Speakeasy, Richie @speakeasyduke-blog - Tumblr Blog

Resources & Work Cited:

Shaw, Arnold. Jazz Age : Popular Music in the 1920s. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford University Press, 1989. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 12 May 2015.

"Amendment XVIII - Prohibition of Liquor." National Constitution Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://constitutioncenter.org/constitution/the-amendments/amendment-18-liquor-abolished>.

"Cotton Club." Baby Face Nelson Journal. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://www.babyfacenelsonjournal.com/cotton-club.html>.

"Owen Madden." Baby Face Nelson Journal. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://www.babyfacenelsonjournal.com/owen-madden.html>.

Bradbury, David. Duke Ellington. London: Haus, 2005. Print. Hughes, Langston. The Big Sea: An Autobiography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1963. Print.

"The Roaring Twenties." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties>.

Bailey, A. Peter. "The Cotton Club Girls." Ebony 41.2 (1985): 90-98. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 May 2015.

"Vintage Photos: Inside the Cotton Club, One of NYC's Leading Jazz Venues of the 1920s and '30s." Untapped Cities RSS. N.p., 04 Aug. 2013. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://untappedcities.com/2013/08/04/vintage-photos-inside-the-cotton-club-one-of-nycs-leading-jazz-venues-of-the-1920s-and-30s/>.

"Prohibition: Scenes Inside the Speakeasies of New York in 1933 | LIFE | TIME.com." LIFE. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://life.time.com/culture/prohibition-scenes-from-the-speakeasies-of-new-york-in-1933/#end>.

"The Prohibition Act of 1920 in America." Speakeasy. Maverick Theater, n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://www.mavericktheater.com/html/speakeasy.html>.

"Cotton Club." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/jazz/places/spaces_cotton_club.htm>.

"Cotton Club of Harlem." The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://www.blackpast.org/aah/cotton-club-harlem-1923>.

#holla

Fin:

In an attempt to avoid writing another bleak, damned essay, the likes of which are, by nature, unavoidable, and, by nature, have plagued much of my college education, I created this blog. Also, too, was an effort to recreate the whirlwind that was, and somehow is, I think, the roaring twenties; the fast-paced, every-which-way thing. This, of course, by its nature, could go on forever, and in a struggle to keep things condensed, both for sanity’s sake and for academic’s, I meant to maintain a focus on prohibition, speakeasies, Duke Ellington, Jazz, and the good, the bad and the ugly. Because there is no real way to end except to just do so, and no real neat last words to leave on, I will stop here, offering: The age of prohibition, speakeasies, Duke Ellington, and Jazz was an odd one.

#overandout

Music is how he is Remembered:

On May 24, 1974, only a few weeks after his 75th birthday, the Duke passed away with complications from lung cancer and pneumonia. His last words were, “music is how I live, why I live, and how I will be remembered.” Over 12,000 people attended his funeral.

21st Amendment: SECTION. 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. SECTION. 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. SECTION. 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress

The Constitution of the United States of America, December 5, 1933

#hellzyeah

SECTION. 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Somebody said at the time of Prohibition that the difference between the pro-Prohibition and the anti-Prohibition groups in the years leading up to the passage of the 21st Amendment was that the pro-Prohibition people were out there marching and organizing and voting and the anti-Prohibition people were too busy drinking to do any of those things. I think that's a joke of sorts, but not entirely. That is to say, we don't fight to keep things the way they are; we fight to change things. And I think we're seeing that again today. We're seeing groups that want to change the way we live our lives in America and very few who are defending existing means of government.

Daniel Okrent, the first public editor of The New York Times

#TheNatureofChange #prohibition #21stAmendmentPlease

The Duke

#nicestache

The last show at the Cotton Club went on at two and the club closed at three-thirty or four. Then everybody would go next door to Happy Roane's or to the breakfast dance at Smalls' Paradise, where the floor show went on at six o'clock in the morning. .. . It was the complete show with 25 or 30 people, including the singing waiters and their twirling trays. Show people from all over New York, white and colored, went there Sunday mornings. It's hard to imagine now, musicians coming out from the breakfast dance at eight or nine in the morning with their tuxedos on, and showgirls with evening dresses on. Or Charlie Johnson's band there, at six or seven in the morning, with maybe twenty-five musicians from the bands all over town, white and colored, playing at one time, all the top names in music business.

