The Cotton Club

The Cotton Club is a historic club that is happenin' to this day.  It wasn't very busy when I was there, but that's not the point.  I had to visit the Cotton Club while I was in Harlem and even though the building is surprisingly small, it was one of the biggest places for African Americans' to showcase their musical talents.  I can just imagine Lena Horne, Dizzy, Duke, Ella, Billie and Louie blowing the roof off the joint.  It was one of those places that exemplified this saying, "If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere!"

According to Wikipedia, (I heart Wikipedia), The Cotton Club was a famous jazz music night club located in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City which operated from 1923 to 1940, most notably during America's Prohibition Era lasting from 1919 to 1933. The club was a white-only establishment even though it featured many of the greatest Black entertainers of the era including Lena Horne, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Lottie Gee, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters.  During its heyday, the Cotton Club served as a hip meeting spot featuring regular "Celebrity Nights" on Sundays which featured celebrity guests such as 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 New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker, among others. 
The club reproduced the racist imagery of the times, often depicting blacks as savages in exotic jungles or as "darkies" in the plantation south. The club imposed a more subtle "color bar" on the chorus girls whom the club presented in skimpy outfits: they were expected to be "tall, tan, and terrific," which meant that they had to be at least 5 feet 6 inches tall, light-skinned, and under twenty-one years of age.  Ellington was expected to write "jungle music" for an audience of whites. What Ellington contributed to the Cotton Club is priceless and is summed up perfectly 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".
Musicians and vocalists who performed with the Big Bands of The Cotton Club’s glimmering early days continue to grace its stage: Al Pazant, the trumpet player, and Tim Williams, the trombone player – who played with Art Blakley and Count Basie – are just a few.

It amazes me what black entertainers had to endure just to sing a song and be heard, among other things.  I'm just glad that not only are the black entertainers getting their Just Recognitions, they are All Legends and live in Music History. 
http://cottonclub-newyork.com/
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