Monday, 7/8/2024,10pm - Annals of Jazz with Richard Hadlock

A Few Stars Of The Cotton Club (Originally Aired 03/13/2013). The Cotton Club was an important club in Harlem that was run by gangsters but unfortunately turned away African American customers in their own neighborhood. But it hired exceptional bands and performers, and provided them with a fairly good living especially the big names like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. It was originally Jack Johnson’s Club Deluxe at Lenox Ave. & 142^nd St. and opened as a musical show place in 1923 and hired Fletcher Henderson’s new band. In a mutual agreement the club was taken over by a bootlegger named Owen Madden and despite prohibition had one of the largest alcohol drink menus in New York. In this episode Richard Hadlock profiles the great names that performed during the heyday of The Cotton Club and provides us with tidbits about its history.