RIO RANCHO, N.M. – Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis wandered along the Seine and felt free. Louis Armstrong sought refuge from the Jim Crow American South at the Hôtel Alba Opéra.
Dancer Josephine Baker wowed audiences at the Folies Bergère before joining the French Resistance during World War II. For African American artists, Paris long existed as a haven allowing them to experience their humanity, despite the city’s contradictions and racial tensions.
A visit introduced possibilities and dilated dreams. “The Eddy,” a new Netflix music drama series that premieres Friday, seeks to pay homage to those encounters while also granting nods to the French New Wave film movement of the late 1950s, the refugee, the abused, and, of course, jazz.