Started by heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson at the corner of 42nd Street and Lenox Avenue, it was originally called Club De Lux. Failure of the club resulted in the

selling of it in 1923 to gangster Owney Madden who dubbed it The Cotton Club. Madden had been searching for a Harlem location to sell his Madden’s #1 Beer. “The name was chosen in order to invoke thoughts of a stylish plantation environment” (Cotton). To further this implication, all performers were black and, for the most part, all attendees were white.

The Cotton Club embodied what the Twenties were by being a mainstay for what was popular at that time, bootlegged alcohol, radical fashion, and jazz. It became home to improvisational jazz, which lead to many other types of jazz and forms of music. It was a place where men and women could dress and dance however they wanted; and it became a means of getting bootlegged alcohol from a gangster.

“Following World War I, around 500,000 African Americans in search of better employment opportunities moved to the northern part of the United States. With them, they brought their culture”(Rhapsodies). Part of that culture was Jazz. Jazz was slang for sex but also a type of music. The music itself had, and still does have, enormous sexual appeal t

Some topics in this essay:
Cotton Club, Club Madden, Jazz Jazz, Roaring Twenties, Harlem York, Hip Hop, Harlem Renaissance, African Americans, Armstrong Armstrong, Miles Davis, cotton club, jazz music, jazz musicians, sell madden’s, bootlegged alcohol,