Tag Archives: Charles Gesmar

In the 1920’s and 1930’s American artists, musicians, and writers flocked to Paris, France, the “City of Light,” Paris represented personal and artistic freedom, and they crossed the Atlantic in droves. All of Paris was in love Jazz and the new visitors bringing them their Jazz culture. The new visitors where welcomed with open arms for their unique talents especially their Jazz music.

As Paris rebounded from World War I in the 1920s artistic creativity and expression surges and central to the Jazz scene were the Americans, including many African Americans, who had served in the armed forces during the war and decided to stay or who traveled to Paris because of its positive racial and artistic climate.
Montmartre in Paris is famous for its artists and its jazz clubs including Le Grand Duc and Bricktop’s. Here many famous painters and jazz musicians lived and flourished.

Josephine Baker, Johnny
Hudgins, were among the big names that rose to fame in the Parisians flocked to the venus,
In post war Paris, cabaret life and café society, and the new social and artistic boom was in full swing through the 1930s.

Jazz Age stars including Josephine Baker,James Reese
Europe, Ada “Bricktop” Smith, Sidney Bechet, and . Gypsy
guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer Darius Milhaud, and writers Hugues Pannaisié and
Charles Delaunay represent the Europeans who influenced and were influenced by the new
sounds, ideas, and spirit of the day.

Artists in Paris during the Jazz Age included Jean Cocteau, Paul Colin, Miguel
Covarrubias, August Herbin, Charles Gesmar, and Leonetto Cappiello.

Paris Jazz Age

Montmartre in the Jazz Era

The Paris district of Montmatrte, located in the 18th arrondissement was a famous location of the clubs and cabarets of the 1920’s
where Jazz was played and flourished, Pigale was a hotspot where Jazz fans collected nightly to hear the latest jazz proponents and rub shoulders with artists and bohemians of the era.Montmartre, was where the African-American expat community settled during the 1920’s in order to live a free life without racism. The Harlem Hellfighters were a band of soldier-musicians who had fought with the French army in World War I against the Germans. Here they were welcomed by Parisians into a culture of art, literature, dance, music, expecially Jazz music. African-Americans Brought the “Harlem Renaissance” movement and brought with them the musical culture of Harlem, New York.
In this era Paris emerges as one of the foremost capitals of Jazz and Montmartre was at it center, as a magnetic and glamorous place centered on Jazz music, art and culture. However, this “Golden Era” lasted only to Beginning of World War II, but to this day Paris has retained it’s reputation as one of the centers of Jazz and is known for its place in Jazz history.

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