Artist: James Reese Europe

James Reese Europe was an American ragtime  and early, arranger, and composer.

He was the leading figure on the African American music scene of New York City in the 1910s. Eubie Blake called him the "Martin Luther King of music". 

Europe was born in Mobile, Alabama, and his family moved to Washington, D.C., when he was 10. Europe moved to New York in 1904. In 1910, Europe organized the Clef Club, a society for Black Americans in the music industry. In 1912, the club made history when it played a concert at Carnegie Hall for the benefit of the Colored Music Settlement School. The Clef Club Orchestra, while not a jazz  band, was the first band to play proto-jazz at Carnegie Hall.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of that event in the history of jazz in the United States – it was 12 years before the Paul Whiteman and George Gershwin concert at Aeolian Hall, and 26 years before Benny Goodman's famed concert at Carnegie Hall.

The Clef Club's performances played music written solely by Black composers, including Harry T. Burleigh and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Europe's orchestra also included Will Marion Cook, who had not been in Carnegie Hall since his own performance as solo violinist in 1896. Cook was the first black composer to launch full musical productions, fully scored with a cast and story every bit as classical as any Victor Herbert operetta. In the words of Gunther Schuller, Europe "... had stormed the bastion of the white establishment and made many members of New York's cultural elite aware of Negro music for the first time". The New York Times remarked, "These composers are beginning to form an art of their own."

In 1913 and 1914, Europe made a series of phonograph records for the Victor Talking Machine Company. These recordings are some of the best examples of the pre-jazz hot ragtime style of the U.S. Northeast of the 1910s. 

Neither the Clef Club Orchestra nor the Society Orchestra were small "Dixieland" style bands. They were large symphonic bands to satisfy the tastes of a public that was used to performances by the likes of the John Philip Sousa band and similar organizations very popular at the time. The Clef Orchestra had 125 members and played on various occasions between 1912 and 1915 in Carnegie Hall.

Europe was known for his outspoken personality and unwillingness to bend to musical conventions, particularly in his insistence on playing his own style of music.