Love Letters for Paris & France

For 200 years Paris has held a special home in the heart of African Americans.  Long before the sheer beauty of the place takes hold, there are expectations. Black history is chock full of alluring, mythical stories from Paris and France - longstanding acceptance and deep appreciation of Black culture, to start. Then what comes after the first coup de foudre? Some of us know the love affair never ends. At some point though, for those who linger, eventually new understanding sets in. 

I've gathered here a few reflections from writers, artists, abolitionists, poets and intellectuals. Their eye-opening moments transformed a sojourn into an important point of evolution. Whether folks looked to Paris as a place to soothe old hurts, to delight a grumbly heart, or simply to learn something about oneself, it seems that it came down / comes down to looking for love of some kind.                   Paris, on vous aime!

Lois Mailou Jones

Lois (Mailou) Jones, artist, future long-time teacher at Howard University :

“France gave me my stability, and it gave me the assurance that I was talented in that I should have a successful career. [Also] I remember that I had the most wonderful studio. The American University found it for me… it looked out over the city towards the Tour Eiffel. It had a loft and it had a roof garden. It was really paradise working in that studio of my dreams."

From an interview with Charles H. Rowell for Callaloo.

William Wells Brown, visiting in 1849 as a fugitive slave, a militant abolitionist, and as delegate to the Peace Congress:

"All Paris appeared to be on the Boulevards and looking as if the great end to life was enjoyment." 

From Sketches.

James Weldon Johnson, 1905:

"From the day I set foot in France I became aware of the working of a miracle within me. I was free from special scorn, special tolerance, special condescension... free to be merely a man."

Frederick Douglass, 1859:

“To think that I, once a slave on the Eastern shore of Maryland was experiencing all this… Now I was enjoying what the wisest and best of the world have bestowed for the wisest and the best to enjoy.”

From The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

Henry O.Tanner

Painter Henry O.Tanner, arrived in 1891. A former Sunday School superintendent and advocate for temperance, he was constantly surprised by cultural differences and wary of being seduced by French customs:

“But primarily, I was really afraid… I might grow to like it, that there might be lurkng somewhere within me an appetite which, once awakened, I could not control.”

From The Story of an Artist’s Life, H.O.Tanner.

Langston Hughes, romanticized his rooms near Place Clichy where he landed in 1924:

“The room was right out of a book and I began to say to myself I guess dreams do come true … Because here I am, living in a Paris garret, writing poems and having champagne for breakfast (because champagne is what we had with our breakfast at the Grand Duc from the half-empty bottles left by unsuspecting guests.

From The Big Sea, 1940.

This particular apartment was the upside of Hughes' first years in Paris; the downside being his financial hardships and the xenophobia he experienced while competing for scarce jobs.

Jessie Fauset, a Phi Beta Kappa scholar and graduate of Cornell, former teacher of Latin and French, literary editor for Crisis:

 “[It’s] lovely just to be oneself and not bothering about color or prejudice,” but noted that her writing might be suffering from such freedom, “I think strangely that’s why my book progresses so slowly, because I am away from the pressure."

From Noblesse Oblige.

Countee Cullen, poet, champion of all things French. More than other expatriate during the Harlem Renaissance, he explored Diaspora Paris and came up against surprising results:

“As an American Negro we are somewhat startled to find that our dark complexion avails us nought among these kindredly tinted people. Language must be the open sesame here, and it must be French.”

From Opportunity, September 1928.

Horace Cayton, psychologist and sociologist, wrote in his 1960s autobiography ‘Long Old Road’ of his trip in spring 1936:

“I walked down rue de la Paix to the Madeleine and then down into the magnificent Place de la Concorde where I turned up the Champs-Elysées. It was early evening and the air was soft and balmy. Crowds of people were sitting in the numerous cafés on either side of the wide street. I was just one of a crowd. I felt free and happy as I had never remembered feeling in the United States. 

Ralph Ellison first heard stories of France brought back from WWI by his favorite cousin. Later he read French literature, and visited French battlefields after D Day. Writing to Richard Wright:

“I saw the bombed buildings… even the negative symbols contain enough of their lost vitality to make one regret he failed to get there sooner. Certainly, it provided me a new perspective through which to look upon the U.S. and brother, the view is frightful.” 

