Footnotes

Footnotes is the remarkable true story of the Black artists behind the unlikely Broadway sensation, Shuffle Along, that brought jazz into the mainstream and helped usher in the Harlem Renaissance—in the aftermath of a World War, decimated economy, worldwide pandemic,and the most violent period of racial violence since the Civil War.

Through interviews with family members, personal photographs and extensive research, author Caseen Gaines pulls back the curtain and reveals how these artists defied the odds to become internationally-renowned trailblazers, who forever changed the look and sound of our popular entertainment.

Set primarily in 1920s New York City, in a heavily-segregated America still grappling with the lasting impact of slavery,Footnotes follows Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Flournoy Miller, and Aubrey Lyles, four dynamic entertainers, composers, lyricists and musicians, who, over the course of the past one hundred years,went from front-page headlines to historical footnotes.

Footnotes will be published on May 25, 2021 to coincide with the centennial of the premiere of Shuffle Along, the Broadway musical with an all-Black cast and all-Black creative team that forever changed the face of the Great White Way