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
Maceo Pinkard known record of his playing. In 1930, his song "I'll Be A Friend with Pleasure", was recorded by a jazz band led by Bix Beiderbecke, with Gene Krupa and Benny Goodman among the sidemen. His famous music composition "Sweet Georgia Brown", lyrics by Kenneth Casey, was recorded by artists Louis Armstrong (1928), Count Basie, The Beatles album "Ain't She Sweet" (1962), Cab Calloway (1931), Ray Charles (1961), Nat King Cole (1943), Bing Crosby (1927), Ella Fitzgerald (1956), Dizzy Gillespie (1967), Benny Goodman (1956), Harry James (1939), Carmen McRae (1964), Thelonious Monk (1941), Charlie Parker (1947), Oscar Peterson (1945), Cole Porter