Chester Himes was ambivalent about his stay in France but acknowledged its contribution to his success:

"In Paris, I found many ways to feed myself without disastrous effects. I gathered throwaway scraps in the markets, old bread, stale wine, and hotel proprietors let me live in rooms until I could afford to pay. France did not support me; it let me live and grow strong enough to concentrate on my work, which was writing … I became famous.” 

As told to author Michel Fabre, 1978.

Hazel Scott, the famed pianist arrived at the end of the 50s for a 3-week vacation and stretched it into a 3-year stay:

“I’m not going to say that France is paradise, but I will say this: you can live anywhere if you’ve got the money to live. You can go anywhere if you’ve got the money to go and whomever you marry or date is your business.”  

What Paris Means To Me,  Negro Digest 1961.

Surrealist poet Ted Joans wrote this tribute to his idol poet André Breton:  

“How can I thank you for the exquisite encounter

On rue Bonaparte in Paris (June 1960)

Of a giant in grey and an Afro American sunbeam.

From Spetrophilia, 1966.

  

Richard Wright:

How calm I've felt here in Paris! No more of that tension that grips so hard ... I walk down a street and feel my legs swinging free."

From his journal, 1947.

James Baldwin, through a fictional character in This Morning, This Evening, So Soon:

"But I could not hate the French, because they left me alone. I will always love [Paris]; it is the city that saved my life ... by allowing me to find out who I am."

So what about you? 

What's your love story with Paris? 

During my first trips to Paris (I was a flight attendant) I was less than impressed. The city tried to charm me but I finally swooned at my first crossing of the Pont Neuf. It was a foggy November morning, best spent in the Louvre, where I was headed. I just stopped dead, peered through the haze, felt - rather than saw - the Conciergerie and the lamp posts reaching out to me; I heaved a sigh and that was that. That was 1982. Like a marriage worth its salt, we've had our falling-outs, but as you can see, I just can't leave it alone.

 

 

Show & Tell on the Champs-Elysées

This question comes up often on tours – how are African Americans viewed and treated differently in Paris than Africans?  Would you be surprised if I told you part of the answer reveals itself on the Champs-Elysées? 

In the Holiday season, the Champs-Elysées truly earns its crown of most beautiful street in the world. Thousands of lights are strung like snowflakes in the trees, ground level is dazzling with Christmas Market baubles and Ice Sculptures. The last thing anyone’s thinking about is what a glorious arena this grand avenue has been for displaying Paris’ appreciation of African American culture. And even further from the mind, recalling how it has recently been the ground of contention in France-Africa relations.

Here's the recurring scene: every Bastille Day on the majestic Champs-Elysées, the rain-proof stadium is set up, the tricolor flag flutters, and military bands march in parade in front of the president.

On more occasions that most people realize, an impressive number of African Americans of unrivaled merit have been invited to parade. And fittingly so; the name of this grand avenue originates from the Greek mythological Elysian Fields where heroes and virtuous souls rest after death.

Imagine the unbelievable pride of the 369^th Harlem Infantry and other segregated Regiments, decorated with their Croix de Guerre, waving back at the grateful crowds that surged onto the street to greet them. This was 1919;  the soldiers had helped liberate small towns in France, they’d kept their heads and hearts when all around them were losing theirs, they’d proven the inferiority label wrong.

Lighting The Flame

Eugene Bullard

A few years earlier, the US Air Force hadn't considered Eugene Bullard worthy of manning its planes. Georgia-born Bullard up and earned his wings in 1916 through the Foreign Legion flying Fokker Triplanes and a Pfalz D III and became the only African American pilot in WWI. The French showered this trailblazer with honors. One of the most powerful took place at the western-most entry to the Champs-E.  Under the Arch of Triumph in 1954, General de Gaulle asked Bullard to rekindle the Flame to the Unknown Soldier.


 

Another Legion of Honor inductee, Josephine Baker, made this swanky street her own. Her feisty, sexy debut at the nearby Théatre des Champs Elysées took the collective breath away. Then all frivolity behind her, down this same fashionable street she marched in 1969 alongside De Gaulle supporters. To complete the picture, the site of her thousands-strong funeral was held a block north of the Champs, at the Madeleine Church.

It's pretty well certain that someone like Josephine 'Queen of Parisian Nights' wasn't quite who France's Queen Marie of Medici had in mind in the 17th century when she planned to turn this farmland on the outskirts of the city into The Queen's Court, later known as the Champs-Elysees.

