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Cotton Club

October 15, 2023

For other uses, see Cotton Club (disambiguation).

The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (1923–1936), then briefly in the midtown Theater District (1936–1940).[1] The club operated during the United States' era of Prohibition and Jim Crow era racial segregation. Black people initially could not patronize the Cotton Club, but the venue featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era, including musicians Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant; vocalists Adelaide Hall,[2][3] Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Lillie Delk Christian, Aida Ward, Avon Long, the Dandridge Sisters, the Will Vodery choir, The Mills Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, Billie Holiday, Midge Williams, Lena Horne, and dancers such as Katherine Dunham, Bill Robinson, The Nicholas Brothers, Charles 'Honi' Coles, Leonard Reed, Stepin Fetchit, the Berry Brothers, The Four Step Brothers, Jeni Le Gon and Earl Snakehips Tucker.

Duke Ellington was one of the original Cotton Club orchestra leaders.
Adelaide Hall, star of the Cotton Club
Cab Calloway was another of the original Cotton Club performers.
Ethel Waters starred at the Cotton Club
Lena Horne as a young girl was featured at the Cotton Club.
Dorothy Dandridge, entertainer at the Cotton Club

In its prime, the Cotton Club served as a hip meeting spot, with regular "Celebrity Nights" on Sundays featuring guests including Jimmy Durante, George Gershwin, Sophie Tucker, Paul Robeson, Al Jolson, Mae West, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Langston Hughes, Judy Garland, Moss Hart, and Jimmy Walker.

Adelaide Hall starring in the Cotton Club Revue of 1934 at the Loew's Metropolitan Theater, Brooklyn, commencing on 7 September 1934 (advertisement)

History Edit

In 1920, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson rented the upper floor of the building on the corner of 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue in the heart of Harlem and opened an intimate supper club called the Club Deluxe. Owney Madden, a prominent bootlegger and gangster, took over the club after his release from Sing Sing in 1923 and changed its name to the Cotton Club.[4] The two arranged a deal that allowed Johnson to remain the club's manager. Madden "used the Cotton Club as an outlet to sell his #1 beer to the prohibition crowd".[5]

When the club closed briefly in 1925 for selling liquor, it soon reopened without interference from the police.[4] An extensive drink list continued to be available on the Cotton Club menu and sold to white guests following the shut down.[6] Herman Stark then became the stage manager. Harlem producer Leonard Harper directed the first two of three opening night floor-shows at the new venue.

 
Cotton Club dancer Mildred Dixon – Duke Ellington's second companion

The Cotton Club was a whites-only establishment with rare exceptions for black celebrities such as Ethel Waters and Bill Robinson.[7] It reproduced the racist imagery of the era, often depicting black people as savages in exotic jungles or as "darkies" in the plantation South. A 1938 menu included this imagery, with illustrations done by Julian Harrison, showing naked black men and women dancing around a drum in the jungle. Tribal mask illustrations make up the border of the menu.[6][8]

The club imposed a subtler color line on the chorus girls, whom the club presented in skimpy outfits. They were expected to be "tall, tan, and terrific", which meant they had to be at least 5'6" tall, light-skinned, and under 21 years of age.[9] The male dancers', the Cotton Club Boys, skin colors were more varied. "Black performers did not mix with the club's clientele, and after the show many of them went next door to the basement of the superintendent at 646 Lenox, where they imbibed corn whiskey, peach brandy, and marijuana."[10]

Ellington was expected to write "jungle music" for a white audience; Ellington's contributions to the Cotton Club were priceless, as described in this 1937 New York Times excerpt: "So long may the empirical Duke and his music making roosters reign—and long may the Cotton Club continue to remember that it came down from Harlem".[11] Entrance was expensive for customers, and it included a two dollar minimum cover fee on weekdays for food and drink, so the performers were well-compensated.[12][13][6]

The Harlem years Edit

Shows at the Cotton Club were musical revues, and several were called "Cotton Club Parade" followed by the year. Musical revues were created twice a year in hopes of becoming successful Broadway shows.[14] The revues featured dancers, singers, comedians, and variety acts, as well as a house band.[1] These revues helped launch the careers of many artists, including Andy Preer, who led the Cotton Club's first house band in 1923. Duke Ellington's orchestra was the house band from December 4, 1927, until June 30, 1931.[15]

The first revue that Ellington's orchestra performed was called the “Creole Revue" and featured Adelaide Hall. Hall had just recorded several songs with Ellington, including "Creole Love Call," a worldwide hit.[16] The club gave Ellington national exposure through radio broadcasts originating there, first over WHN, then over WEAF, and after September 1929 on Fridays over the NBC Red Network, for which WEAF was the flagship station.[17]

