#Le Harlem Nightclub

[musicbabes]

Gjon Mili, Le Harlem Nightclub, 1947.

[lboogie1906]

Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith (“Bricktop”) (August 14, 1894 - January 31, 1984) vaudevillian actress, singer, nightclub owner, and international celebrity host, was born in Alderson, West Virginia to Thomas and Hattie Thompson Smith. She began performing at the age of five, playing Harry in Uncle Tom’s Cabin at Haymarket Theater in Chicago. She earned a permanent chorus role at the Pekin Theatre. A truancy officer tracked her down and she was forced to quit performing and return to school.

She began touring with the Theater Owners’ Booking Association and Pantages Vaudeville circuits. She appeared alongside vaudevillian entertainers. She earned the nickname “Bricktop”. She performed in a wide variety of locations including Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, and New York. Baron’s Exclusive Club in Harlem became one of her regular venues, she convinced the owner to hire Elmer Snowden’s Washingtonian’s band, which included an undiscovered Duke Ellington.

She performed in Paris at the Le Grand Duc nightclub. She began hosting and entertaining at charity events and parties for celebrities, where she befriended influential artists such as the authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck, and the composer and musician Cole Porter. Porter wrote a song for her titled, “Miss Otis Regrets She’s Unable to Lunch Today.” She became involved with the Paris nightclub scene, regularly performing at The Music Box and Le Grand Duc.

She opened her nightclub called Chez Bricktop’s. The club regularly featured high-profile guests and performers. Known for smoking her signature cigars, became known in Paris as the “doyenne of café society.”

She married New Orleans musician Peter Conge (1929) she moved her nightclub to 66 Rue Pigalle. She separated from her husband, but they never divorced. She made radio broadcasts for the French government. She attempted unsuccessfully to recreate her nightclub enterprise in New York.

She opened and closed nightclubs in Mexico City, Paris, and Rome but none were as successful as her original Paris nightclub. She recorded her first and only song, “So Long Baby” with jazz artist Cy Coleman. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

Ph Gjon Mili, Le Harlem Nightclub, 1947

[carmenvicinanza]

Dorothy Pitman Hughes

https://www.unadonnalgiorno.it/dorothy-pitman-hughes/

Dorothy Pitman Hughes è stata una delle più note femministe statunitensi.

Ha dato vita, insieme a Gloria Steinem alla famosa rivista Ms. Magazine. La loro amicizia e attivismo stabilirono l’equilibrio razziale nel nascente movimento delle donne.

Nata col nome di Dorothy Ridley il 2 ottobre 1938 a Lumpkin, in Georgia, aveva solo dieci anni quando suo padre venne picchiato e lasciato morto sulla soglia di casa da membri del Ku Klux Klan.

Fu in quel momento che decise che avrebbe dedicato tutti i suoi sforzi a provare a cambiare le cose per la comunità nera.

Aveva diciannove anni quando si è trasferita a New York City e con fratelli e sorelle ha dato vita alla band Roger and the Ridley Sisters. Per mantenersi ha fatto tanti lavori, la commessa, la donna delle pulizie e la cantante di nightclub.

Partecipava alle proteste per i diritti civili e ha organizzato un centro diurno multirazziale nel West Side per garantire cure e sostegno a persone indigenti. È stato così che ha conosciuto Gloria Steinem che era andata a intervistarla per scriverne un articolo. Da allora è iniziata la loro militanza e la decisione di fondare un giornale interamente gestito da donne, Ms. Magazine, che inizialmente usciva come edizione speciale di New York. Per tutti gli anni ’70 hanno girato il paese parlando di razza, classe e genere.

Dorothy Pitman Hughes ha creato il primo rifugio per donne maltrattate a New York e ha aperto la strada all’assistenza all’infanzia partecipando alla creazione della prima agenzia cittadina dedicata al benessere e allo sviluppo dell’infanzia.

Sempre con Gloria Steinem, nel 1971, ha fondato la Women’s Action Alliance, pionieristico centro di informazione nazionale specializzato nell’educazione non sessista e multirazziale.

Le due donne sono raffigurate insieme coi pugni alzati nell’iconica fotografia passata alla storia come simbolo della lotta femminista intersezionale.

