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
Music of New York City New York City in the early part of the 20th century, and quickly spread to other urban areas and, often, more affluent listeners than country blues, which is distinctively rural in nature. Prominent musicians from this field include Lionel Hampton, Ethel Waters, and Joe Turner. In New York City, jazz was fused with stride (an advanced form of ragtime) and became highly evolved, notably in the compositions of James P. Johnson in the 1920s. Fletcher Henderson's jazz orchestra, first appearing in 1923 and including Coleman Hawkins (and later New Orleans musician Louis Armstrong) became wildly popular and helped invent swing