PBA Galleries

Rare original postcard, captioned “Late Lieut. Jos. [sic] Reese Europe / Formerly of the old 15th N.Y. National Guard / Director of the Famous 369th U.S.Inf. Band”.  3½x5½". Postally used in Oklahoma.

Has three photos of Europe in Army uniform, two directing with baton, and his facsimile signature; with: pictorial sheet music, “I’ve Got The Finest Man”, Words by Henry S. Creamer; Music by James Reese Europe (copyright 1912) 4pp. Called the “Martin Luther King of Music” by composer Eubie Black, Europe was a pivotal figure in the history of early American Jazz. In 1912, the year this sheet music appeared, he directed the first band to perform Jazz-like “hot ragtime” music at Carnegie Hall – long before Gershwin’s famous concert which is often thought to have introduced jazz to that venue. Europe was nationally famous by the time American entered World War I, when he was commissioned an officer of the “Harlem Hellfighters” to direct that Black Regiment’s band, which performed for hundreds of audiences of Allied soldiers across war-torn France – the genesis of popular American Jazz on the European continent. Returning to the US in 1919, intending to compose and perform uniquely “Negro music”, 38 year-old Europe was tragically murdered in Boston by the drummer of his own band. The postcard was undoubtedly issued soon after his death. All such period ephemera and sheet music of James Reese Europe is rare.