Dorothy Pitman Hughes è stata firmataria della campagna “We Have Had Abortions” che chiedeva la fine delle leggi arcaiche che limitavano la libertà riproduttiva, incoraggiando le donne a condividere le loro storie e ad agire.

Docente ospite alla Columbia University, ha tenuto un corso dal titolo Le dinamiche del cambiamento. Ha anche insegnato al City College di Manhattan.

Nel 1992, ha co-fondato la Charles Junction Historic Preservation Society in Florida, nell’ex fattoria Junction, per combattere la povertà attraverso l’orticoltura comunitaria e la produzione alimentare.

Nel 1997 è stata la prima donna nera a possedere un centro di forniture per ufficio la Harlem Office Supply, Inc., di cui vendeva azioni a un dollaro a persone e organizzazioni senza scopo di lucro che lavoravano per bambine e bambini afroamericani. Ha sostenuto e fornito consulenza per la creazione di piccole imprese come forma di empowerment e sopravvivenza contro il lavoro sottopagato delle multinazionali e grandi catene.

Dopo una lunga vita di impegno e lotte mai abbandonate, è morta il primo dicembre 2022, a Tampa, in Florida, aveva 84 anni.Tra le sue pubblicazioni ricordiamo:

La vita riguarda le scelte, non le scuse (2014); Sto solo dicendo che sembra una pulizia etnica: la gentrificazione di Harlem (2012); Svegliati e annusa i dollari! A chi appartiene questa città: la lotta di una donna contro sessismo, classismo, razzismo, gentrificazione e la zona di emancipazione (2000).

[impromptu-manifesto]

When Montmartre was Harlem-on-the-Seine

[pictured: Josephine Baker in her nightclub “Chez Josephine” in the ninth arrondissement — on 40 rue Pierre Fontaine, Paris 9eme]

After the Great War, a new kind of music began to waft through the winding streets of lower Montmartre. Unrestrained, audacious, with a potent syncopated rhythm unlike anything ever heard in Europe. It was the music of Black Americans who had started to move into the neighborhood. For a brief time, far away from Jim Crow in the United States, they established a cultural utopia with no color lines. And for that brief interlude known as Les Années Folles, Montmartre became known as Harlem-on-the-Seine.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

At the nightclub Le Harlem, 1947.

Photo: Gjon Mili via the Howard Greenberg Gallery

[kafkasapartment]

The Cotton Club, New York, Harlem, early 20th century. Unknown photographer.

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, 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. ~Wikipedia

[federer7]

Nightclubs, NYC, Chorus Girls' Legs and Patrons at Le Harlem, 1947

Photo: Gjon Mili

[sporcafaccenda]

BARON SAMEDI (Playcolt n.9)

Une copie simplifiée de "Vivre et laisser mourir" avec Alain Velon à la place de James Bond. Scénario calque et scènes reprises à l'identique: la cérémonie vaudou, le cercueil rempli de serpents, les monte-charges dans le cimetière, le mur/table pivotant dans le nightclub à Harlem, l'arrivée nocturne sur l'île en Deltaplane, les épouvantails/fétiches vaudou truqués et funestes, etc… Ces scènes reprises du film sont assez mal dessinées, bâclées. Par contre les scènes originales - plus brutales - sont plutôt réussies (exemple reproduit).

#Playcolt #Alain Velon #Alain Delon

#Shark Island #fumetti #comics

#studio Montanari #Emanuele Taglietti #baron samedi

[glamourofyesteryear]

Chorus Girls at the Le Harlem Nightclub in New York City, photographed by Gjon Mili, 1947

[1962dude420-blog]

Today we remember the passing of Nina Simone who Died: April 21, 2003 in Carry-le-Rouet, France

Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

The sixth of eight children born to a poor family in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone initially aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of a few supporters in her hometown, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. She then applied for a scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied admission despite a well-received audition, which she attributed to racial discrimination. In 2003, just days before her death, the Institute awarded her an honorary degree.

To make a living, Simone started playing piano at a nightclub in Atlantic City. She changed her name to "Nina Simone" to disguise herself from family members, having chosen to play "the devil's music" or so-called "cocktail piano". She was told in the nightclub that she would have to sing to her own accompaniment, which effectively launched her career as a jazz vocalist. She went on to record more than 40 albums between 1958 and 1974, making her debut with Little Girl Blue. She had a hit single in the United States in 1958 with "I Loves You, Porgy". Her musical style fused gospel and pop with classical music, in particular Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice.