The club also enabled him to develop his repertoire while composing dance tunes for the shows as well overtures, transitions, accompaniments, and "jungle" effects, giving him a freedom to experiment with orchestral arrangements that touring bands rarely experienced. Ellington recorded more than 100 compositions during this period. Eventually, responding to Ellington's request, the club slightly relaxed its policy of segregation.[17]

Cab Calloway's orchestra brought its "Brown Sugar" revue to the club on September 28, 1930, replacing Ellington's orchestra after its departure on February 4, 1931. Jimmie Lunceford's band replaced Calloway's in 1934. Ellington, Calloway, and Louis Armstrong returned to perform at the club in later years. Lena Horne (Leona Laviscount) began at the Cotton Club as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen, and sang "Sweeter than Sweet" with Calloway. Dorothy Dandridge performed at the club while part of the Dandridge Sisters, and Coleman Hawkins and Don Redman played at the club as part of Henderson's band. Tap dancers Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Sammy Davis Jr. (as part of the Will Mastin Trio), and the Nicholas Brothers performed at the club as well.

Another notable "Cotton Club Parade" in 1933 featured Ethel Waters, and Duke Ellington performing Stormy Weather. Later this performance would also include Lena Horne, and Katherine Dunham in the film adaptation of Stormy Weather.[18] The club also drew from white popular culture. Walter Brooks, who had produced the successful Broadway show Shuffle Along, was the club's nominal owner. Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, one of the most prominent songwriting teams of the era, and Harold Arlen wrote the songs for the revues, one of which, Blackbirds of 1928, starring Adelaide Hall, featured the songs "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" and "Diga Diga Doo", produced by Lew Leslie on Broadway.[2]

In 1934, Hall starred in the "Cotton Club Parade 1934", the highest-grossing show ever to appear at the club. The show opened on March 11, 1934, and ran for six months, attracting over 600,000 paying customers. The score was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler and featured the classic song "Ill Wind." During Hall's performance of "Ill Wind," a dry-ice machine was used to create a fog effect, the first time such equipment had been used on a stage.[2] Sixteen-year-old Lena Horne was also featured on the bill. After appearing at the Cotton Club the entire show starring Adelaide Hall was taken out on a road tour across America.

The Midtown years Edit

The club closed temporarily in 1936 after the race riot in Harlem the previous year. Carl Van Vechten had vowed to boycott the club for having such racist policies as refusing entry to African Americans in place.[10] The Cotton Club reopened later that year at Broadway and 48th.[19] The site chosen for the new Cotton Club was a big room on the top floor of a building where Broadway and Seventh Avenue meet, an important midtown crossroads at the center of the Great White Way, the Broadway Theater District.[20]

Stark and the club's owners were quite certain the club would succeed in this new location, but they realized that success depended on a popular opening show.[21] A 1937 New York Times article states, "The Cotton Club has climbed aboard the Broadway bandwagon, with a show that is calculated to give the customers their money’s worth of sound and color—and it does."[22]

The most extravagant revue in the club's 13-year history opened on September 24, 1936, with Robinson and Calloway leading a roster of approximately 130 performers.[23] Stark paid Bill "Bojangles" Robinson $3,500 a week, the highest salary ever paid to a black entertainer in a Broadway production and a higher salary than had ever been paid to any nightclub entertainer.[24]

In June 1935, the Cotton Club opened its doors to black patrons. In preparation for the Joe Louis fight the club planned a gala and, "extended an open invitation to the Sepians."[25]

The Cotton Club closed permanently in 1940 under pressure from higher rents, changing taste, and a federal investigation into tax evasion by Manhattan nightclub owners. The Latin Quarter nightclub opened in its space and the building was torn down in 1989 to build a hotel. The Broadway Cotton Club successfully blended the old and new; the site was new and the décor was slightly different, but once a customer was seated it felt like a familiar place.[26]

Langston Hughes' critique Edit

Madden's goal for the Cotton Club was to provide "an authentic black entertainment to a wealthy, whites-only audience."[27] Langston Hughes, a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, attended the Cotton Club as a rare black customer. Following his visit, Hughes criticized the club's segregated atmosphere and commented that it was "a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites."[28]

In addition to the "jungle music" and plantation-themed interior, Hughes believed that Madden's idea of "authentic black entertainment" was similar to the entertainment provided at a zoo and that white "strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers - like amusing animals in a zoo."[28]

Hughes also believed that the Cotton Club negatively affected the Harlem community. The club brought an "influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang."[29] Hughes also mentioned how many of the neighboring cabarets, especially black cabarets, were forced to close due to the competition from the Cotton Club. These smaller clubs did not have a large floor or music by famous entertainers such as Ellington.[29]

Other "Cotton Clubs" Edit

 
Cotton Club on 125th Street in New York City, December 2013.

