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James Reese Europe

The great American composer and conductor James Reese Europe (1881-1919) was the founder of New York's Clef Club, an African-American musicians' organization that began a pathbreaking series of concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1910. Sometimes credited with having invented the Fox Trot, Europe served for several years as music director for the dance duo of Vernon and Irene Castle, for whom he wrote Castle’s Half-and Half, (half waltz, half two-step, in the unusual time signature of 5/4), in collaboration with his colleague Ford T. Dabney in 1914. Sometimes credited with having invented the Fox Trot, in 1914 he wrote a flamboyant set of variations on the One Step called The Castle Walk. The early and highly theatrical fox trot The Castle House Rag was written in the same year, taking its name from the Castles' ornate dance salon on E. 46th St. in New York.

Notes by Roy Wiseman