The sixth of eight children in a poor family, she began playing piano at the age of three or four; the first song she learned was "God Be With You, Till We Meet Again". Demonstrating a talent with the piano, she performed at her local church. Her concert debut, a classical recital, was given when she was 12. Simone later said that during this performance, her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white people. She said that she refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front, and that the incident contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement. Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon (née Irvin, November 20, 1901 – April 30, 2001), was a Methodist minister and a housemaid. Her father, Rev. John Devan Waymon (June 24, 1898 – October 23, 1972), was a handyman who at one time owned a dry-cleaning business, but also suffered bouts of ill health. Simone's music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for her education. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist her continued education. With the help of this scholarship money, she was able to attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina.

In order to fund her private lessons, Simone performed at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey, whose owner insisted that she sing as well as play the piano, which increased her income to $90 a week. In 1954, she adopted the stage name "Nina Simone". "Nina", derived from niña, was a nickname given to her by a boyfriend named Chico, and "Simone" was taken from the French actress Simone Signoret, whom she had seen in the 1952 movie Casque d'Or. Knowing her mother would not approve of playing "the Devil's music", she used her new stage name to remain undetected. Simone's mixture of jazz, blues, and classical music in her performances at the bar earned her a small but loyal fan base.

After the success of Little Girl Blue, Simone signed a contract with Colpix Records and recorded a multitude of studio and live albums. Colpix relinquished all creative control to her, including the choice of material that would be recorded, in exchange for her signing the contract with them. After the release of her live album Nina Simone at Town Hall, Simone became a favorite performer in Greenwich Village. By this time, Simone performed pop music only to make money to continue her classical music studies, and was indifferent about having a recording contract. She kept this attitude toward the record industry for most of her career.

Simone married a New York police detective, Andrew Stroud, in December, 1961. In few years he became her manager and the father of her daughter Lisa, but later he abused Simone psychologically and physically.

In 1964, Simone changed record distributors from Colpix, an American company, to the Dutch Philips Records, which meant a change in the content of her recordings. She had always included songs in her repertoire that drew on her African-American heritage, such as "Brown Baby" by Oscar Brown and "Zungo" by Michael Olatunji on her album Nina at the Village Gate in 1962. On her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert (1964), for the first time she addressed racial inequality in the United States in the song "Mississippi Goddam". This was her response to the June 12, 1963, murder of Medgar Evers and the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young black girls and partly blinded a fifth. She said that the song was "like throwing ten bullets back at them", becoming one of many other protest songs written by Simone. The song was released as a single, and it was boycotted in some southern states.  Promotional copies were smashed by a Carolina radio station and returned to Philips. She later recalled how "Mississippi Goddam" was her "first civil rights song" and that the song came to her "in a rush of fury, hatred and determination". The song challenged the belief that race relations could change gradually and called for more immediate developments: "me and my people are just about due". It was a key moment in her path to Civil Rights activism. "Old Jim Crow", on the same album, addressed the Jim Crow laws. After "Mississippi Goddam", a civil rights message was the norm in Simone's recordings and became part of her concerts. As her political activism rose, the rate of release of her music slowed.

Simone performed and spoke at civil rights meetings, such as at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Like Malcolm X, her neighbor in Mount Vernon, New York, she supported black nationalism and advocated violent revolution rather than Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent approach. She hoped that African Americans could use armed combat to form a separate state, though she wrote in her autobiography that she and her family regarded all races as equal.

In 1967, Simone moved from Philips to RCA Victor. She sang "Backlash Blues" written by her friend, Harlem Renaissance leader Langston Hughes, on her first RCA album, Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967). On Silk & Soul (1967), she recorded Billy Taylor's "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" and "Turning Point". The album 'Nuff Said! (1968) contained live recordings from the Westbury Music Fair of April 7, 1968, three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She dedicated the performance to him and sang "Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)", a song written by her bass player, Gene Taylor. In 1969, she performed at the Harlem Cultural Festival in Harlem's Mount Morris Park.

