SwingDJs

Has anyone come across any detailed information about Cotton Club resident house bands? Who and during what periods?

Brian

All I know is that apparently the movie is about a white musician playing publically with black musicians in the late 20's. Am I just crazy, or could than never have happened?

Duke Ellington
Cab Calloway

That is all I know.

From http://www.jass.com/cotton.html

Jimmie Lunceford
Claude Hopkins

From http://www.pbs.org/jazz/places/spaces_cotton_club.htm

The Cotton Club was the most famous of the city's nightclubs in the 1920s and 1930s, attracting an audience that often included the cream of New York society. Its glittering revues provided a medium for performances by the most prominent jazz musicians of the day, and the club's activities were brought to a wide audience by frequent broadcasts. The house band when the venue first opened was Andy Preer's Cotton Club Syncopators; after Preer's death in 1927, Duke Ellington's orchestra was engaged and its residency became the most celebrated in the club's history, lasting until 1931. Cab Calloway and his Missourians, who had first appeared with great success in 1931, then took over, and Calloway's time as the Cotton Club's bandleader (which extended to 1934, when Jimmie Lunceford succeeded him) was to make his reputation. Both Wellington and Calloway returned after the club moved downtown.

Most of the principal jazz musicians, singers, and dancers of the period appeared at the Cotton Club at some stage, including Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, Ivie Anderson, Bill Robinson, and the Nicholas Brothers. The heyday of the club's existence was re-created in Francis Ford Coppola's film The Cotton Club (1984). (J. Haskins: The Cotton Club, New York, 1977)

yedancer wrote:All I know is that apparently the movie is about a white musician playing publically with black musicians in the late 20's. Am I just crazy, or could than never have happened?

From what I have read about racism in the jazz music scene. White and black musicians frequently mixed together in clubs. There is a lot of stories of white musicians going to the south side of Chicago in the 20s to hear Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines etc.

So I would venture to say that whites and blacks would play in clubs.

Also there is discography of whites and blacks recording together. Just from memory the historic Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson duets come to mind. Can you tell I'm preparing another 2 hour guitar tribute show??!!!

Where the racism was most prominent was in touring and in larger venues and broadcasting.

Even through the 1960s, traveling to the south was very difficult for black musicians.

During the heyday of the big band era (1935-1945), radio broadcasts didn't feature nearly as many black bands as white bands. This continued into the 1950s and 60s in television. The Nat Cole TV show is a prime example.

One of the better books I have that deals with this subject is "Swinging the Dream". It describes the racial and cultural impact jazz music had from the 1920s through the 1940s. Good read.

A parenthetical note: I seem to recall that although white musicians could freely enter black clubs, black musicians were not really allowed to enter white clubs.

From my understanding, Benny Goodman publicly integrated the bandstand with his trio featuring Teddy Wilson (well, featuring Goodman) in 1935.

It was not uncommon for musicians of any race to mix at parties and afterhours events but never on the bandstand and certainly not at that time in the Cotton Club. It has been referred to constantly as a "Jim Crow" club.

Kalman

From my understanding of everything i know about the cotton club, is that the entertainers would of most likely been all black. the preference was for light skinned black people, especially when it came to the chorus girls.

falty411 wrote:From my understanding of everything i know about the cotton club, is that the entertainers would of most likely been all black. the preference was for light skinned black people, especially when it came to the chorus girls.

Tall, Tan & Terrific (and Tasty)

Kalman

If Ken Burns' Jazz is to be taken as correct, then white musicians would never have played publically with black musicians (and vice versa) well into the 30's.

Recording was different. According to the information presented in the series, the Bennie Goodman Trio (with Teddy Wilson) had records out that people loved, but they never even considered playing publically because Teddy Wilson was black. Even after they finally did, other bands were reluctant to follow his example.

In the series, it repeatedly points out that white musicians would go listen to the black musicians, but would not be able to play with them publically. They would jam after hours, but thats about it.