes seen. Welburn discusses Europe's comments on race, the origins of jazz, and idiomatic jazz performance techniques.

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Dixieland, early jazz, early jazz criticism, James Reese Europe, National Negro Orchestra, New Orleans, New York, ragtime