Simone and Weldon Irvine turned the unfinished play To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Lorraine Hansberry into a civil rights song of the same name. She credited her friend Hansberry with cultivating her social and political consciousness. She performed the song live on the album Black Gold (1970). A studio recording was released as a single, and renditions of the song have been recorded by Aretha Franklin (on her 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black) and Donny Hathaway. When reflecting on this period, she wrote in her autobiography, "I felt more alive then than I feel now because I was needed, and I could sing something to help my people".

In an interview for Jet magazine, Simone stated that her controversial song "Mississippi Goddam" harmed her career. She claimed that the music industry punished her by boycotting her records. Hurt and disappointed, Simone left the US in September 1970, flying to Barbados and expecting her husband and manager (Andrew Stroud) to communicate with her when she had to perform again. However, Stroud interpreted Simone's sudden disappearance, and the fact that she had left behind her wedding ring, as an indication of her desire for a divorce. As her manager, Stroud was in charge of Simone's income.

In 1993, she settled near Aix-en-Provence in southern France (Bouches-du-Rhône). In the same year, her final album, A Single Woman, was released. She variously contended that she married or had a love affair with a Tunisian around this time, but that their relationship ended because, "His family didn't want him to move to France, and France didn't want him because he's a North African." During a 1998 performance in Newark, she announced, "If you're going to come see me again, you've got to come to France, because I am not coming back." She suffered from breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet (Bouches-du-Rhône), on April 21, 2003. Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti LaBelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and hundreds of others. Simone's ashes were scattered in several African countries. She is survived by her daughter, Lisa Celeste Stroud, an actress and singer, who took the stage name Simone, and who has appeared on Broadway in Aida.

[lboogie1906]

François “Féral” Benga (July 8, 1906 – September 13, 1957) was a Senegalese dancer and became a sought-after model of the Harlem Renaissance, his portraits and sculptures were taken by Carl Van Vechten, Richmond Barthé, and George Platt Lynes among others.

He was the grandchild of one of Dakar’s wealthiest property owners. He moved to Paris and his father disinherited him.

He starred in The Blood of a Poet. He was the Folies Bergère star.

Richmond Barthé went on a tour to Paris. This trip exposed Barthé to classical art and performers such as he and Josephine Baker. He was enchanted by him which led to Barthé taking a sculpture of him in 1935.

His partner, Geoffrey Gorer, wrote Africa Dances, dedicated to him. It was the result of a trip they made to Africa in 1933 to study the native dances. He opened a nightclub in Paris.

He was painted by James A. Porter, in Soldat Senegalese.

Back in Manhattan, he was a gay icon. He moved in the Harlem Renaissance circles. He was painted by Pavel Tchelitchew, and the painting, Deposition was owned by Lincoln Kirstein.

Back in Paris in 1947, he owned a bar, La Rose Rouge, at 53 Rue de la Harpe. The club featured an African cabaret, all performers African students in Paris universities. The bar attracted a young clientele, including Nico, Mireille, and Jean Rougeuil, who opened the attached club, Le Club de la Rose Rouge. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[joeinct]

Le Harlem Nightclub, Photo by Gjon Mili, 1947

[cooperhewitt]

Trans-Atlantic Solo- Flying IS Jazz Age

Left:) Photograph of store window display. Paris, France. n.d. Mannequin of Charles Lindbergh in wax by Siégel featuring aviation clothing, positioned with an aerial view of Paris. Thérèse Bonney (1897-1978). Cooper-Hewitt Rare Books. 2000-42-1. (Right:) Sheet music cover. Lucky Lindbergh. Words by L. Wolfe Gilbert, music by Abel Baer. New York: Leo Feist Inc., 1927. Smithsonian Libraries. Uncataloged.

The first non-stop, first transatlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh from New York to Paris in May 1927 was acclaimed around the world as one of the most remarkable and heroic accomplishments in history. The people of Paris were especially excited about the journey since their city was where Lindbergh would be touching down after nearly 34 hours flying time. Upon arrival Lindbergh was the toast of Paris; designers and department stores promoted the sales of merchandise with this popular and iconic hero.

