Cotton Club Cotton Club The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub located in Harlem on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue from 1923 to 1935, then briefly in the midtown Theater District from 1936 to 1940. The club operated most notably during the United States' era of Prohibition. The club was a whites-only establishment, but 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
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong collaborations In terms of touring performances, Fitzgerald once again teamed up with Armstrong, after the success of their first album, to hold a series of concerts at the Hollywood Bowl. The duo's music proved popular with the live audiences. Two live tracks from those 1956 concerts would end up being released as album bonus material in the 1990s. Ella Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an African-American jazz vocalist often referred to by honorific nicknames such as the "First Lady of Song" and the "Queen of Jazz". "Lady Ella" attracted notoriety for her purity of tone, impeccable diction,