Sonny Greer, drummer

#wild times #drummer #cotton club

Duke Ellington:

It was in a bit of a roundabout way that the Duke found himself at the head of the Cotton Club Orchestra, a position he held from December 4th, 1927 through June 30th, 1930, and sporadically until 1938. Andy Preer, who first led the Cotton Club’s house band, which, at the time, was a group called the “Missourians” but, of course, assumed the club’s name, passed away in 1927, resulting in the search for a replacement band. The club’s first choice was Joe “King” Oliver, who, in a lousy business choice, decided to turn down the gig, ultimately giving the Duke his big break. Now, depending on the source, it is said that the Duke was brought to the club’s eyes by either his manager, Irving Mills (whose name appears as collaborator on nearly all of his compositions), or Jimmy McHugh. According to legend, McHugh, who wrote many revues for the club, had heard the Duke and his band at the Kentucky Club in the city and recommended him highly to the managers. Taken with the idea, the Cotton Club reportedly ordered the Duke to take the position “despite all contracts, commitments or desires” (Arnold Shaw, 1989). Whether or not this is true no one can say for certain, but it was at the Cotton Club where the Duke found national fame, and, too, where he met longtime companion, Mildred Dixon.

#the duke #The Cotton Club

Mildred Dixon, a famous Cotton Club Girl, held a long-term relationship with Duke Ellington beginning in the Spring of 1930

#MildredDixon #cottonclubgirls #theduke

“Tall, Tan and Terrific”

To be a Cotton Club Girl was a prestigious, though glamorous, position. Besides being required to work seven days a week year round, each girl had to be at least 5’6” tall, light skinned, and under twenty-one years old. This, of course, did not come without its due payment—dancers made $35 a week, roughly double what other dancers were making in other clubs at the time.

It was not until 1932, when Lucille Wilson was accepted into the group as the first African American, that the Cotton Club Girls were sort of officially desegregated. Even still, it was rarity that the club would hire African American dancers.

The Duke had relationships with two of the girls, Mildred Dixon and Bea Ellis.

#cottonclubgirls

The Gophers

#owneymadden

Nothing doing. The boys’ll get ’em. It’s nobody’s business but mine who put these slugs in me!

Owen “Owney” Madden

#police statement

Owen “Owney” Madden

was born Christmas day, 1891 in Leeds, England. Moving to the states in 1902, Owney quickly became involved in a gang known as the Gophers, where, at age eleven, he speedily earned his nickname “The Killer” after reportedly shooting and killing an Italian gang member and subsequently, allegedly, shouting to witnesses, “go ahead and call the cops! Owney Madden, 10th Avenue!” By the age of eighteen, only seven years later, Owney was suspected responsible for the deaths of at least five more rival gang members and had earned his spot as the leader of one of the three sections of the Gophers. Under his leadership, the Gophers grew more and more powerful, Owney employed more and more members, and conflict with rival gangs became more and more heated. Finally, on November 6th, 1912, several members of the Hudson Dusters opened fire on “The Killer,” hitting him with eleven bullets. Amazingly, Owney survived, ultimately spending only three weeks in the hospital. Upon police questioning he refused to identify the shooters, and, within a week of his release from the hospital, several members of the Hudson Dusters were found murdered. Owney’s would soon run out, however, and he’d find himself in jail, sentenced for up to twenty years for murder. During this time he managed continue business, naturally, and even bought the Cotton Club. Upon his release in 1923, after nine years served, he renovated the club and, ultimately, ran it until the club’s closing in 1940.

#thekiller #the gophers #gangster #the cotton club

Owen “Owney” Madden

I was never there, because the Cotton Club was a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites. They were not cordial to Negro patronage, unless you were a celebrity like Bojangles. So Harlem Negroes did not like the Cotton Club and never appreciated its Jim Crow policy in the very heart of their dark community. Nor did ordinary Negroes like the growing influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang, and where now the strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at Negro customers—like amusing animals in a zoo.

Langston Hughes

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