Jason Moran and the Harlem Hellfighters: James Reese Europe and the Absence of Ruin tickets

The Absence of Ruin is innovative jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran’s multidisciplinary meditation on the life and legacy of James Reese Europe, the underrecognized Black American composer and bandleader who landed in France with the Harlem Hellfighters on New Year’s Day 1918. The celebrated all-Black unit helped break the stalemate on the Western front during the First World War, while composer Europe’s finely honed military music ensemble helped popularize the new spirit of jazz in a war-torn France fascinated with Black culture. Praised by the Washington Post as a “beautiful, poignant, reverent” tribute to Europe with a “stark, sublime beauty,” Moran’s layered work explores the idea of memory in Black culture, augmenting his longstanding Bandwagon bandmates—bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits—with a seven-piece horn section and visuals by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Bradford Young.