A soul music icon, Ray Charles was equally conversant in jazz, as he often showcased in the early part of his career. Charles brought his stellar band back to Newport in 1960 for George Wein’s annual clambake and turned in another electrifying performance that easily straddled the jazz and R&B worlds. Continue reading
By Walter Rutledge
The 28th Annual Staten Island Jazz Festival presented by the Universal Temple of the Arts (UTA) is becoming one of the city’s “don’t miss” events. The festival took place on Saturday, October 17th in the Music Hall at Snug Harbor. Over the years the festival has built a loyal Staten Island base, but this year it attracted an enthusiastic diverse Tri-State audience of both jazz aficionados and newcomers. Continue reading
Miles Davis Quintet performed on Sunday, October 11, 1964 Teatro dell’Arte Milan, Italy. The quartet consisted of four musicians plus Davis: Trumpet: Miles Davis, Saxophone: Wayne Shorter, Piano: Herbie Hancock, Bass: Ron Carter, and Drums: Tony Williams.
Cheek to Cheek, a collaborative album Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, consists of jazz standards by popular jazz composers, such as George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin. The album, inspired by Bennett and Gaga’s wish to introduce the songs to a younger generation, they believe the tracks have universal appeal. Continue reading
Billie Holiday, jazz singer and songwriter, had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Lester Young Holiday’s friend and musical partner nicknamed her Lady Day. Continue reading
Sarah Vaughan, The Divine One, described by music critic Scott Yanow as having “one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century.” Vaughan was a Grammy Award winner. The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her it’s the highest honor in jazz the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989. Continue reading
Out and About NYC Magazine is proud to present three dance and music clips from the legendary Cotton Club. Opened in 1923, the Cotton Club on 142nd St & Lenox Ave in the heart of Harlem, New York. The Cotton Club was operated by white New York gangster Owney Madden who used the club as an outlet to sell his alcohol to the prohibition crowd.
The Cotton Club at first excluded all but white patrons although the entertainers and most of staff were African-American. Dancers at the Cotton Club were held to strict standards; they had to be at least 5’6” tall, light-skinned with only a slight tan, and under twenty-one years of age.
Shows at the Cotton Club were musical reviews that featured dancers, singers, comedians, and variety acts, as well as a house band. Duke Ellington led that band from 1927 to 1930, and sporadically throughout the next eight years. The Cotton Club and Ellington’s Orchestra gained national notoriety through weekly broadcasts on radio station WHN some of which were recorded and released on albums. In this clip Duke Ellington and his orchestra perform Rockin in Rhythm & Bugle Call Rag with dancers Bessie Dudley and Florence Hill from 1933.
Cotton Club Dancers Bessie Dudley and Florence Hill
The entertainers who played at the Cotton Club were some of the most widely known blues and jazz performers of their time including Cab Calloway. This is one of Cab’s broadcasts from The Cotton Club in the 30’s after Duke Ellington took to touring on the road. They later became co- house bands at the club.
Cab ( Cotton Club) Calloway 1934 Zaz Zuh Zaz
Elegant black show girls ditch Opera for Jazz as they get seduced by a hot jazz tune in Red Hot. You’ve never seen this kind of action from the 1930s main stream Hollywood before, it was cut by the Hays Code. Red Hot stars Dorothy Salter and Maurice Rocco.
Red Hot 1930s Cotton Club Show
The Silver Belles of Harlem are dancers who performed at the Cotton Club during its heyday era. Group members include Marion Coles, Elaine Ellis, Cleo Ellis, Fay Ray, and Bertye Lou Wood were featured in the 2006 documentary directed by Heather Lyn MacDonald, entitled Been Rich All My Life.
Been Rich All My Life
Samuel George “Sammy” Davis, Jr. was born on December 8, 1925. He was an African- American entertainer who broke many barriers and paved the way for entertainers in all disciplines. Davis was primarily a dancer and singer, but he also received acclaim as an actor of stage and screen, musician, and impressionist. Davis died at age 64 in 1990, after spending 61 years in the profession he loved. Continue reading
By Walter Rutledge
The weather maybe unseasonably cool, but the New York City art scene is definitely heating up. Fine arts prevails in Harlem and Soho, dance is turning heads from Long Island to Lincoln Center, film honors the Godfather of Soul and a gadfly for social justice and we have high flying theatre near Union Square. Here are a few of the many events happening this week in the city that never sleeps guaranteed to get you Out and About. Continue reading
NYBG becomes the canvas for the colorful brush strokes of one of the world’s most revered artists during Van Gogh’s Flowers, where you’ll revel in the beauty of the flowers that inspired his iconic paintings—by day, and by night.