Miss Sally Hemings started her own dynasty in the shadows of this street, in the shadows of society. She arrived in 1787 as a slave to Ambassador Thomas Jefferson’s family at their residence at the corner of Rue Berri. Thanks to French law, though, she was considered just another free servant of color. Less than a year before the Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood creed of the French Revolution was cast in stone, Miss Sally was said to have conceived the first of the contested Hemings-Jefferson clan here, and soon after hammered out her own declaration of independence for her children. 

Meta Vaux Warrick

Le Petit Palais

From revolution in deed to evolution in perception, look no further than a few steps south of the avenue to the Grand and Petit Palais museums, both constructed for the 1900 Universal Exposition. Here, amid all the beau monde, W.E.B. Dubois exhibited highly unusual photos of Black Americans. Streams of ticket-holders came expecting to commiserate with images of downtrodden, poverty-stricken, ragged former slaves but Du Bois’ fine displays of Black America’s prosperous middle and upper class left them with new food for thought. Since then, those same museums have featured a veritable parade of fine, progressive art that was getting little respect back home:  Henry O. Tanner, Meta Vaux Warrick, Daniel Warburg, Annie E. Walker, Elizabeth Prophet, Palmer Hayden, William Edward Scott, Lois Mailou Jones.

 

More recently, post-modern France chose opera
 singer Jessye Norman to belt out their national anthem "La Marseillaise" during their Champs-Elysées blowout parade for the 200^th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. In the same event, William Foster’s Marching 100 from Florida’s A&M was honored as the only band to represent the U.S. during that 1989 Bastille Day parade. This clip of the performance sings like a Hymn To Joy.

 (N.B. Foster passed away Aug 20, 2010).

So when do the Africans enter Champs-Elysées history? Let’s fast forward to the Bastille Day 2010 military parade. This one’s got controversy stamped all over it.

For the first time in the parade’s history, troops from 13 former African colonies were invited to march infront of the presidential gathering (only Ivory Coast refused). Yet the courage and exploits of the Senegalese Regiment has been the stuff of legend for 150 years, so why now? To mark the 50^th anniversary of the independence of African nations, and yes, finally to honor the soldiers. 

Veterans attending the 2010 parade

The Amazones of Benin

Malian soldiers

From Gabon

From Republic of Central Africa

While few may have questioned the African American presence over the century, a national debate ignited over the African appearance. Some saw the parading soldiers as inappropriate and outdated nostalgia for paternalistic colonial times. Others were outraged at the presence of what they called criminals among the invited contingent. And here’s where our Diaspora history defines our relationship with the French. There hasn't been a high cost politically, socially or morally for France to welcome and be enriched by African Americans.

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And now for something completely different:

Follow up on the Richard Wright 50th Anniversary Commemoration Collage. I'm working on it and plan to have it complete early in the new year. Thank you all for your contributions!

There's more to be done, however!

If you were one of the countless who have searched up the stairs, under the stairs, scanned hundreds of markers to find Wright's, we can put an end to this. To get his name inscribed in the cemetery's guide, the Administration of the Père Lachaise cemetery has to receive a certain quantity of letters requesting his inclusion.

Julia Wright, the author's daughter, is calling on everyone to write a brief letter ( name, address, profession) expressing your wish to see Richard Wright's name added to the list of the personalities in the guide.
Send to:

Madame La Conservatrice

Cimetière du Père Lachaise

16 Rue du Repos

75019 Paris, France

Julia has asked for copies of all letters to be sent to her either by email at richardwrightcentennial.jw@gmail.com or at her address Julia Wright 92 Rue de Lourmel, 75015 Paris France to make sure the integrity and numbers of the file of letters is protected.

Thanks for your continued support.

Care for a French Treat?

Let me offer you a taste of Holidays in Provence. I have parents-in-law there and spent some of my most memorable Christmases circling the ever full table. One of the delectable traditions in the land of the mean Mistral wind is ending the Christmas meal with 13 dessert items! At any given moment I would be nibbling at walnuts, quince cheese, almonds, raisins, teeth-breaker biscuits, Calisson from Aix-en-Provence (candy pebbles with a thick padding of almond and fruit paste sandwiched between a delicious crust of smooth white confectioners sugar), white nougat, black nougat with honey, apple, pear, orange, winter melon and fougasse (Provencal bread).  All is left on the table and eaten over three days.

