Connie's Inn

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Connie's Inn was a nightclub and event venue that existed in the New York borough of Harlem from 1923 and was one of the "Big Three" nightclubs in Harlem in the 1930s with the Cotton Club and Small's Paradise .

History of the club

Connie's Five Star Inn , as the club's full name was also known, was located in the basement of the Lafayette Theater Building at 2221 Seventh Avenue and 131st Street, across from the popular Small's Paradise nightclub . Connie Immerman, a white schnapps distiller, founded it during Prohibition in 1923. Previously there was a delicatessen shop in the premises, from 1921 a speakeasy under the name The Shuffle Inn , which was officially closed the following year for violating the Volstead Act .

At the opening on July 21, 1923, Leonard Harper was hired to organize a revue in the club; he was assisted by Duke Ellington as a rehearsal pianist. Even Wilbur Sweatman joined with its Acme Syncopators on; also the singer Ada "Bricktop" Smith, who would later become a nightclub owner in Paris. In the 1920s, the black comedian Moms Mabley (1894-1975) made her debut in New York City here.

Fats Waller 1938

In the 1930s Fletcher Henderson had a regular engagement here; Recordings were made for Brunswick with his Connie's Inn Orchestra ( Casa Loma Stomp / Good-Bye Blues ). Jazz greats such as Fats Waller , Louis Armstrong and the entertainer Peg Leg Bates performed here, as did the orchestras of Charlie Johnson (with Monette Moore as a band singer), Don Redman and Luis Russell (1934/35). Fats Waller's song Ain't Misbehavin 'was premiered in 1929 in the Revue Hot Chocolates , sung by Margaret Simms and Paul Bass. Harlan Lattimore made recordings for Columbia in 1932 with his Connie's Inn Orchestra ; Bessie Smith stood in for Billie Holiday, who fell ill in 1936 . As in the Cotton Club , Connie's Inn performed mostly African-American artists, while the audience consisted entirely of white visitors.

Race riots in Harlem in 1935 put an end to white audiences' interest in "exotic pleasure" at places like the Cotton Club and Connie's Inn ; During this time, the jazz clubs on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues became the favorite venues for jazz in New York.

In 1954, Cecil Taylor and Dennis Charles performed at Connie's Inn with a rock 'n' roll saxophonist named Floyd Benny. The Connie's Inn later moved downtown to Broadway and 48th Street, but didn't last long.

Discographic notes

  • Fletcher Henderson Connie's Inn Orchestra: Smack ( Decca Records )

Web links

further reading

  • Irving L. Allen: The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech . Oxford University Press, New York 1993 (English).
  • Cary D. Wintz and Paul Finkelman: Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Routledge, New York 2004 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steven Watson: The Harlem Renaissance
  2. ^ A b c d Mark Tucker: Ellington: The Early Years . Urbana, Chicago University of Illinois Press 1990 ISBN 0-252-01425-1 , p. 91
  3. ↑ The mafioso Dutch Schultz is said to have been a silent partner in Connie's Inn ; See Shane White, Stephen Garton, Dr. Stephen Robertson, Graham White: Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars . Harvard University Press, 2010, p. 247
  4. ↑ Mark Berresford: That's Got 'Em !: The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman . 2010. p. 138
  5. ↑ n Sweastman's Connie's Inn Orchestra played Bud Aiken (cor / trb), Wellman Braud (kb) and, for a short time, Coleman Hawkins , where he was poached by Fletcher Henderson in August 1923. In September 19233 Sweatman's combo was replaced by Leroy Smith and his orchestra from Philadelphia, advertised as "The Colored" Paul Whiteman . The Smith Orchestra stayed until February 1926. See Tucker, 1990.
  6. ^ Jessie Carney Smith: Black Firsts , p. 64
  7. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica's Guide to Black History
  8. ↑ Giddins, Gary. Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong . New York: Da Capo Press, 2001. p. 86.
  9. ^ "Peg Leg Bates, One-Legged Dancer, Dies at 91" The New York Times , December 8, 1998.
  10. ↑ David Freeland: Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan's Lost Places of Leisure , 2009
  11. ↑ Meinrad Buholzer, Abi S. Rosenthal, Val Wilmer: In search of Cecil Taylor. Wolke-Verlag, Hofheim 1990, ISBN 3-923997-38-8 . P. 39
  12. ↑ http://www.musicals101.com/bwaypast3b.htm