An incarnation of the Cotton Club opened on 125th Street in Harlem in 1978.[30][31] James Haskins wrote at the time, "Today, there is a new incarnation of the Cotton Club that sits on the most western end of the 125th Street under the massive Manhattanville viaduct. The windowless block of a building has a less dramatic display out front but seems to be popular with tourists for Sunday jazz brunches."[32]

A Chicago branch of the Cotton Club was run by Ralph Capone, and a California branch was located in Culver City during the late 1920s and early 1930s, featuring performers from the original Cotton Club such as Armstrong, Calloway, and Ellington.

Cotton Clubs in Las Vegas, Portland, Oregon, and Lubbock, Texas, were all different locations of other Cotton Clubs. The Lubbock club was opened on November 11, 1938, by Tommy Hancock, and was an integrated club, not unlike the Chicago club.[33] The club in Lubbock, however, was home to more white artists than the Harlem club.[34] The Cotton Club in Portland was opened by Paul Knauls in 1963.[35] The club in Las Vegas was opened by Moe Taub in 1944. This location differed from other clubs because it was a casino.[36] Taub opened the club to black servicemen.[37]

In popular culture Edit

‘I learned from Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, the Nicholas Brothers, the whole thing, the whole schmear. [The Cotton Club] was a great place because it hired us, for one thing, at a time when it was really rough [for Black performers].’

— Lena Horne[38]

A fictional version of the club, called the Cotton Pickers Club, appears in the 1932 film Taxi!

The Cotton Club is featured in the music video for the song "Oye Como Va" by Cuban-American singer Celia Cruz.

The Cotton Club Gala, which featured some of the club's original dancers, was produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club twice in 1975[39][40] and again in 1985. The 1985 production was directed by La MaMa founder Ellen Stewart.[41] La MaMa also toured Europe with the Cotton Club Gala in 1976.[42]

The 1983 music video for the Kool & the Gang song "Joanna" depicts Joanna reminiscing about her days as a dancer at the Cotton Club.

Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 film The Cotton Club offers a history of the club in the context of race relations in the 1930s and the conflicts between Madden, Dutch Schultz, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, Lucky Luciano, and Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson.

The Cotton Club Comes to the Ritz (1985)[43] starring Adelaide Hall, Cab Calloway, Doc Cheatham, The Nicholas Brothers etc. Produced by BBC TV.

In the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the fictional Ink and Paint Club is based on the Cotton Club.[44]

The Cotton Club was briefly depicted in the 1997 movie Hoodlum featuring Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, and Andy García as the site of a confrontation between Schultz (Roth) and Johnson (Fishburne).

The club is mentioned in the novelization of the 1998 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Far Beyond the Stars". The novelization mentions that Benny Russell's parents met at the Cotton Club when Russell's mother was a dancer there and gives some descriptive detail of the club.

Coppola's film is discussed in the 2000 Ken Burns PBS documentary miniseries, Jazz.

After Midnight is a 2013 Broadway musical revue about the music created during Duke Ellington's years at the Cotton Club.[45]

The 2013 episode of White Collar titled Empire City features a version of the Cotton Club.

In Luke Cage, Cottonmouth refers to his nightclub, Harlem's Paradise, as "the new Cotton Club".