You'd also be eating this:

Buche de Noel (kind of Christmas cake)

Enjoy! Have a Wonderful Holiday and a Brilliant Start to the New Year!

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Bricktop - A Black Woman Takes Paris On Her Terms

Although my Walking The Spirit Tours of Black Paris have been introducing travelers and Parisians to African-American history for 16 years, I still get a thrill discovering new tidbits to share as food for thought.

Lately it's the fire of Bricktop that has me lit up. She was a hostess extraordinaire who ran the best nightclubs in Roaring 20s Paris. If you don't already know of her, let me introduce you to Miss Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Smith, aka Bricktop.

Said this fiery redhead from Virginia: 'I'm not a singer, I'm not a dancer; I'm a performer and a saloon-keeper'. Hearing that, you just know she was destined to drop a bomb on the decadent Paris scene. That is, once she got past the classic Paris trip-up: reality check of expectations vs what Paris feels like offering up.

At Le Grand Duc

How would you react if you had seasoned your act in the swankiest Chicago and New clubs, then Paris beckoned so you set sail only to find yourself gaping at your new place of employment that fit precisely 12 tables and a minuscule bar.
Exactly.

Of small comfort, a 22-year old Langston Hughes offered the entertainer a hanky to dry her tears and some refreshments from the kitchen at  Le Grand Duc where they both now worked. Revitalized, she got up and put her saloon-keeping skills to work with entrepreneur and employer, aviator Eugene Bullard. Together they turned that little dive into the hotspot for jet-setting celebrities in Lower Montmartre.




A year and a half later, the shrewd but oh so classy Bricktop opened her own namesake club directly across the street. As hostess to royalty and writers, to movie stars and homies, she became both the spark and the cultivator of change.

It's well-documented gossip that F.Scott Fitzgerald and Cole Porter fought over her on that corner of Rue Pigalle and Rue Fontaine in the heart of Black Montmartre; out of their boyish one-upmanship came the classic tune 'Miss Otis Regrets'.

Away from judgmental eyes, she agreed to teach the Prince of Wales to swing his behind to the latest dance 'Black Bottom'. At the bar, Black and white Americans rubbed elbows without friction, taking in the latest records from home. And somewhere in that maddening, jubilant crowd, two fresh-faced local musicians listened with their whole spirit. Then a certain Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli went home and worked their guitar and violin until they formed France's first professional jazz band.

View from Black Montmartre - Rue Fontaine

Beyond the expat-makes-good story, what piques my curiosity is Bricktop's personal politics - the decisions she made as an influential woman. Though kept very private, her love life provokes reflection on the real values of the day and on our assumptions. One might assume that, surrounded as she was by powerful and accomplished men, in freewheeling Paris no less, that she just might slip into the obvious. Well, not for this equally powerful and accomplished Black woman! Her rule number one - never mix business with pleasure.

Then she wondered aloud what a successful African American woman would want with a white man, even if he was her manager. She herself married a Brother saxophonist, Peter Duconge, in 1929 but my question branches from her puzzlement. Lower Montmartre of the 20s attracted an international mix of party-goers so crossing the color line wouldn't raise an eyebrow.

Picasso hung out at Bricktop's.

We've heard much about the male expats who married European women
but rarely, (Josephine excepted), the other way around in that time period - up to the 1950s. Was it because the Black community was so fervent and prosperous that the French offered no tangible benefits for a woman? Did the close knit community effectively satisfy that yearning to belong within the foreign culture? Despite France's reputed racial tolerance, did any of the women really consider staying and integrating? Bricktop was half black, half freckled Irish so it could be simply that she chose sides early on and was sticking to it when it came time for the ultimate commitment.



How Black women's experiences in Paris have branched out since the 60s! The homey inclusion of Black Montmartre of the 20s has never been recreated. Compared to the legions of Black men, the trickle of African American women relocating and staying has slowly grown. But without a visible community to soft land into, it's easy to start making a life among the French and disappear into the fabric of Gallic society. Black women who have lived or live in Paris know more than a handful of us who are navigating our adopted land as mothers, wives or significant others, career builders, cultural interpreters, and passers-on of our Black and American culture. We're carrying on what Bricktop and her colleagues started, on a less flamboyant but just as influential level.

Any thoughts out there?

