The Cotton Club
The best speakeasies during the Harlem Renaissance was the Cotton Club; it was well known and was the stage for several famous musicians. It was located at 644 Lenox Avenue and 142nd Street and opened in the 1920's. Only white people were allowed to enter, but all the staff and performers were African-Americans. This venue made legendary jazz music; Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker, and Mae West all performed at the Cotton Club making this the most well known and most recognizable nightclubs. The Cotton Club closed for good in 1940.
Louis Armstrong
He was the most influential voice of jazz and was an incredibly talented trumpeter. Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans to a very poor family and at the age of twelve was sent to reform school for firing a gun on New Years Eve. There, he learned to play the cornet and when he was released at age fourteen, he continued to listen to music even though he didn't own an instrument. Joe "King" Oliver was a major influence to him, and even gave Louis his first cornet. Joe Oliver instructed him how to play and even acted like his father figure. In 1917, Louis Armstrong played with a group inspired by Oliver at dive bars in New Orleans' Storyville section. In 1919, he broke free from New Orleans for the first time to join Fatet Marable's band in St. Louis. Armstrong played with several bands; he played with Kid Ory's band regularly, played parades with the Allen Brass Band, played in Zutty Singleton's band when he returned to New Orleans, and with the Silver Leaf Band. in 1922, Joe Oliver sent a telegram asking him if he would join his Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens in Chicago. In February 1924, he married Lillian Hardin, a piano player and arranger of the Creole Jazz Band. For thirteen months, he played in Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra. During this time, he recorded with numerous Blues singers like Bessie Smith, Clarence Williams, and the Red Onion Jazz Babies. In 1925, he also recorded his first Hot Five records. Recorded under his name for the first time, Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven are considered to be jazz classics. This band never played live, but recorded until 1928. For two years, he played with Carroll Dickerson's Savoy Orchestra and Clarence Jones' Orchestra. In 1947, a group called the Louis Armstrong Allstars was started; amazing musicians such as Barney Bigard, Jack Teagarden, Sidney 'Big Sid' Catlett, vocalist Vilma Middleton, and Earl Hines played with his band. They were one of the best known groups and toured for twenty years. In the last three years of his life, Armstrong was hospitalized several times; On July 6th 1971 he died in his sleep in Queens, New York. This was the end of the world's greatest Jazz musician.
Billie Holiday
She rose to greatness in the 1950's with her soulful, unique voice. As a young teenager, she sang along to recordings of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong in after-hours jazz clubs. Her original name is Eleanora Fagan, but she borrowed her professional name for Billie Dove, and sang in Night Clubs in New York. Although she was only 18, she had more experience than most adult musicians and soon was spotted by John Hammond. Her first recording was with Benny Goodman and in 1945, she recorded four songs that increased her fame. Two were "What a little moonlight can do" and Miss Brown to You" and thanks to these recordings, she was given her own recording contract. In 1937, when Holiday joined Count Basie and then Artie Shaw in 1938, she became one of the very first black women to work with a white orchestra. Columbia records did not allow Holiday to record "Strange Fruit", so she went to another label and eventually, this song became one of her classics. From 1952-1959, she recorded 100 new songs with Verve, a new record label. Her final recording was in March of 1959 after her tour of Europe for MGM label. Even though she wasn't trained technically, her uniqueness made her an incredible jazz singer. White gardenias became her trademark as she died suddenly at the age of 44.
Count Basie
William Basie was an exceptional musician who led one of the greatest jazz bands in history for 50 years. William Basie was born in Red Bank, New Jersey on August 21, 1904. At a young age, Basie learned to play music due to the fact that his mother was a music teacher. Although he was taught by his mother, he learned his style of play for jazz in Harlem, New York. After obtaining experience from performing with Walter Page's Blue Devils and financial help from John Hammond, the long-lasting Count Basie Orchestra was formed. In 1937, Basie wrote his own song that the band performed, "One O' Clock Jump". Basie's band regularly worked the better bigger big city hotel ballrooms. Some of the band's arrangements were composed by trombonist Eddie Durham, but most were spontaneously worked out during rehearsal. Some of the members of Count Basie were Jimmy Rushing, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry Edison, and Saxophonist Lester Young. Even though William Basie started and led Count Basie, the band survived after his death by cancer at Doctors' Hospital in Hollywoord, Florida on April 26, 1984. They were led by Thad Jones until his death in 1986.
Dizzie Gillespie
He was born in Cheraw, South Carolina on October 21, 1917. Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker are credited for the style of jazz known as bebop which emerged in the 1940's. His most famous song that he composed was "A Night in Tunisia". "We had a special way of phrasing. Not only did we change harmonic structure, but we changed rhythmic structure." stated Gillespie. He earned his nickname thanks to his habit of clowning around on stage. Prior to "hippies", Gillespie's fashion was quite eccentric and topped it off with a beret and dark glasses. His trademark became his upturned trumpet after a guest accidentally sat on his trumpet bending his bell in a 45 degree angle. He like the muted sound so much that he kept it and required all his future trumpets to be made with bells in the same angle. Towards his later years, he was showered with honors, ranging from being named regent professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, to being inaugurated as tribal chief in Nigeria. A special honor was the National Medal of Arts, presented to him by George Bush, and that same year recieved a Grammy. He died on January 6, 1993 in Englewood, New Jersey. Shortly after his death, one of his bent trumpets was sold for more than $50,000.