Nor was the Clef Club Orchestra what we think of as the small ragtime ensemble. Europe placed more than 100 musicians onstage. The instruments initially included guitars, mandolins, violins, cellos, double basses, grand pianos and percussion, plus some less common instruments like bandurris (a type of Spanish guitar) and harp guitars (our Thorne cousin, Arthur Desverney, is listed as playing one of these). The Orchestra's repertory included songs, rags, shuffles, and a few show tunes, including some composed by Europe himself.
This kind of concert hadn't been heard anywhere before. At that time, the European tradition of composing and playing orchestral music ruled the serious, i.e., non-vaudeville stage. African-American music was largely dismissed as undeserving of a wider hearing, much less further study. Fortunately for all of us, Jame Europe knew otherwise.
That music training and performance was considered essential by New York City's burgeoning African-American community is evidenced by the establishment in 1911 of a settlement school specifically for music training and performance: the "Music School Settlement for Colored People."
The settlement movement had given rise to settlement houses and schools to provide social and educational services for the poor, but were all segregated. A music school had already been established on the Lower East Side, but it was of course for whites only.
Enter David Mannes, violinist and later founder of the Mannes School of Music: a chance encounter between the teenaged Mannes and a once-enslaved violinist named Charles Douglas led to Mannes taking lessons from Douglas for a time. Mannes saw the opportunity to pay that debt forward by establishing the Music School Settlement for Colored People in honor of his former teacher and for which he was the mainstay of the Board of Directors.
The 1920 NYC Charities directory gives the then-current address of the music school as 6 W. 131st St. and the telephone number as Harlem 1079.
The whole entry from the charities directory is worth seeing, so here it is:
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| 1920 New York City Charities Directory, p. 168. |
And Europe and the Clef Club Orchestra rose to the occasion: a benefit concert for the Music School Settlement was planned for 1912, and the venue was booked: Carnegie Hall.
The benefit concert took place on May 2, 1912. The Clef Club Orchestra of 125 musicians was joined by a chorus of 100+. The hall was filled with both black and white music enthusiasts, and many were turned away outside the doors.
The program, along with a picture of the Orchestra, may be found on the Carnegie Hall website. Alas, the orchestra and chorus members for the evening at Carnegie Hall are not listed, so we do not have complete confirmation that Arthur Desverney performed. But other reports of concerts and Orchestra members' activities from the New York Age both before and after this concert identify him as being a member during this period, so it isn't unreasonable to assume that as a current member, he performed at this and the two subsequent Carnegie Hall performances (1913 and 1914) by the Clef Club Orchestra.
Europe also pulled a select group from the general orchestra membership and made a few recordings, an example of which is linked to below. As the names of the those players haven't been discovered yet, we don't know if Arthur Desverney was among them.
After also providing music for the dance team of Vernon and Irene Castle, James Europe went on to considerable acclaim in France as U.S. Army Lieutenant James Reese Europe, leader of the regimental band of 369th Infantry Regiment, the "Harlem Hellfighters." The band performed throughout France for both military and civilian audiences, introducing ragtime on a broad scale to France and greater Europe.
After the war, Europe returned home in 1919 and resumed touring with a new orchestra. During a tour stop in Boston, he got into an argument with a member of his orchestra, who stabbed him with a penknife. The wound proved fatal: he died on May 9, 1919.
Europe was given a hero's funeral in New York City and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The New York Public Library has in its digital collection a photo identified as showing of part of Europe's funeral procession:
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| James Reese Europe funeral procession, May, 1919. Photo from New York Public Library Thought to be in the public domain . |
And what became of cousin Arthur? He seems to have died a fairly early death in 1920 when he will have been around 32 years of age. His mother, Harriet Thorne Desverney, placed the following memorial in the 29 Nov 22 New York Amsterdam News:
I haven't gotten his death certificate yet so I don't know what the official cause of death was, nor do I know his final resting place. Nor do I yet know if he left any children behind.
So that's pretty much the Carnegie Hall story. Interestingly enough, though, Arthur's older brother, Broughum Desverney had his own musical career, with the family name ultimately becoming very widely known in New York City's African-American music circles and beyond. Alas, he was no longer attached to the musician who was making such hay with the Desverney name, but that's a story for next time.
Further reading:
A biography of James Reese Europe with much more about the Clef Club:
Badger, Reid. A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe. Oxford University Press: 1995.
A website devoted to harp guitar that includes a good survey of both James Europe and the Clef Club Orchestra and some of the instruments used in the latter:
General Historical Overview of Harp Guitars
Good Survey of James Reese Europe and the Clef Club Orchestra
A Youtube audio-only of a 1913 recording of James Europe's Society Orchestra, whose members were selected from the Clef Club Orchestra. The recording is a composition of Europe's entitled "Too Much Mustard."
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