Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story

FAIN: GN-50579-05

Educational Broadcasting Corporation (New York, NY 10019-7416)
Margaret Smilow (Project Director: November 2004 to April 2014)

Production of a 90-minute documentary film about a community of African American jazz musicians in Paris from 1918-49.

HARLEM IN MONTMARTRE: A PARIS JAZZ STORY is a 90-minute documentary of how a small but dynamic community of African American jazz musicians crossed the Atlantic and settled in Montmartre, creating a vibrant expatriate music scene and introducing jazz to the French during the years between the world wars. A co-production of Thirteen/WNET New York, Ideale Audience and Vanguard Documentaries, the film will show how jazz music---a quintessential American art form---had an impact on French culture and how the core of this energy was black America. The film will be broadcast in primetime on PBS as part of GREAT PERFORMANCES.