Creative Jazz Organization, Inc.

Nat King Cole was an enormously popular crooner, earning $4,500 a week in Las Vegas in 1956. He headlined at the whites-only Thunderbird Hotel, where he wasn't allowed to venture beyond the showroom and the cook's resting area behind the kitchen. Cole's road manager was given a room in the hotel because he was white, but the high-paid feature attraction had to find other accommodations. He regularly stayed in a rooming house on the West Side.

Frank Sinatra was a great fan of Cole's. While performing at the Sands, Sinatra noticed that Cole almost always ate his dinner alone in his dressing room. Sinatra asked his valet, a black man named George, to find out why. George explained the facts to Frank. "Coloreds aren't allowed in the dining room at the Sands."

Sinatra was enraged. He told the maitre d' and the waitresses that if it ever happened again, he'd see that everyone was fired.
The next night, Sinatra invited Cole to dinner, making his guest the first black man to sit down and eat in the the Garden Room at the Sands.

http://www.museyon.com/shop/chronicles-of-old-las-vegas/

Creative Jazz Organization, Inc 2022 Gala and Local Jazz Masters Ceremony

Gregory Porter @ the Beacon Theatre

If you love jazz, join Creative Jazz Organization, Inc on Saturday, December 10, 2022, at our second annual Jazz Gala event, As we honor our local jazz masters.

We are also sponsoring a Holiday Toy Drive. Please drop off an unwrapped gift at our Gala event.

For information, go to Creativejazzorg.com.

Before signing with Motown, there were four Supremes! They were then called the Primettes.

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes's birth year was revised from 1902 to 1901 after new research from 2018 uncovered that he had been born a year earlier. His parents divorced when he was a young child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln that Hughes began writing poetry. After graduating from high school, he spent a year in Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University in New York City. During this time, he worked as an assistant cook, launderer, and busboy. He also travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, (Knopf, 1926) was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926 with an introduction by Harlem Renaissance arts patron Carl Van Vechten. Criticism of the book from the time varied, with some praising the arrival of a significant new voice in poetry, while others dismissed Hughes's debut collection. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter (Knopf, 1930), won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes, who claimed Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period such as Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including their love of music, laughter, and language itself alongside their suffering.

The critic Donald B. Gibson noted in the introduction to Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays (Prentice Hall, 1973) that Hughes “differed from most of his predecessors among black poets… in that he addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to black people. During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry to an ever decreasing audience of readers, Hughes was turning outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read... Until the time of his death, he spread his message humorously—though always seriously—to audiences throughout the country, having read his poetry to more people (possibly) than any other American poet.”

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind (Simon & Schuster, 1950); Simple Stakes a Claim (Rinehart, 1957); Simple Takes a Wife (Simon & Schuster, 1953); and Simple's Uncle Sam (Hill and Wang, 1965). He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography, The Big Sea (Knopf, 1940), and cowrote the play Mule Bone (HarperCollins, 1991) with Zora Neale Hurston.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer on May 22, 1967, in New York City. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”

In her short life, the remarkable Dorothy Dandridge built a truly extraordinary career. Born on this date in 1922, Dandridge was the first African-American nominated for the Oscar (for her fierce performance in "Carmen Jones") and became a true star despite the enormous obstacles she faced as a Black actress in Hollywood.

Pearl Bailey ❤️

Wishing Dorothy Dandridge a Happy Birthday!

Enjoy your holidays at home watching your favorite series or movies on STARZ. You can catch up on BMF, Raising Kanan and Power by clicking the link to claim STARZ Special Offer.
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DID YOU KNOW?

Five Scientific reasons for decluttering your home.

1. Decluttering reduces stress.
2. Decluttering helps fight depression.
3. Decluttering makes it easier to focus.
4. Decluttering leads to eating better.
5. Decluttering improves air quality.

Dclutteringwithpurpose.com

Beautiful Sarah Vaughan

A great picture of Lee Morgan by Francis Wolff

Legendary American arranger, composer & trombonist Melba Liston

Wonderful Iconic & legendary American singer, crooner, & pianist Nat King Cole at a studio recording session. Nat King Cole who recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts, was the first Afro American man to host an American television series.

Iconic drummer Art Blakey
by Lee Tanner

Sarah Vaughan rehearsing during a recording session, who are the two gentlemen in the back ?

Miles Davis, rehearsal…

Legendary rn’b singer Etta James

John Coltrane during the recording session of the iconic album “Ballads” in 1962, at Rudy Van Gelder studio

Born in Columbus, Ohio in 1856, Granville Woods first started working as a fireman, and then became a mechanical engineer and inventor.

As an inventor, he received over 50 patents. Two of his most notable inventions were a device that he named a “telegraphony”, which allowed communication by voice over telegraph wires, and a Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph that helped trains communicate with stations and other trains about their whereabouts and problems on the track.

The first was purchased by Alexander Graham Bell, the second was challenged in court by Thomas Edison. Woods successfully defended his patent, leading Edison to offer him a prominent job within his company. Woods declined preferring to work independently.

—
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granville_Woods

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Legendary entertainer Pearl Mae Bailey was born on March 29, 1918 in Southamption County, Virginia to Rev. Joseph and Ella Mae Bailey. She grew up in Newport News, Virginia. Bailey began her acting and singing career early at the age of 15 with her debut performance at an amateur contest at Philadelphia’s Pearl Theater. Encouraged to enter the contest by her older brother, Bill Bailey, an aspiring tap dancer, Pearl Bailey won first prize in the competition.

After winning a similar contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, Bailey decided to start performing as a professional. In the 1930s she took jobs singing and dancing in Philadelphia’s black nightclubs. After the start of World War II, Bailey decided to tour the country with the USO where she performed for US troops. The USO performances spread her name and reputation across the country.

After the war ended Bailey moved to New York. She continued to perform in nightclubs but she also garnered a recording contract and now went on tour to promote her music. Her 1952 recording, “Takes Two to Tango,” was one of the top songs of the year. In 1946 Bailey made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman where she played the role of Hagar in a cast that also included Mahalia Jackson, Eartha Kitt and Nat King Cole. Although Bailey performed on stage she still performed in concert tours. On November 9, 1952, Bailey married jazz drummer Louie Bellson in London.

In 1954 Bailey made her film debut as a supporting actress in Carmen Jones. Playing the character, Frankie, she was most remembered for her rendition of “Beat Out That Rhythm on the Drum. Bailey also starred in the Broadway musical House of Flowers in 1954. By 1959 she was considered a leading African American actor and starred in films such as Porgy and Bess with Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge.