100th Anniversary of the Harlem Hellfighters

The Legacy of Brass Bands & Marching Bands

Jun 11, 2016 @ 7:00pm

A presentation about the Harlem Hellfighters followed by the music of the Monroe Mustangs (of Monroe College) and Zlatne Uste Balkan brass band

In 1910 James Reese Europe started the Clef Club, as a rival to the New York local of the American Federation of Musicians which didn’t admit Blacks. Two years later he founded an orchestra of over 100 musicians and the following year it was the first Black group to play Carnegie Hall. He also led the orchestra that traveled with Irene and Vernon Castle which helped to popularize ballroom dances such as the tango and foxtrot in the years prior to World War I. By this time he was one of the most “eagerly sought-after society dance bandleaders in New York.” As the U.S. was about to enter World War I, Europe enlisted and was asked to organize an African American military band and fighting unit for the army for the 15th New York National Guard Unit which was organized in June 1916. In 1917 Rafael Her- nández, who would become Puerto Rico’s and Latin America’s most beloved composer, met Lieutenant James Reese Europe in Puerto Rico. Hernández was re- recruited into Europe’s 369th Regiment band as a trombone player and became a sergeant during the war. Europe signed up a total of 18 musicians from the island.
While in France the regiment had to fight as members of the French army due to the segregation policies of the United States and was given the new designation of the 369th Regiment. Europe’s regimental band (the “Hellfighters” sobriquet became more associated with the band than the entire regiment, whose real nickname was the Harlem Rattlers) is credited as introducing jazz to the European continent, playing in 25 French cities in 1917. The music entranced the French and was actually ragtime, that uniquely American vernacular music. Although not yet formally called “jazz,” the music they played contained many of the musical elements that became defining characteristics of the early jazz and ragtime vocabulary. After the war, the 369th U.S. Infantry band triumphantly returned to the United States where they were the first regiment to be given a parade up 5th Avenue into a jubilant Harlem.
As a style of vernacular music, the United States, Puerto Rico and Latin America have a long history of military and marching bands. Originally, a military band consisted of wind and percussion instruments playing the ceremonial and marching music of their regiment, as well as national songs. The bands played in town squares and marched in parades. The United States has a long history of different types of ensembles from the military bands, marching bands of universities, to brass bands. The early military band tradition, dating back to the American Revolution, consisted of fifes and drums. Early on in U.S. history regiment bands played on the field, but by World War I they mostly performed for concert settings and drill events. In the early 19th century, advances in in- strument design led to a proliferation of brass-dominated bands; and, by the mid 19th century, bands expanded to include reeds, brass and percussion and drew on British, German, and French influences.
Military bands had deep connections with civilian audiences in the United States, as they diversified their repertoires to include more than just marches. Stringed instruments would substitute for wind instruments to play at quadrilles and cotillions. During the Civil War brass instruments became common in military bands. By the end of the 19th century John Philip Sousa, who had been the director of the U.S. Marine Band, formed a concert band and toured throughout the country, thus contributing to the genre’s popularity. In the latter half of the 19th century, many black colleges were formed and in these burgeoning institutions, bands were used to recruit students and raise funds. By the mid-20th century, black college marching bands had distinctive performance traditions that included drumlines and spectacular showmanship.
Drumlines
The drumline is made up of four types of instruments– snare drums, multi-tonal tenor drums (‘quads’), bass drums, and cymbals. Each instrument is designed to be worn by the performer using a carrier or harness. They march in parades or perform in choreographed floor shows. The snare line forms the main body of the drumline with the most performers. The multi-tonal tenor drum set is the largest and heaviest instrument in the drumline. Unlike the snare, tenors are played using the matched grip to enable players to move from drum to drum quickly and accurately, incorporating difficult splits across the drums. Tenor drums are played using mallets, rather than drum sticks. The bass section is thought to be more mathematical and methodical than other sections of the corps. Each player in the bass section has a different sized bass drum and, as a result, a different pitched drum. The players perform and interact with one another as though they’re a single instrument. Like with the tenor section, the bass section use mallets – albeit a lot bigger than their tenor mallet cousins.
Balkan Brass Bands
Brass bands are a global phenomenon. From Brazilian frevo to Mexican banda and New Orleans second-line—the New York Times described it as “ one of the world’s most-spoken languages.” Currently, in New York City, Balkan brass bands are enjoying a golden age with festivals and a “Gypsy punk scene.” Their beginnings have roots in the era before World War I and the emergence of Communist states, when musicians in the Balkans—Balkan and Gypsy (Roma) brass bands as well as Jewish klezmer bands— traveled across borders to perform. But their origins go back even further. The brass band music of the Balkan region can be traced back to the Turks and the janissary (military corps—sound familiar?) bands of the Ottoman Empire which brought brass sounds to Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, and Bulgaria. During the time of the Ottoman Empire brass bands would walk out in front of the soldiers to scare the enemy. By the 19th-century brass bands were popular throughout Europe. Germany and Austria adopted the style and ironically was the inspiration for the Mexican brass style when the Franco-Austrian military bands arrived in Mexico in the 1800s when Austrian-born Maximillan ruled there.