On view in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s exhibition The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s. Photograph May 1927. Charles Lindbergh piloted the “Spirit of St. Louis” on the first solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Le Bourget, Paris on May 21, 1927, and then at the Croydon Aerodrome outside of London eight days later. This widely anticipated event was witnessed by Picasso and other artistic luminaries.”

On view in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s exhibition The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s. Photograph May 1927. Charles Lindbergh piloted the “Spirit of St. Louis” on the first solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Le Bourget, Paris on May 21, 1927, and then at the Croydon Aerodrome outside of London eight days later. This widely anticipated event was witnessed by Picasso and other artistic luminaries.”[/caption] “Lucky” Lindbergh became more famous than any Hollywood movie star – everyone recognized his face and knew his name. These photographs and sheet music cover in the Cooper Hewitt Library Special Collections are only a small part of the way history and life is recorded. Photographer Thérèse Bonney documented Paris life from 1925-1935, and captured these images of Lindbergh in store window displays. Music publishers produced a variety of popular songs, shows and other vehicles of popular culture celebrating Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis.

Photograph of store window display. Paris, France. n.d. Headshot of Charles Lindbergh in wax by Siégel in a scarf and leather jacket positioned atop an aerial view of Paris. Thérèse Bonney (1897-1978). Cooper-Hewitt Rare Books. 2000-42-1.

“Lindy” Charles Lindbergh was even celebrated in dance. Music, dancing, cabarets, and nightclubs were, of course, the defining element of the jazz age. The “Lindy Hop” became associated with Lindbergh’s transatlantic airplane flight, but there is controversy surrounding the origin of the name of the dance. The “swing”, “hop” and “lindy” were already established African American dance forms, but the name probably became connected in the minds of many after reading American newspapers headlines reading: “Lucky Lindy Hops the Atlantic!” Frequently described as a jazz dance, the story goes that the dancer “Shorty” George Snowden renamed the breakaway dance as the Lindy Hop in a dance contest in 1927 at the Manhattan Casino (New York City), a ballroom located uptown in Harlem; and that he explained “We flying just like Lindy did”. One of the reasons it could be associated with flight is because of the movements in the dance where one’s feet leave the floor

The Jazz Age era was identified with the speed and sounds of modern technology and a new age of communication and travel- music, movies, cars, new ocean liners, and airplanes. Elizabeth Broman, Reference Librarian

from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum http://ift.tt/2uxFRcm via IFTTT

[suzylwade]

Michèle Lamy “I think they should Google “muse” because people say that a lot. But I think people just say it when they don’t know what to say. Etymologically it implies someone who lounges around. That’s not what I do. It’s better to escape this word.” - Michèle Lamy, not a “muse”. Michèle Lamy was born in Jura, France, and refers to her family as mountain folk. She’s very vague about her background. During the 60s and 70s she worked as a defence lawyer at a legal practice in Lyon, while studying with the postmodern philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the local university. Deleuze is the man Lamy calls her mentor. His specialty was something called “transcendental empiricism” and his psychiatric interventions in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’ books were hugely influential at the time. They may well have helped Lamy in her own specialty, which was defending sex offenders. Lamy then worked as a cabaret dancer and toured France before moving to America in 1979. She settled in New York and then Los Angeles, where she set up a fashion line and ran two cult restaurants/nightclubs – ‘Café des Artistes’ and ‘Les Deux Cafés’. The latter was actually in a car park and waiters would have to cross a busy road to serve clients their food, but it was an important part of the 90s LA scene. Madonna, Joni Mitchell and Sharon Stone were regulars, often performing there. Lamy would also sing – her favourite numbers had lyrics by the 20s Harlem poet Langston Hughes. Between 1997 and 2003 you could find her in ‘Les Deux Cafés’ until she left after meeting Owens through his then-boyfriend and hired him as a pattern-maker for her own line, ‘Lamy’. Lamy and Owens married in 2006, when she was 62 and he was 45. Lamy is the perfect partner for Owens’s erudite humour. His nickname for her is ‘Hun’ as in Atilla. They have lived and worked together ever since, although they quit LA for Paris and a large house in the 7th arrondissement in 2003. Lamy now performs in ‘Lavascar’ a sort of industrial electronica band alongside her daughter Scarlett Rouge. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn8Tk4_Fatu/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=yg39b2e48lnc