Club Hot-Cha at Midnight, Don't Be Late

Map of Harlem nightspots in the 1930s at Big Think, including the Cotton Club (ruled by Cab Calloway), the Savoy, and the Radium Club, where breakfast was served at 4 or 5 am for the musicians at the end of their work day. Found via T. Tex's Hexes.

Cotton Club Legends

Page Mr. Volstead is offering a succulent collection of music from legendary musicians who played Harlem's Cotton Club from the late 20s through the early 40s, including Jimmie Lunceford, Duke Ellington. Eubie Blake, and Cab Calloway. I'm loving Billy Banks' Scat Song, featuring some tips on writing your own Depression era wedding vows, skate 'n skeet, and hidey-hi, and scat-a-lat-a-lat indeed.

And now that you're in that era's musical groove, try the interestingly named Young Man With an Organ collection by Fats Waller courtesy of Good Old Ones.

Look! I'm Bibi! (minus the box)

I never cease to be amazed by what shows up on archive.org.



This particular video is worth watching if only for the unique way Big Joe Turner interprets "Shake Rattle and Roll" for the cameras (at 43 minutes in) a real live feel to it. Other performances include:
Cab Calloway in full mop o' hair mode for "Minnie the Moocher" with shadow play;
"Bad Bad Whiskey" (amen!) sung by Amos Milburn;
The Delta Rhythm Boys singing "Dry Bones" in a pretty static presentation;
Nat 'King' Cole sings a Havana-moon-style slow calypso song;
and Mantan Moreland and Nipsey Russell do classic bits of "That's bad/no, that's good" (where Nipsey expresses glee that his aged wife burns to death ha-HA!) and the old "Finishing your sentence" joke stream.

The compression is fairly strong on the embed, so - and how cool is this - why not just download a nice 3.5 gig mpeg2 version? Cause they got it!

The perfect answer to "No, my brotha! You got to get your own!" (Sorry- a purely USA reference, from the "Hello Love" album compilation commercial back in the 70's)

Rhythm and Blues Revue

Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955) [IMDb] is in Public Domain and is according to Internet Archive a "Musical variety show filmed at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York City featuring a cast of popular African-American performers: Willie Bryant, Freddie Robinson, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Faye Adams, Bill Bailey, Herb Jeffries, Amos Milburn, Sarah Vaughan, Nipsey Russell, Big Joe Turner, Martha Davis, Little Buck, Nat 'King' Cole, Mantan Moreland, Cab Calloway and Ruth Brown."

Here's a wild and fun clip from the film with an exciting exotica vibe,
Lionel Hampton - Bongo Interlude:

Clip added by weirdovideos

Bonus: Don't forget to pick up the 1951 8-track LP "Here's Gates" with Lionel Hampton ('Bongo Interlude' is one of the tracks) posted and shared by Brad over at MoodieToonz last year. It's still there. And it's still swingin'!