For the 1984 film of the same name, see The Cotton Club

The Cotton Club was a famous night club in New York City that operated during and after Prohibition. While the club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Ethel Waters, it generally denied admission to blacks. During its heyday, it served as a chic meeting spot in the heart of Harlem, featuring regular "Celebrity Nights" on Sundays, at which celebrities such as Jimmy Durante, George Gershwin, Al Jolson, Mae West, Irving Berlin, Moss Hart, New York mayor Jimmy Walker and other luminaries would appear. The Cotton Club is a movie, released in 1984, centered around a popular real-life Harlem jazz club in the 1930s, the Cotton Club. ... Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC, City That Never Sleeps, The Concrete Jungle, The City So Nice They Named It Twice Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1676 Government  - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area... The term Prohibition, also known as Dry Law, refers to a law in a certain country by which the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages is restricted or illegal. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington (April 29, 1899, Washington, D.C.; d. ... Cab Calloway, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1933 Cab Calloway (December 25, 1907–November 18, 1994) was a famous American jazz singer and bandleader. ... Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901[1] – July 6, 1971) (also known by the nicknames Satchmo, for satchel-mouth, and Pops) was an American jazz musician. ... Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an Oscar-nominated American blues vocalist and actress. ... Jimmy Durante James Francis Durante, better known as Jimmy Durante, (February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian, and actor, whose distinctive gravel delivery, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose -- his frequent jokes about it included a frequent self-reference that became his... // George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer who wrote most of his vocal and theatrical works in collaboration with his elder brother lyricist Ira Gershwin. ... Asa Al Jolson Yoelson (born in Seredžius, Lithuania on May 26, 1886, and died in San Francisco, California on October 23, 1950) was an acclaimed American singer and actor whose career lasted from 1911 until his death in 1950. ... MAE-West is a major Internet peering point located in San Jose, California. ... Irving Berlin (May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer and lyricist, one of the most prodigious and famous American songwriters in history. ... Moss Hart (October 24, 1904 – December 20, 1961) was an American playwright and director of plays and musical theater. ... This article is about the 1926 Mayor of New York. ...

Heavyweight champion Jack Johnson opened the Club Deluxe at 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem in 1920. Owney Madden, a prominent bootlegger and gangster, took over the club in 1923 while imprisoned in Sing Sing and changed its name to the Cotton Club. While the club was closed briefly in 1925 for selling liquor, it reopened without trouble from the police. The dancers and strippers occasionally performed for Madden in Sing Sing after his return there in 1933. Heavyweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. ... John Arthur Johnson(March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), better known as Jack Johnson and nicknamed the Galveston Giant, was an American boxer and arguably the best heavyweight of his generation. ... For other uses, see Harlem (disambiguation). ... Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A bootlegger is someone who sells an illegally manufactured product. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... {{year nav|1939 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... Alternative meaning: Sing Sing (band) Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a prison in Ossining, New York. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar). ... Alternative meaning: Sing Sing (band) Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a prison in Ossining, New York. ... Year 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ...

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. // This article is about crop plantations. ... Historic Southern United States. ...

Nonetheless, the club also helped launch the careers of Fletcher Henderson, who led the first band that played there in 1923 and Ellington, whose orchestra was the house band there from 1927 to 1931. The club not only gave Ellington national exposure through radio broadcasts originating there, but enabled him to develop his repertoire while composing not only the dance tunes for the shows, but also the overtures, transitions, accompaniments, and "jungle" effects that gave him the freedom to experiment with orchestral colours and arrangements that touring bands rarely had. Ellington recorded over 100 compositions during this era, while building the group that he led for nearly fifty years. The club eventually relaxed its policy of excluding black customers slightly in deference to Ellington's request. Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. ... {{year nav|1939 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ...

Cab Calloway's orchestra brought its Brown Sugar revue to the club in 1930, replacing Ellington's group after its departure in 1931; Jimmie Lunceford's band replaced Calloway's in 1934, while Ellington, Armstrong, and Calloway returned to perform at the club in later years. The club was also the first show business opportunity for Lena Horne, who began there as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen. Dorothy Dandridge performed there, while Coleman Hawkins and Don Redman played there as part of Henderson's band. Tap dancers Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers starred there as well. James Melvin Jimmie Lunceford (June 6, 1902–July 12, 1947) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader of the swing era. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (born June 30, 1917 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City, New York) is a popular African American singer. ... Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922–September 8, 1965) was an American actress. ... Coleman Hawkins Coleman Randolph Hawkins, nicknamed Hawk and sometimes Bean, (November 21, 1901 or 1904 - May 19, 1969) was a prominent jazz tenor saxophone musician. ... Donald Matthew Redman (July 29, 1900, Piedmont, West Virginia - November 30, 1964, New York) was an American jazz musician, arranger, and composer. ... Bill Robinson photo taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1934 Bill Bojangles Robinson (May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949) was a pioneer and pre-eminent African-American tap dance performer. ... The Nicholas Brothers were a famous American tap dance pair of brothers. ...

The club also drew from white popular culture of the day. Walter Brooks, who had produced the successful Broadway show Shuffle Along, was the nominal owner. Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, one of the most prominent songwriting teams of the era, and Harold Arlen provided the songs for the revues, one of which, "Blackbirds of 1928", featuring the songs "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" and "Diga Diga Doo", was produced by Lew Leslie on Broadway. Broadway theatre[1] is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. ... Dorothy Fields was immortalised on a USPS postage stamp. ... Jimmy McHugh (July 10, 1894 - May 23, 1969), was one of the greatest and most prolific songwriters during the 1920s-1950s. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A revue is a type of theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches that satirize contemporary figures, news, or literature. ... ... Lew Leslie was a Broadway writer and producer and although white was the first to present black artists on stage. ...

Closed temporarily in 1936 after the race riot in Harlem the previous year, the Cotton Club reopened later that year at Broadway and 48th Street. It closed for good in 1940, under pressure from higher rents, changing tastes and a federal investigation into tax evasion by Manhattan nightclub owners. The Cotton Club was reopened in 1978 in Harlem. Its current owner is John Beatty. 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... A race riot or racial riot is an outbreak of violent civil unrest in which race is a key factor. ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... The Borough of Manhattan, highlighted in yellow, lies between the East River and the Hudson River. ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ...

A West Coast branch of the Cotton Club existed in Culver City, California in the late 1920s and early 1930s, featuring performers from the original Cotton Club such as Armstrong, Calloway and Ellington. Culver City Seal Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. ... The 1920s is a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ...

The Cotton Club is also a movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which offers a fictionalized history of the club in the context of race relations in the 1930s and the battles between Madden, Dutch Schultz, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, Lucky Luciano, and Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson. The film was also beset by controversy; one investor was murdered by another investor eager to maintain her stake in what proved to be a money-losing film. The Cotton Club is a movie, released in 1984, centered around a popular real-life Harlem jazz club in the 1930s, the Cotton Club. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ... The angry face of Dutch Schultz, 1935 Dutch Schultz (August 6, 1902–October 24, 1935) was a New York City-area gangster of the 1920s and 30s. ... Vincent Mad Dog Coll (July 20, 1908—February 7, 1932) was an Irish enforcer for the mafia in early 20th-century New York City. ... Charles Lucky Luciano (born Salvatore Lucania) (November 24, 1897 – January 26, 1962) was a Sicilian-American mobster. ... Ellsworth Raymond Bumpy Johnson (1906-1968) was an African-American gangster from Harlem in the early 20th Century. ...