Related Research Articles
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster in the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The Savoy Ballroom was a large ballroom for music and public dancing located at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Lenox Avenue was the main thoroughfare through upper Harlem. Poet Langston Hughes calls it the "Heartbeat of Harlem" in Juke Box Love Song, and he set his work "Lenox Avenue: Midnight" on the legendary street. The Savoy was one of many Harlem hot spots along Lenox, but it was the one to be called the "World's Finest Ballroom". It was in operation from March 12, 1926, to July 10, 1958, and as Barbara Englebrecht writes in her article "Swinging at the Savoy", it was "a building, a geographic place, a ballroom, and the 'soul' of a neighborhood". It was opened and owned by white entrepreneur Jay Faggen and Jewish businessman Moe Gale. It was managed by African-American businessman and civic leader Charles Buchanan. Buchanan, who was born in the British West Indies, sought to run a "luxury ballroom to accommodate the many thousands who wished to dance in an atmosphere of tasteful refinement, rather than in the small stuffy halls and the foul smelling, smoke laden cellar nightclubs ..."
Leonard Constant Lambert was a British composer, conductor, and author. He was the founder and music director of the Royal Ballet, and he was a major figure in the establishment of the English ballet as a significant artistic movement.
Wardour Street is a street in Soho, City of Westminster, London. It is a one-way street that runs north from Leicester Square, through Chinatown, across Shaftesbury Avenue to Oxford Street. Throughout the 20th century the West End street became a centre for the British film industry and the popular music scene.
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). 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, 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.
Ronnie Scott OBE was a British jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner. He co-founded Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London's Soho district, one of the world's most popular jazz clubs, in 1959.
Florence Mills, billed as the "Queen of Happiness", was an American cabaret singer, dancer, and comedian.
The Brain was a house and techno music venue in Soho, London. It was located on the former premises of the Apollo Club on 11 Wardour Street. The Brain was founded in 1989 by Sean McLusky and Mark 'Wigan' Williams. Several now famous DJs and producers played at the club, including Orbital, Leftfield, Billy Nasty, Goldie, Moby, Graeme Park, Mixmaster Morris, Andrew Weatherall, and A Guy Called Gerald. At the time there was little actual live performance on the techno scene. The Brain encouraged live sets and P.As at a time when only mainstream house music used vocals on tracks.
The Marquee Club was a music venue in London, England, which opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts. It was a small and relatively cheap club, in the heart of London's West End.
Coventry Street is a short street in the West End of London, connecting Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square. Part of the street is a section of the A4, a major road through London. It is named after the politician Henry Coventry, secretary of state to Charles II.
A jazz club is a venue where the primary entertainment is the performance of live jazz music, although some jazz clubs primarily focus on the study and/or promotion of jazz-music. Jazz clubs are usually a type of nightclub or bar, which is licensed to sell alcoholic beverages. Jazz clubs were in large rooms in the eras of Orchestral jazz and big band jazz, when bands were large and often augmented by a string section. Large rooms were also more common in the Swing era, because at that time, jazz was popular as a dance music, so the dancers needed space to move. With the transition to 1940s-era styles like Bebop and later styles such as soul jazz, small combos of musicians such as quartets and trios were mostly used, and the music became more of a music to listen to, rather than a form of dance music. As a result, smaller clubs with small stages became practical.
Cyril "Midnight" Blake was a Trinidadian jazz trumpeter.
A nightclub is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a bar and discothèque with a dance floor, laser lighting displays, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who mixes recorded music. Nightclubs tend to be smaller than live music venues like theatres and stadiums, with few or no seats for customers.
Leonard Reed was an American tap dancer, co-creator with his partner, Willie Bryant, of the famous Shim Sham Shimmy (Goofus) tap dance routine.
Cleopatra Mary Palmer, known professionally as Cleo Sylvestre, was a British actress. She was the first black woman ever to play a leading role at the National Theatre in London, and the first woman to record with The Rolling Stones.
The Flamingo Club was a jazz nightclub in Soho, London, between 1952 and 1969. It was located at 33–37 Wardour Street from 1957 onwards and played an important role in the development of British rhythm and blues and modern jazz. During the 1960s, the Flamingo was one of the first clubs to employ fully amplified stage sound and it used sound systems provided by ska musicians from the Caribbean. The club had a wide social appeal and was a favourite haunt for musicians, including The Who.
Jeffrey Sonny Kruger MBE was a British entertainment business executive who owned the Flamingo Club in Soho, London, established the independent record label Ember Records, and set up the music business conglomerate TKO.
Martyn Allam, known professionally as Tallulah, was a German-born, London-based, British DJ, recording artist, producer, and club promoter. Tallulah's music career spanned from 1972 until his death in 2008.
The Nest Club was a cabaret in Harlem, more specifically an afterhours club, at 169 West 133rd Street – a street known then both as "Swing Street" and "Jungle Alley" – two doors east of Seventh Avenue, downstairs. The club, operating under the auspices of The Nest Club, Inc., was founded in 1923, co-owned, and operated by John C. Carey (né John Clifford Carey; 1889–1956) and Mal Frazier (né Melville Hunter Frazier; 1888–1967). The club flourished through 1933. The U.S. Prohibition — a nationwide ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages — ran from 1920 to 1933. The club faced a formidable challenge to its viability following the Great Crash of October 1929, followed by the Great Depression that bottomed around March 1933.
Isaac Flower Hatch, known as Ike "Yowsah" Hatch, was an American singer, pianist, and club owner, based for most of his life in Britain.
References
- ↑ Vicky Iglikowski-Broad. The Shim Sham Club: London’s miniature Harlem, National Archives, 5 February 2020
- 1 2 3 4 Hoare, Stephen (6 April 2023). "How Soho's Early Jazz Clubs Paved The Way For A Multiracial Britain". Londonist. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
- 1 2 3 "Bohemian London". Historic England. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
- ↑ 'Bottle Parties at the Shim Sham', in The Times, 1 October 1935, p.4
- 1 2 Dave Haslam. Life After Dark: A History of British Nightclubs and Music Venues (2015)
- 1 2 'African Stories in Hull and East Yorkshire Project: Laureen Sylvestre', in Black Chick Media, 16 October 2018
- ↑ The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (1994 one volume edition), p. 857
- ↑ Mike Pentelow. 'Brilliant composer of jazz and ballet music courted scandal', in Fitzrovia News, issue 143, Winter 2016, p. 10
- ↑ Jason Toynbee, Catherine Tackley. Black British Jazz: Routes, Ownership and Performance (2016), p. 51
- ↑ "The Shim Sham Club – video transcript". The National Archives. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
- ↑ Rudolph Dunbar. 'Harlem in London', in Melody Maker, 7 March 1936, p.2
- ↑ Amy Helen Bell. Under Cover of Darkness: Murders in Blackout London (2024), p.80-90