Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story

The Film

After World War I, many African Americans remained or returned to Europe, and over the next three decades, created an expatriate community of musicians, entertainers, dancers, writers, and entrepreneurs, primarily congregating in Paris’s hilly Montmartre neighborhood. Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes, Sidney Bechet, Beau Jangles, and other African Americans brought the swinging, soulful sounds of American jazz music and the culture surrounding it to the banks of the Seine. Based on the book by William Shack, Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story celebrates the influence of African American artists during the great jazz era in Paris.