Musical Venues

An overlooked portion of jazz during the Renaissance, are the venues in which the music took place. Some of the ballrooms and theaters were as important as the musicians themselves.

For quite some time, The Apollo was the only major theatre in New York City to hire black talent. This may have lead to it’s popularity with African Americans during the Renaissance. The Apollo introduced it’s famous “Amateur Night” during the Harlem Renaissance and provided a first opportunity for some of the greatest jazz musicians of the time. For instance, Ella Fitzgerald sang at the Apollo on November 21, 1934 at the tender age of 17. Another important musical venue was the famous Savoy Ballroom also in Harlem. Opened in 1926 the ballroom unlike the Apollo was more suitable for dancing as well as musical performance. Located on Lenox Avenue, the Savoy Ballroom became a staple of African American culture and was synonymous with jazz. The ballroom was open to men and women of any color so it allowed for white and black Americans to mingle and dance with one another. It is rumored that the Charleston was created one evening in the ballroom. The Savoy Ballroom became immortalized in 1934 in the class big band song “Stompin at the Savoy”.

The Cotton Club was yet another supremely famous jazz night club in Harlem. The Cotton Club hosted some of the most famous and in demand musicians of the time including Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong. However, it is a fact that the Cotton Club was primarily a whites only venue. While the Cotton Club was important to African Americans in that it popularized jazz with the rich, it also was a detriment to racial equality by promoting stereotypes of African Americans.