Cotton club

The Cotton Club was a famous night club in New York City that operated during Prohibition. While the club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters, it generally denied admission to blacks. During its heyday, it served as a chic meeting spot in the heart of Harlem, featuring regular "Celebrity…

The Cotton Club might be Harlem's most famous surviving jazz venue, but it was also the neighborhood's most notorious especially after WWI.

Gregory Hines and Larry Marshall in The Cotton Club (1984)

The Cotton Club might be Harlem's most famous surviving jazz venue, but it was also the neighborhood's most notorious especially after WWI.

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Pianist Fats Waller poses with members of the Creole Dancing Revue aka Frank Sebastian's Cotton Club Cuties at Frank Sebastian's New Cotton Club circa 1935 in Culver City, California.

The Cotton Club

Cab Calloway performs at Harlem's Cotton Club in 1935.

St. Louis Cotton Club Band. Photograph by Block Brothers Studio, ca. 1925. Missouri History Museum Photographs and Prints Collections. Block Brothers Studio Collection. N27534.