Clef Club March, James Reese Europe (1881-1919)

The Minnesota Symphonic Winds, Timothy Mahr
The 2024 ASBDA National Convention, Minneapolis, MN
The Clef Club March is a historic American composition written in a grand march style played with a biting attack and an infectious rhythm.
Organized in 1910 by James Reese Europe, the Clef Club was the first trade union for New York's black performers. This was a 125-piece orchestra made up of traditional instruments plus large numbers of mandolins, guitars, banjos and upright pianos. In 1912 the Clef Club March opened the first of three historic Carnegie Hall engagements that presented Concert(s) of Negro Music. These were the very first performances of a black ensemble at Carnegie. New York, wrote one critic after their first performance, woke up to the fact that it had something new in music. The music performed by Jim Europe and the Clef Club was a proto-jazz mixture of ragtime, blues, and minstrel songs that paved the way for the coming Jazz era.
- Program Note from publisher