Small's Paradise

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

Small's Paradise nightclub, founded by Edwin Smalls on October 26, 1925, was located at 2294 H Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Boulevard, on the southwest corner of 135th Street; from the mid-1920s he was considered one of Harlem's most popular jazz clubs and restaurants in the Harlem of the Roaring Twenties at the time of Prohibition ; the hall held approx. 1500 people. One of the bands who had a regular engagement there was Charlie Johnson's jazz band for ten years .

In 1929 Variety magazine published a list of Harlem's major nightclubs; the Small’s took first place, followed by the Cotton Club , the Barron Wilkins' Exclusive Club and the Connie's Inn . The immense success of these clubs was due in large part to the fascination with African American culture for white audiences of the era. The club's high ticket prices only allowed entry to an exclusive group of wealthy people: in 1929 the cover charge was four dollars, at a time when most Harlem residents had an income of six to twelve dollars a week. The most important musicians and singers of jazz of this era made guest appearances in Small's Paradise , with musicians who played in the other clubs in the district, there were nightly jam sessions . Many intellectuals and artists visited the club, such as Alain Locke , Countee Cullen , William Faulkner and Langston Hughes . The writer and photographer Carl van Vechten drew his inspiration for Black Venus , a jazz club in his novel Nigger Heaven (1926) from his visits to Small's. In 1944 Malcolm X worked there as a waitress.

After its decline in the 1940s, basketball player Wilt Chamberlain bought it (as a co-owner) from Ed Smalls in 1961 and reopened as Big Wilt's Small's Paradise at West 135th and 7th Avenue in August 1964. Roy Brooks , King Curtis Babs Gonzales and Jimmy Smith performed there during these years . In the 1970s, Big Wilt's Small's Paradise opened to other styles outside of jazz, and also hosted rock concerts and acted as a nightclub, before finally closing in 1986. Today at this address there is a restaurant of the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) chain .

Recordings

  • Jimmy Smith: Groovin 'at Smalls' Paradise , 1957
  • Babs Gonzales: Sunday Afternoon at Small's Paradise , 1962
  • King Curtis: Live at Small's Paradise , 1966
  • Rod Piazza : Magnum Music Group: Live at Small's Paradise , 1969
  • Roy Brooks: Ethnic Expressions - Live at Small's Paradise , 1973

further reading

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Smalls had previously run the Sugar Cane Club in 1917 , a dance bar and restaurant in Harlem (2212, Fifth Avenue), mostly frequented by African Americans. Former lift boy Smalls was a descendant of Captain Robert Smalls, a freed slave who was a captain in the Union Navy and later a congressman in South Carolina .
  2. ↑ a b c Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Volume 2 , Cary D. Wintz, Paul Finkelman, Routledge, 2004 - 1341 pages - ISBN 978-1-579-58458-0
  3. ↑ Malcolm X: A Revolutionary Voice , Beatrice Gormley, Sterling 2008, ISBN 978-1-402-75801-0
  4. ^ Gary M. Pomerantz Wilt, 1962 , excerpt from the book in The New York Times, 2005

Coordinates: 40 ° 48 ′ 54.8 "  N , 73 ° 56 ′ 39.2"  W.