Jazz and its Homestyle 'Hood

Jazz à La Villette is summer's last hurrah of festivals. Running August 31 through Sept 12, this jazz tribute brings onstage their signature creative mix of jazz, hip hop and soul. Closing night rings out with a shout out to the Black Panthers called 'Tongues on Fire' by The Roots, The Last Poets and David Murray.


Preparing the terrain since the summer, the MK2 movie theater along the quays of the 19th district lined up an exciting selection of iconic Black films all summer.


What's also great about attending this festival is the opportunity to hang out in the cosmopolitan neighborhood that surrounds La Villette and stretches alongside the waterfront. Paris doesn't get much more unselfconsciously diverse than up here in this part of the north east, the 19th district.

For example, you'll find an African restaurant next to a Breton creperie both facing a neighbor-tended garden which is traversed by Jews on their way to the nearby synagogue.

Along the canal on a fine day, young people and families spread blankets and dawdle over picnic or take-out lunch, kids tear up the crushed gravel playgrounds, table-tennis players battle it out....

While planning your next trip to Paris, book one of the architecturally- interesting Holiday Inns that overlook the quais, and plan to get to know this homestyle Paris (between metros Jaurès to Porte de Pantin). One of the lures  - the best Sicilian pizzeria in town is at metro Laumière.

And to butter up that mood, I'm inviting you to tune into the internet broadcast of one of the jazz festival's sponsors - Fip jazz radio. Part of the Radio France family, Fip keeps me and my work humming along to the most surprising mix of music genres - lots of jazz, yes, including live concerts taped in their studios. Also rare and favorite African artists, plus other international talents including American rock, British edge and good old classical.  Tune in anytime by hitting the 'ecouter' arrow - great chance to practice your French by listening to the signature purr of the female djs. There's some vintage Quincy Jones streaming through as I write this...

Goodbye Haynes, Hello Again Miles

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Paris has lost its first and its last African-American landmark. When GI Leroy Haynes and his French wife opened a soul food restaurant in 1949, it was a lifesaver for Black GIs hankering for some homestyle fatback and sausages. In the 50s and 60s, within its pale yellow walls it gathered together the famous – Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison; the stars – Elizabeth Taylor, Brigitte Bardot; and the locals. And right up until its closing in April 2009, visitors to Paris came looking to sample that last taste of African-American history in Paris.

Were you one of many who had your picture taken outside against its odd log cabin exterior on narrow rue Clauzel in the 9^th district? Or could be you gawked at the glamorous gallery of autographed photos that decorated every inch of the inside. Or if you were lucky, you got a glimpse an original Beauford Delaney painting of James Baldwin that used to hang above the hallway to the kitchen.

Memphis Slim                                                          Marianne Faithfull                                                      Cab Calloway

With its closing, we’ve lost a real brick and mortar place where you could plant your feet and say: this was created by a Black American in this cosmopolitan city. It outlived any other African-American owned businesses that followed. What we’ve lost also is a concrete I-can-touch-it sense of continuation. Its location in Lower Montmartre dovetailed neatly into history already engraved in this area by Bricktop, Eugene Bullard, Sidney Bechet and Josephine Baker during the 1920s & 30s. After the numerous black-run/owned clubs shut their doors in the face of Nazi occupation, GI Haynes returned and planted the flag for African-American culture once again.

It wasn’t the only place to get authentic soul food in Paris. Anybody still smacking their lips over the ribs at Randy & Jays Rib Joint from the mid-1990s?  And more recently, Percy’s Place, in the bourgeois 16^th district served up a refined blend of soul and French cuisine (as did Chez Josephine in 1927).

For those of us in the tourism biz, it’s sad not to guide visitors down the street and say voila, we’re still here. That said, since manager Benny Luke left the house around 2000, the spirit has been fading. Haynes’ 3^rd wife, Maria Dos Santos, did make an effort to keep the black focus but in the end, even adopting the trendy Brazilian theme couldn’t keep the pots on the stoves, nor the bottoms in the chairs.

A bit of history on Haynes: Kentucky-born GI, Leroy Howard Milton Haynes, and his French wife, Gabby, opened Gabby & Haynes in 1949 on rue Manuel, just off rue des Martyrs. Although the relationship and partnership broke up in 1960, Gabby and their son Richard continued offering tradition cuisine.