See also Edit

References Edit

  1. ^ a b Elizabeth Winter, "Cotton Club of Harlem (1923- )", Black Past (retrieved September 9, 2014).
  2. ^ a b c Iain Cameron Williams, Chapter 15, Underneath A Harlem Moon: The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall, Continuum, 2002.
  3. ^ "Adelaide Hall with Cotton Club Revue", The Afro American, September 23, 1933.
  4. ^ a b "Dry Padlocks Snapped on Nine Wet Doors; 'Owney' Maddens 'Club' is One of them." June 23, 1925: 23. Accessed March 14, 2012.
  5. ^ Haskins, James. "The Cotton Club Comes To Broadway", in The Cotton Club, New York: Random House, 1977, p. 62.
  6. ^ a b c "What's on the menu? Cotton Club". NYPL Labs. from the original on 2021-04-13. Retrieved 22 Feb 2021.
  7. ^ Brothers, Thomas (2014). Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 338. ISBN 978-0-393-06582-4.
  8. ^ "Program / Menu from the Cotton Club". National Museum of African American History and Culture. Retrieved 2021-05-06.
  9. ^ Bruno, "The Cotton Club".
  10. ^ a b Steve Watson, "The Harlem Renaissance".
  11. ^ New York Times, 1937.
  12. ^ "Duke Ellington", The Harlem Reader, p. 76.
  13. ^ "Cotton Club Grosses $45,000 in One Week". Plaindealer. Vol. XXXVII, no. 43. 23 October 1936. p. 5. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  14. ^ Brothers, Thomas (2014). Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 341. ISBN 978-0-393-06582-4.
  15. ^ Williams, Iain Cameron. Chapter 8, Underneath A Harlem Moon Williams, pp. 122–124.
  16. ^ World Catalogue: Underneath A Harlem Moon by Iain Cameron Williams, Chapter 8, pp. 122–124ISBN 0-8264-5893-9
  17. ^ a b New York Times, 1974.
  18. ^ Vogel, Shane. "Performing 'Stormy Weather': Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, and Katherine Dunham", South Central Review, vol. 25, no. 1, 2008, pp. 93–113. JSTOR 40040021
  19. ^ Bruno, "The Cotton Club",
  20. ^ Haskins, p. 113.
  21. ^ Haskins, p. 114.
  22. ^ The New York Times, 1937.
  23. ^ Haskins, p. 116.
  24. ^ Haskins, p. 127.
  25. ^ "Cotton Club Opens Doors to Colored". Negro Star. Vol. 27, no. 50. 7 June 1935. p. 5. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  26. ^ Haskins, p. 118.
  27. ^ "Riverwalk Jazz – Stanford University Libraries". riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2016-05-27.
  28. ^ a b Welsch, Tricia (1998). "Killing them with tap shoes". Journal of Popular Film and Television. 25 (4). doi:10.1080/01956059809602763.(subscription required)
  29. ^ a b "'Harlem Night Club' – a poem by Langston Hughes". Jerry Jazz Musician. 2013-12-11. Retrieved 2016-05-27.
  30. ^ Ford, Robert Jr. (Jan 21, 1978). "Cotton Club Open Again". Billboard Magazine. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
  31. ^ . 2002-08-10. Archived from the original on 2002-08-10. Retrieved 2021-08-28.
  32. ^ Haskins, p. 112.
  33. ^ "Cotton Club | The Handbook of Texas Online| Texas State Historical Association (TSHA)". tshaonline.org. 2014-07-11.
  34. ^ Untiedt, Kenneth L. (2012). First Timers and Old Timers: The Texas Folklore Society Fire Burns on. University of North Texas Press. ISBN 978-1574414714.
  35. ^ "Boise Voices: Paul Knauls, Sr". Boise Voices Oral History Project. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  36. ^ Roman, James. Chronicles of Old Las Vegas. Google Books, 2011.
  37. ^ Goertler, Pam. A West Side Story. http://www.ccgtcc-ccn.com/Westside.pdf.
  38. ^ Lena Horne Quote: https://www.idlehearts.com/quotes/author/lena-horne
  39. ^ La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: Cotton Club Gala (1975a)". Accessed June 12, 2018.
  40. ^ La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: Cotton Club Gala (1975b)". Accessed June 12, 2018.
  41. ^ La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: Cotton Club Gala (1985)". Accessed June 12, 2018.
  42. ^ La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Tour: Cotton Club Gala European Tour (1976)". Accessed June 12, 2018.
  43. ^ The Cotton Club Comes to the Ritz (film-documentary) https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b75021c05
  44. ^ Kagan, Norman (2003). The Cinema of Robert Zemeckis. Taylor Trade Publishing. p. 97. ISBN 978-1461699057.
  45. ^ Gioia, Michael, "Jack Viertel-Conceived Cotton Club Parade, Entitled After Midnight, Sets Dates at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson" 2014-07-18 at the Wayback Machine, Playbill.com, June 24, 2013.

Further reading Edit

  • "Cotton Club." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition, 318.
  • The Harlem Reader, Duke Ellington.
  • Haskins, James. "The Cotton Club Comes To Broadway," in The Cotton Club (New York: Random House, 1977, ISBN 0-394-73392-4), 113–127.
  • Haskins. The Cotton Club (New York: New American Library, 1977, ISBN 0-452-25598-8 pbk).
  • The New York Times, "Dry Padlocks Snapped on Nine Wet Doors; 'Owney' Maddens 'Club' is One of them." June 23, 1925: 23. Accessed March 14, 2012.
  • The New York Times, "Night Club Notes." Mar 20 1937: 22. Accessed March 4, 2012.
  • The New York Times, "Duke Ellington, a Master of Music, Dies at 75." May 25, 1974: 1. Accessed March 14, 2012.
  • Williams, Iain Cameron. Underneath A Harlem Moon... The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall, Continuum Publishing, Bloomsbury, 2002/2003, ISBN 978-0826458933.

