From the Dancehall to the Battlefield

Lyrics

They walked a very long way Saw you and tagged you forever Then strode away but kept you in their mind As they tagged someone else See, that's how a lot of this works They didn't tell you where they were going Or what it would feel like or sound like Or the stories you'd tell about all that you'd survive And yes, you will survive or be survived by In 1881, James Reese Europe is born in Mobile, Alabama And in the pre dawn of the great migration His parents moved up to Washington, D.C. because they knew It is in D.C. that James begins to take violin lessons From Joseph Douglass, the grandson of Frederick Douglass Because Douglass knew innately that Liberation not only speaks from the mind But also from the instrument The violin, hollowed wood with a bow strung with horse hair Abrading tense steel See, liberation occurs in many forms When James then takes his violin to New York He's seeking a new sound to make New folk to break bread with And a new stage to plow For the stage will always be a portal A place to test what is real and surreal What he realises is that a required respect on the stage And off must be demanded Which culminated in the black musician's union Called the Clef Club It is the humanity that I hear in these songs In his bands When James tagged 125 musicians Walked into Carnegie Hall with his brand of syncopation The new beat had arrived Because syncopation is about urgency Pushing the beat ahead To apply the anticipation of the oncoming downbeat An outlook that is inherently futuristic So all that futurism arrives But the indoor stage proved only preparation For another dangerous stage The battlefield of World War One And with his band of black diaspora He brought the music across the Atlantic To the frontline of the battle As his commitment to expansive vision was beyond Beyond the last row of the seats in the house Or the horizon of the trenches ahead James Reese Europe Becomes one of the seminal big bands in black music Let us meditate on that From the dancehall to the battlefield And back home to you