 Then in 1964, a stone’s throw on the other side of rue des Martyrs, Morehouse grad Leroy H. opened his own Chez Haynes.  How popular was he? Years ago, I came across some wonderful news footage in the archives of French Television where the journalist literally drooled over Haynes’ exotic food prep. By then bon vivant Haynes was also known for his small parts in French movies. His celebrity status and his big laugh had them lined up at the bar waiting for a coveted place at the table. But he was just plain comfort to Americans. Louis Armstrong himself once left his own concert early to scoot over where a plate of red beans and rice were waiting for him.

If you’ve got stories to share about your own experiences at Chez Haynes, we’d love to hear them.

Otherwise, grab a hankie and enjoy these great nostalgic pictures graciously made accessible by journalist Jean Segura.   http://www.ruedescollectionneurs.com/magazine/mag/haynes.php
 

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Richard Wright's Normandy & Black Montmartre

It's August, let's do like the French and take a little vacation from Paris.

You may already know that Richard Wright kept a charming little farmhouse in nearby Normandy - and it's great to get proof that it's still standing. One of our tour participants followed this particular trail of Black history outside Paris and came back thrilled. After a quick half-hour train trip from Paris, they were met in the tiny quaint village by a very hospitable young driver/guide. Alexandre had helped me find and make arrangements for them to visit Wright’s old farmhouse. The guardian of the place, Mr. Heloin, was an old acquaintance of the Wright family and took great pleasure showing our American travelers around the farmhouse and regaling them with stories, translated loosely by their guide. Wright loved the country life. You may have heard the story of him bringing his prized farm-grown potatoes back to Paris and handing out baskets of them to his friends at the Café Tournon. No potatoes during this 2009 visit, but our travelers got their fill of delicious cherries, straight off the tree.

Following Wright’s footsteps then led to the artist colony where he composed his

haiku at the end of the 50s. It’s still a gorgeous bucolic retreat built around an 11^th century mill. Goats roam the grounds, a serene river flows nearby… what more could the writers, artists and musicians who spend a week or a month here need to create? Not much, if you read the haiku that blossomed from Wright’s imagination, penned in his own little room at the end a row of cottages.

The owner, Ms. Lipinska, is a lovely woman – the same one who had originally invited Wright to make this his home away from home. And the same who graciously hosted the Mississippi TV crew I was part of back in '94 when Madison Lacy was filming Black Boy. Over a fine dinner of homemade lasagna, Ms. Lipinska enchanted our travelers with more memories of Richard Wright and the impressive list of artists who have taken up residency there. She even showed the letter Wright had written her after his stay.

It’s not much of a stretch to imagine Wright relaxed and flexing his creative muscles in this retreat far from the maddening throngs of Paris.

(Thanks Angela for your story!)

It was hot, hot, hot in Black Montmartre

Back to Paris, now, to the Roaring '20s when there was no hotter place for Black culture outside of Harlem than on the lower slopes of Montmartre. In fact, the vibrancy and influence of the post-war Black Paris community has never been equaled.

Alberta Hunter & Florence Mills

Imagine it’s around 1925. You stumble out for your morning paper and saxophonist/clarinetist Sidney Bechet ambles by, on his way home from playing at Bricktop’s legendary club. Or, after a work-out session at the gym run by Foreign Legion aviator Eugene Bullard, you down a quick and copious meal made cheaper by the mighty American dollar. As night falls, you put on your duds and head out to make the rounds of the many clubs where fellow African-Americans rake in more money than French musicians.

Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson

Had you been there, you’d have crossed the path of a young Langston Hughes working on his jazz poetry, or reserved a table at Josephine B’s chic but not cheap Chez Josephine restaurant. You might have had your suits made by R.D. Miller, a brother’s shop just down the street from the Moulin Rouge.

Of course by now you want to know and see more, right? Set your DVD recorders or VCRs for August 26^th : PBS will be broadcasting the much-anticipated documentary ‘Harlem in Montmartre’. The film covers jazz in Paris from 1920-45. Not only will it delve into the revolutionary African-American experience there, but it will pick at that burning question: how did African-American music become French?? As a primer, here are a couple of key players: the Depression, a protectionist law that limited foreigners playing in clubs, two fresh-faced musicians - Stephane Grapelli and Django Reinhardt - trying their hand at the totally new phrasing and style they'd been listening to at Bricktop's, and, of course, World War II & the Nazis.

The documentary is the fine work of Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Dante James (series producer of Slavery and the Making of America). You can read Kam Williams’ interview with him here.