External links Edit

40°49′08″N 73°56′13″W / 40.819°N 73.937°W / 40.819; -73.937

October 15, 2023
cotton, club, other, uses, disambiguation, york, city, nightclub, from, 1923, 1940, located, 142nd, street, lenox, avenue, 1923, 1936, then, briefly, midtown, theater, district, 1936, 1940, club, operated, during, united, states, prohibition, crow, racial, seg. For other uses see Cotton Club disambiguation The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940 It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue 1923 1936 then briefly in the midtown Theater District 1936 1940 1 The club operated during the United States era of Prohibition and Jim Crow era racial segregation Black people initially could not patronize the Cotton Club but the venue featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era including musicians Fletcher Henderson Duke Ellington Jimmie Lunceford Chick Webb Louis Armstrong Count Basie Fats Waller Willie Bryant vocalists Adelaide Hall 2 3 Ethel Waters Cab Calloway Bessie Smith Lillie Delk Christian Aida Ward Avon Long the Dandridge Sisters the Will Vodery choir The Mills Brothers Nina Mae McKinney Billie Holiday Midge Williams Lena Horne and dancers such as Katherine Dunham Bill Robinson The Nicholas Brothers Charles Honi Coles Leonard Reed Stepin Fetchit the Berry Brothers The Four Step Brothers Jeni Le Gon and Earl Snakehips Tucker Duke Ellington was one of the original Cotton Club orchestra leaders Adelaide Hall star of the Cotton ClubCab Calloway was another of the original Cotton Club performers Ethel Waters starred at the Cotton ClubLena Horne as a young girl was featured at the Cotton Club Dorothy Dandridge entertainer at the Cotton ClubIn its prime the Cotton Club served as a hip meeting spot with regular Celebrity Nights on Sundays featuring guests including Jimmy Durante George Gershwin Sophie Tucker Paul Robeson Al Jolson Mae West Richard Rodgers Irving Berlin Eddie Cantor Fanny Brice Langston Hughes Judy Garland Moss Hart and Jimmy Walker Adelaide Hall starring in the Cotton Club Revue of 1934 at the Loew s Metropolitan Theater Brooklyn commencing on 7 September 1934 advertisement Contents 1 History 1 1 The Harlem years 1 2 The Midtown years 1 3 Langston Hughes critique 1 4 Other Cotton Clubs 2 In popular culture 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External linksHistory EditIn 1920 heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson rented the upper floor of the building on the corner of 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue in the heart of Harlem and opened an intimate supper club called the Club Deluxe Owney Madden a prominent bootlegger and gangster took over the club after his release from Sing Sing in 1923 and changed its name to the Cotton Club 4 The two arranged a deal that allowed Johnson to remain the club s manager Madden used the Cotton Club as an outlet to sell his 1 beer to the prohibition crowd 5 When the club closed briefly in 1925 for selling liquor it soon reopened without interference from the police 4 An extensive drink list continued to be available on the Cotton Club menu and sold to white guests following the shut down 6 Herman Stark then became the stage manager Harlem producer Leonard Harper directed the first two of three opening night floor shows at the new venue nbsp Cotton Club dancer Mildred Dixon Duke Ellington s second companionThe Cotton Club was a whites only establishment with rare exceptions for black celebrities such as Ethel Waters and Bill Robinson 7 It reproduced the racist imagery of the era often depicting black people as savages in exotic jungles or as darkies in the plantation South A 1938 menu included this imagery with illustrations done by Julian Harrison showing naked black men and women dancing around a drum in the jungle Tribal mask illustrations make up the border of the menu 6 8 The club imposed a subtler color line on the chorus girls whom the club presented in skimpy outfits They were expected to be tall tan and terrific which meant they had to be at least 5 6 tall light skinned and under 21 years of age 9 The male dancers the Cotton Club Boys skin colors were more varied Black performers did not mix with the club s clientele and after the show many of them went next door to the basement of the superintendent at 646 Lenox where they imbibed corn whiskey peach brandy and marijuana 10 Ellington was expected to write jungle music for a white audience Ellington s contributions to the Cotton Club were priceless as described in this 1937 New York Times excerpt So long may the empirical Duke and his music making roosters reign and long may the Cotton Club continue to remember that it came down from Harlem 11 Entrance was expensive for customers and it included a two dollar minimum cover fee on weekdays for food and drink so the performers were well compensated 12 13 6 The Harlem years Edit Shows at the Cotton Club were musical revues and several were called Cotton