| James Reese Europe (1880 - 1919)  United States (USA)James Reese Europe (22 February 1880 – 9 May 1919) was an American ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer. He was the leading figure on the African-American music scene of New York City in the 1910s. Eubie Blake called him the "Martin Luther King of music".
James "Jim" Reese Europe was born in Mobile, Alabama to Henry and Laura Europe. His family, which included his older sisters Minnie and Ida, and older brother John, moved to Washington, D.C. in 1890, when he was 10 years old. He moved to New York in 1904. |
