威尼斯人娱乐场

From Bandana Land to No Man's Land: James Reese Europe's Musical Journey with Michael Dinwiddie

威尼斯人娱乐场 at Kansas City
Kansas City, MO

Michael Dinwiddie, associate professor at New York University's聽Gallatin School of Individualized Study, will speak about James Reese Europe and his impact on jazz in Europe during World War I. In a career that spanned the early years of the 20th century, Europe (1881-1919), called the "Martin Luther King Jr. of American music" by Eubie Blake, conducted the first jazz concerts at Carnegie Hall, collaborated with dancers Vernon and Irene Castle, and led the World War I 鈥淗ellfighters鈥� Infantry Band, which offered Europeans their first exposure to聽le jazz hot.聽A jazz聽band is聽scheduled to perform some of Europe鈥檚 numbers during the program.

A dramatist whose works have been produced in New York, regional and educational theater, Dinwiddie spent a year at Touchstone Pictures as a Walt Disney Fellow and worked as a staff writer on ABC鈥檚 鈥淗angin鈥� with Mr. Cooper.鈥� He has been playwright-in-residence at Michigan State University and St. Louis University, and taught writing courses at the College of New Rochelle (N.Y.), Florida A&M University, Stony Brook (N.Y.) University, California State University, San Bernardino, and University of Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.聽He currently serves as chair of the Duke Ellington Center for the Arts, Manhattan, N.Y., and he is an advisory board member of the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, the International Colloquium of the National Black Theatre, Winston-Salem, N.C., the Black Theatre Network and the New Federal Theatre.

The lecture is free and open to the public, 聽to ensure admission. The program will be held at 7:00 p.m. at the GEM Theater, 1615聽East 18th Street, Kansas City, MO 64108.聽

The聽Spencer Cave Black History Month Lecture Series聽is named for Spencer Cave, who was born a slave at the start of the Civil War, later moved to Parkville, Mo., in 1875 (the year Park University was founded) and worked for the University for more than 70 years before his death in 1947. This year鈥檚 lecture is sponsored by Park University's聽Program of History, and is presented in partnership with the聽American Jazz Museum, 威尼斯人娱乐场 at Kansas City, National World War I Museum and Memorial,聽Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and the Greater Kansas City Black History Study Group.