Club Parade followed by the year Musical revues were created twice a year in hopes of becoming successful Broadway shows 14 The revues featured dancers singers comedians and variety acts as well as a house band 1 These revues helped launch the careers of many artists including Andy Preer who led the Cotton Club s first house band in 1923 Duke Ellington s orchestra was the house band from December 4 1927 until June 30 1931 15 The first revue that Ellington s orchestra performed was called the Creole Revue and featured Adelaide Hall Hall had just recorded several songs with Ellington including Creole Love Call a worldwide hit 16 The club gave Ellington national exposure through radio broadcasts originating there first over WHN then over WEAF and after September 1929 on Fridays over the NBC Red Network for which WEAF was the flagship station 17 The club also enabled him to develop his repertoire while composing dance tunes for the shows as well overtures transitions accompaniments and jungle effects giving him a freedom to experiment with orchestral arrangements that touring bands rarely experienced Ellington recorded more than 100 compositions during this period Eventually responding to Ellington s request the club slightly relaxed its policy of segregation 17 Cab Calloway s orchestra brought its Brown Sugar revue to the club on September 28 1930 replacing Ellington s orchestra after its departure on February 4 1931 Jimmie Lunceford s band replaced Calloway s in 1934 Ellington Calloway and Louis Armstrong returned to perform at the club in later years Lena Horne Leona Laviscount began at the Cotton Club as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen and sang Sweeter than Sweet with Calloway Dorothy Dandridge performed at the club while part of the Dandridge Sisters and Coleman Hawkins and Don Redman played at the club as part of Henderson s band Tap dancers Bill Bojangles Robinson Sammy Davis Jr as part of the Will Mastin Trio and the Nicholas Brothers performed at the club as well Another notable Cotton Club Parade in 1933 featured Ethel Waters and Duke Ellington performing Stormy Weather Later this performance would also include Lena Horne and Katherine Dunham in the film adaptation of Stormy Weather 18 The club also drew from white popular culture Walter Brooks who had produced the successful Broadway show Shuffle Along was the club s nominal owner Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh one of the most prominent songwriting teams of the era and Harold Arlen wrote the songs for the revues one of which Blackbirds of 1928 starring Adelaide Hall featured the songs I Can t Give You Anything But Love and Diga Diga Doo produced by Lew Leslie on Broadway 2 In 1934 Hall starred in the Cotton Club Parade 1934 the highest grossing show ever to appear at the club The show opened on March 11 1934 and ran for six months attracting over 600 000 paying customers The score was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler and featured the classic song Ill Wind During Hall s performance of Ill Wind a dry ice machine was used to create a fog effect the first time such equipment had been used on a stage 2 Sixteen year old Lena Horne was also featured on the bill After appearing at the Cotton Club the entire show starring Adelaide Hall was taken out on a road tour across America The Midtown years Edit The club closed temporarily in 1936 after the race riot in Harlem the previous year Carl Van Vechten had vowed to boycott the club for having such racist policies as refusing entry to African Americans in place 10 The Cotton Club reopened later that year at Broadway and 48th 19 The site chosen for the new Cotton Club was a big room on the top floor of a building where Broadway and Seventh Avenue meet an important midtown crossroads at the center of the Great White Way the Broadway Theater District 20 Stark and the club s owners were quite certain the club would succeed in this new location but they realized that success depended on a popular opening show 21 A 1937 New York Times article states The Cotton Club has climbed aboard the Broadway bandwagon with a show that is calculated to give the customers their money s worth of sound and color and it does 22 The most extravagant revue in the club s 13 year history opened on September 24 1936 with Robinson and Calloway leading a roster of approximately 130 performers 23 Stark paid Bill Bojangles Robinson 3 500 a week the highest salary ever paid to a black entertainer in a Broadway production and a higher salary than had ever been paid to any nightclub entertainer 24 In June 1935 the Cotton Club opened its doors to black patrons In preparation for the Joe Louis fight the club planned a gala and extended an open invitation to the Sepians 25 The Cotton Club closed permanently in 1940 under pressure from higher rents changing taste and a federal investigation into tax evasion by Manhattan nightclub owners The Latin Quarter nightclub