February 20 - Movie night: Harlem in Montmartre

“The film ex­plores a fas­ci­nat­ing, yet often ne­glect­ed, era in African-American cul­tur­al his­to­ry” says pro­duc­er Margaret Smilow.

"Harlem in Montmartre: Paris Jazz ex­plores the vi­brant ex­pa­tri­ate jazz com­mu­ni­ty which formed among the hills of Montmartre, Paris be­tween the Great Wars. Based on a book writ­ten by dis­tin­guished Berkeley an­thro­pol­o­gist, (the late) William Shack, this film will not on­ly ex­am­ine the life and times of such no­ta­bles as Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, Bricktop, Eugene Bullard, Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Django Reinhardt, but al­so the so­cial, ra­cial, and cul­tur­al im­pli­ca­tions of their rich and dis­parate ex­pe­ri­ences.

“As the Harlem Renaissance sailed across the Atlantic and mor­phed in­to Le Tumult Noir, it be­came, not a black metropolis, but a con­cen­tra­tion of itin­er­ant mu­si­cians, with a fren­zied night-club cul­ture at its core. This Harlem-style jazz brought a gai­ety and mer­ri­ment which Europe was so des­per­ate for; cos­tumed, scant­i­ly-clad cho­rus girls de­liv­er­ing bawdy lyrics and fu­ri­ous­ly can-can­ning their way away from the bru­tal­i­ty and bit­ter mem­o­ries the Great War had left be­hind.” Read more

The doc­u­men­tary was co-pro­duced by Margaret Smilow with Charles Hobson and Helene Le Coeur. We will be very honored to have Charles Hobson with us on February 20. He will pre­sent us that movie and shares with us his pas­sion for jazz.