2900 Southern Blvd Bronx, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
A wonderland of moonlit magic awaits as Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail returns to the New York Botanical Garden! Join Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero for a frightfully fun frolic through the world of the beloved film, now featuring even more of your favorite characters, scenes, and songs. Marvel as the classic film comes to life against the botanical beauty of New York’s most treasured garden.
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, N.Y.
NYBG becomes the canvas for the colorful brush strokes of one of the world’s most revered artists during Van Gogh’s Flowers, where you’ll revel in the beauty of the flowers that inspired his iconic paintings—by day, and by night.
2900 Southern Blvd Bronx, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of ArtA wonderland of moonlit magic awaits as Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail returns to the New York Botanical Garden! Join Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero for a frightfully fun frolic through the world of the beloved film, now featuring even more of your favorite characters, scenes, and songs. Marvel as the classic film comes to life against the botanical beauty of New York’s most treasured garden.
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, N.Y.NYBG becomes the canvas for the colorful brush strokes of one of the world’s most revered artists during Van Gogh’s Flowers, where you’ll revel in the beauty of the flowers that inspired his iconic paintings—by day, and by night.
2900 Southern Blvd Bronx, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of ArtA wonderland of moonlit magic awaits as Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail returns to the New York Botanical Garden! Join Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero for a frightfully fun frolic through the world of the beloved film, now featuring even more of your favorite characters, scenes, and songs. Marvel as the classic film comes to life against the botanical beauty of New York’s most treasured garden.
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, N.Y.NYBG becomes the canvas for the colorful brush strokes of one of the world’s most revered artists during Van Gogh’s Flowers, where you’ll revel in the beauty of the flowers that inspired his iconic paintings—by day, and by night.
2900 Southern Blvd Bronx, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of ArtA wonderland of moonlit magic awaits as Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail returns to the New York Botanical Garden! Join Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero for a frightfully fun frolic through the world of the beloved film, now featuring even more of your favorite characters, scenes, and songs. Marvel as the classic film comes to life against the botanical beauty of New York’s most treasured garden.
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, N.Y.NYBG becomes the canvas for the colorful brush strokes of one of the world’s most revered artists during Van Gogh’s Flowers, where you’ll revel in the beauty of the flowers that inspired his iconic paintings—by day, and by night.
2900 Southern Blvd Bronx, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of ArtA wonderland of moonlit magic awaits as Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail returns to the New York Botanical Garden! Join Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero for a frightfully fun frolic through the world of the beloved film, now featuring even more of your favorite characters, scenes, and songs. Marvel as the classic film comes to life against the botanical beauty of New York’s most treasured garden.
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, N.Y.NYBG becomes the canvas for the colorful brush strokes of one of the world’s most revered artists during Van Gogh’s Flowers, where you’ll revel in the beauty of the flowers that inspired his iconic paintings—by day, and by night.
2900 Southern Blvd Bronx, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
A dance and fitness class for seniors taught by Walter Rutledge
Nereid Older Adult Center 720 Nereid Ave, Bronx, NY 10466
A wonderland of moonlit magic awaits as Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail returns to the New York Botanical Garden! Join Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero for a frightfully fun frolic through the world of the beloved film, now featuring even more of your favorite characters, scenes, and songs. Marvel as the classic film comes to life against the botanical beauty of New York’s most treasured garden.
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, N.Y.NYBG becomes the canvas for the colorful brush strokes of one of the world’s most revered artists during Van Gogh’s Flowers, where you’ll revel in the beauty of the flowers that inspired his iconic paintings—by day, and by night.
2900 Southern Blvd Bronx, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of ArtA wonderland of moonlit magic awaits as Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail returns to the New York Botanical Garden! Join Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero for a frightfully fun frolic through the world of the beloved film, now featuring even more of your favorite characters, scenes, and songs. Marvel as the classic film comes to life against the botanical beauty of New York’s most treasured garden.
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, N.Y.NYBG becomes the canvas for the colorful brush strokes of one of the world’s most revered artists during Van Gogh’s Flowers, where you’ll revel in the beauty of the flowers that inspired his iconic paintings—by day, and by night.
2900 Southern Blvd Bronx, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of ArtA wonderland of moonlit magic awaits as Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Trail returns to the New York Botanical Garden! Join Jack Skellington, Sally, and Zero for a frightfully fun frolic through the world of the beloved film, now featuring even more of your favorite characters, scenes, and songs. Marvel as the classic film comes to life against the botanical beauty of New York’s most treasured garden.
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, N.Y.