opened in its space and the building was torn down in 1989 to build a hotel The Broadway Cotton Club successfully blended the old and new the site was new and the decor was slightly different but once a customer was seated it felt like a familiar place 26 Langston Hughes critique Edit Madden s goal for the Cotton Club was to provide an authentic black entertainment to a wealthy whites only audience 27 Langston Hughes a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance attended the Cotton Club as a rare black customer Following his visit Hughes criticized the club s segregated atmosphere and commented that it was a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites 28 In addition to the jungle music and plantation themed interior Hughes believed that Madden s idea of authentic black entertainment was similar to the entertainment provided at a zoo and that white strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers like amusing animals in a zoo 28 Hughes also believed that the Cotton Club negatively affected the Harlem community The club brought an influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang 29 Hughes also mentioned how many of the neighboring cabarets especially black cabarets were forced to close due to the competition from the Cotton Club These smaller clubs did not have a large floor or music by famous entertainers such as Ellington 29 Other Cotton Clubs Edit nbsp Cotton Club on 125th Street in New York City December 2013 An incarnation of the Cotton Club opened on 125th Street in Harlem in 1978 30 31 James Haskins wrote at the time Today there is a new incarnation of the Cotton Club that sits on the most western end of the 125th Street under the massive Manhattanville viaduct The windowless block of a building has a less dramatic display out front but seems to be popular with tourists for Sunday jazz brunches 32 A Chicago branch of the Cotton Club was run by Ralph Capone and a California branch was located in Culver City during the late 1920s and early 1930s featuring performers from the original Cotton Club such as Armstrong Calloway and Ellington Cotton Clubs in Las Vegas Portland Oregon and Lubbock Texas were all different locations of other Cotton Clubs The Lubbock club was opened on November 11 1938 by Tommy Hancock and was an integrated club not unlike the Chicago club 33 The club in Lubbock however was home to more white artists than the Harlem club 34 The Cotton Club in Portland was opened by Paul Knauls in 1963 35 The club in Las Vegas was opened by Moe Taub in 1944 This location differed from other clubs because it was a casino 36 Taub opened the club to black servicemen 37 In popular culture Edit I learned from Ethel Waters Duke Ellington Adelaide Hall the Nicholas Brothers the whole thing the whole schmear The Cotton Club was a great place because it hired us for one thing at a time when it was really rough for Black performers Lena Horne 38 A fictional version of the club called the Cotton Pickers Club appears in the 1932 film Taxi The Cotton Club is featured in the music video for the song Oye Como Va by Cuban American singer Celia Cruz The Cotton Club Gala which featured some of the club s original dancers was produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club twice in 1975 39 40 and again in 1985 The 1985 production was directed by La MaMa founder Ellen Stewart 41 La MaMa also toured Europe with the Cotton Club Gala in 1976 42 The 1983 music video for the Kool amp the Gang song Joanna depicts Joanna reminiscing about her days as a dancer at the Cotton Club Francis Ford Coppola s 1984 film The Cotton Club offers a history of the club in the context of race relations in the 1930s and the conflicts between Madden Dutch Schultz Vincent Mad Dog Coll Lucky Luciano and Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson The Cotton Club Comes to the Ritz 1985 43 starring Adelaide Hall Cab Calloway Doc Cheatham The Nicholas Brothers etc Produced by BBC TV In the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit the fictional Ink and Paint Club is based on the Cotton Club 44 The Cotton Club was briefly depicted in the 1997 movie Hoodlum featuring Laurence Fishburne Tim Roth and Andy Garcia as the site of a confrontation between Schultz Roth and Johnson Fishburne The club is mentioned in the novelization of the 1998 Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode Far Beyond the Stars The novelization mentions that Benny Russell s parents met at the Cotton Club when Russell s mother was a dancer there and gives some descriptive detail of the club Coppola s film is discussed in the 2000 Ken Burns PBS documentary miniseries Jazz After Midnight is a 2013 Broadway musical revue about the music created during Duke Ellington s years at the Cotton Club 45 The 2013 episode of White Collar titled Empire City features a version of the Cotton Club In Luke Cage Cottonmouth refers to his nightclub Harlem s Paradise as the new Cotton Club See also EditCotton Club Boys chorus line References Edit a b Elizabeth Winter Cotton Club of Harlem 1923 Black Past retrieved September 9 2014 a b c Iain Cameron Williams Chapter 15 Underneath A Harlem Moon The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall Continuum 2002 Adelaide Hall with Cotton Club Revue The Afro American September 23 1933 a b Dry Padlocks Snapped on Nine Wet Doors Owney Maddens Club is One of them June 23 1925 23 Accessed March 14 2012 Haskins James The Cotton Club Comes To Broadway in The Cotton Club New York Random House 1977 p 62 a b c What s on the menu Cotton Club NYPL Labs Archived from the original on 2021 04 13 Retrieved 22 Feb 2021 Brothers Thomas 2014 Louis Armstrong Master of Modernism New York W W Norton amp Company p 338 ISBN 978 0 393 06582 4 Program Menu from the Cotton Club National Museum of African American History and Culture Retrieved 2021 05 06 Bruno The Cotton Club a b Steve Watson The Harlem Renaissance New York Times 1937 Duke Ellington The Harlem Reader p 76 Cotton Club Grosses 45 000 in One Week Plaindealer Vol XXXVII no 43 23 October 1936 p 5 Retrieved 24 April 2019 Brothers Thomas 2014 Louis Armstrong Master of Modernism New York W W Norton amp Company p 341 ISBN 978 0 393 06582 4 Williams Iain Cameron Chapter 8 Underneath A Harlem Moon Williams pp 122 124 World Catalogue Underneath A Harlem Moon by Iain Cameron Williams Chapter 8 pp 122 124ISBN 0 8264 5893 9 a b New York Times 1974 Vogel Shane Performing Stormy Weather Ethel Waters Lena Horne and Katherine Dunham South Central Review vol 25 no 1 2008 pp 93 113 JSTOR 40040021 Bruno The Cotton Club Haskins p 113 Haskins p 114 The New York Times 1937 Haskins p 116 Haskins p 127 Cotton Club Opens Doors to Colored Negro Star Vol 27 no 50 7 June 1935 p 5 Retrieved 24 April 2019 Haskins p 118 Riverwalk Jazz Stanford University Libraries riverwalkjazz stanford edu Retrieved 2016 05 27 a b Welsch Tricia 1998 Killing them with tap shoes Journal of Popular Film and Television 25 4 doi 10 1080 01956059809602763 subscription required a b Harlem Night Club a poem by Langston Hughes Jerry Jazz Musician 2013 12 11 Retrieved 2016 05 27 Ford Robert Jr Jan 21 1978 Cotton Club Open Again Billboard Magazine Retrieved 19 May 2016 About html 2002 08 10 Archived from the original on 2002 08 10 Retrieved 2021 08 28 Haskins p 112 Cotton Club The Handbook of Texas Online Texas State Historical Association TSHA tshaonline org 2014 07 11 Untiedt Kenneth L 2012 First Timers and Old Timers The Texas Folklore Society Fire Burns on University of North Texas Press ISBN 978 1574414714 Boise Voices Paul Knauls Sr Boise Voices Oral History Project Retrieved 20 July 2019 Roman James Chronicles of Old Las Vegas Google Books 2011 Goertler Pam A West Side Story http www ccgtcc ccn com Westside pdf Lena Horne Quote https www idlehearts com quotes author lena horne La MaMa Archives Digital Collections Production Cotton Club Gala 1975a Accessed June 12 2018 La MaMa Archives Digital Collections Production Cotton Club Gala 1975b Accessed June 12 2018 La MaMa Archives Digital Collections Production Cotton Club Gala 1985 Accessed June 12 2018 La MaMa Archives Digital Collections Tour Cotton Club Gala European Tour 1976 Accessed June 12 2018 The Cotton Club Comes to the Ritz film documentary https www bfi org uk films tv people 4ce2b75021c05 Kagan Norman 2003 The Cinema of Robert Zemeckis Taylor Trade Publishing p 97 ISBN 978 1461699057 Gioia Michael Jack Viertel Conceived Cotton Club Parade Entitled After Midnight Sets Dates at Broadway s Brooks Atkinson Archived 2014 07 18 at the Wayback Machine Playbill com June 24 2013 Further reading Edit Cotton Club Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition 318 The Harlem Reader Duke Ellington Haskins James The Cotton Club Comes To Broadway in The Cotton Club New York Random House 1977 ISBN 0 394 73392 4 113 127 Haskins The Cotton Club New York New American Library 1977 ISBN 0 452 25598 8 pbk The New York Times Dry Padlocks Snapped on Nine Wet Doors Owney Maddens Club is One of them June 23 1925 23 Accessed March 14 2012 The New York Times Night Club Notes Mar 20 1937 22 Accessed March 4 2012 The New York Times Duke Ellington a Master of Music Dies at 75 May 25 1974 1 Accessed March 14 2012 Williams Iain Cameron Underneath A Harlem Moon The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall Continuum Publishing Bloomsbury 2002 2003 ISBN 978 0826458933 External links Edit1931 German broadcast recording of a live performance at the Cotton Club Harlem Jazz Essential Recordings Ted Gioia Cotton Club 2 CD Box amp 124 Page Book Bear Family Records The Cotton Club First and foremost in bringing Broadway to Harlem and Harlem to Broadway 40 49 08 N 73 56 13 W 40 819 N 73 937 W 40 819 73 937 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Cotton Club amp oldid 1177793631, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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