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, 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.
Steve Davis is an American jazz trombonist.
Smoke is a 1995 American independent film by Wayne Wang and Paul Auster. The original story was written by Paul Auster, who also wrote the screenplay. The film was produced by Greg Johnson, Peter Newman, Kenzo Horikoshi, and Hisami Kuroiwa. Among others, it features Harvey Keitel, William Hurt, Stockard Channing, Harold Perrineau Jr., Giancarlo Esposito, Ashley Judd, and Forest Whitaker.
Eric Alexander is an American jazz saxophonist.
Nicholas Payton is an American trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist. A Grammy Award winner, he is from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is also a prolific and provocative writer who comments on a multitude of subjects, including music, race, politics, and life in America.
George Edward Coleman is an American jazz saxophonist known for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s. In 2015, he was named an NEA Jazz Master.
Vincent Dwayne Herring is an American jazz saxophonist, flautist, composer, and educator. Known for his fiery and soulful playing in the bands of Horace Silver, Freddie Hubbard, and Nat Adderley in the earlier stages of his career, he now frequently performs around the world with his own groups and is heavily involved in jazz education.
Harold Mabern Jr. was an American jazz pianist and composer, principally in the hard bop, post-bop, and soul jazz fields. He is described in The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings as "one of the great post-bop pianists".
Lenox Lounge was a long-standing bar in Harlem, New York City. It was located in 288 Lenox Avenue, between 124th and 125th. The bar was founded in 1939 by Ralph Greco and served as a venue for performances by many great jazz artists, including Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. Harlem Renaissance writers James Baldwin and Langston Hughes were both patrons, as was Malcolm X.
Peter Andrew Bernstein is an American jazz guitarist.
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is a museum dedicated to preservation and celebration of the jazz history of Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. The idea for the museum was conceived in 1995. The museum was founded in 1997 by Leonard Garment, counsel to two U.S. presidents, and an accomplished jazz saxophonist, Abraham David Sofaer, a former U.S. district judge who gave the initial gift in honor of his brother-in-law Richard J. Scheuer, Jr., and matching funds from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation. For more than 15 years, the museum was based in East Harlem at 104 East 126th Street.
Smalls Jazz Club is a jazz club at 183 West 10th Street, Greenwich Village, New York City. Established in 1994, it earned a reputation in the 1990s as a "hotbed for New York's jazz talent" with a "well-deserved reputation as one of the best places in the city to see rising talent in the New York jazz scene". Its jazz musicians are noted for being "talented, though largely unknown" while its music is characterized as "modern versions of bebop and hard bop". The club's main room is in a basement with a capacity of 50 people that expanded to 60 people. Smalls Jazz Club should not be confused with Smalls Paradise in Harlem, which was founded in 1925 by Ed Smalls and closed in the 1950s.
Smoke Sessions Records is an independent record label based in New York City.
To Love and Be Loved is an album by pianist Harold Mabern. It was released by Smoke Sessions Records in 2017.
Afro Blue is an album by pianist Harold Mabern. It was released by Smoke Sessions Records.
Right on Time is an album by pianist Harold Mabern. It was released by Smoke Sessions Records in 2014.
Patience Higgins is a New York-based jazz saxophonist, flutist, and multi-reed musician. He also plays clarinet, oboe, and English horn. He has performed with Duke Ellington Orchestra, Barry Harris, Archie Shepp, Jimmy Scott, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Paquito D’Rivera, Cleo Laine, and The Sugar Hill Jazz Quartet. Higgins has a history as a Broadway musician. He is a music educator and teaches at the New York Jazz Workshop Music School. Higgins has toured with the tour with Duke Ellington and Count Basie Orchestras.
The Iron Man: Live at Smoke is an album by pianist Harold Mabern. It was recorded in 2018 and released by Smoke Sessions Records.
Mabern Plays Mabern is an album by pianist Harold Mabern. It was recorded in 2018 and released by Smoke Sessions Records.
