Club Harlem was once one of Atlantic City's main attractions bringing in superstar musicians from the jazz world and beyond
KY at the Curb
Once upon a time, Club Harlem was the place to be in AC
By James Waltzer -->
THE ADDRESS WAS 32 North Kentucky Avenue, and it was a place where the music -- and the night -- never died. If the entire block, including the likes of Grace's Little Belmont and the Wonder Garden bar, was a jazz mecca, Club Harlem was the primary shrine.
Shifting silhouettes painted on wall mirrors mimicked flesh-and-blood dancers onstage, as musicians roared through their sets at all hours. Sunday mornings brought 5am "breakfast" shows, with breakfast consisting of pretzels and a chaser. The top black entertainers in the country took the stage at Club Harlem and performed for an audience that was mostly white. Soulful Billie Holiday sang here, flamboyant bandleader Cab Calloway conducted, and Sammy Davis Jr. danced up a storm. The Sepia Revue and Beige Beauts dazzled with their costumes and movement, Chris Columbo beat the drums, "Hot Lips" Paige blew his trumpet. "Moms" Mabley, George Kirby, and other comics -- including one of the rare white performers booked here, Lenny Bruce -- grabbed laughs, but Club Harlem was known for its music. Headliners appearing elsewhere in town often showed up after finishing their acts to take in the wee small hours.
Club founder Leroy "Pop" Williams said that he chose the name Harlem because "a lot of black people live there." But on Kentucky Avenue, excitement was color-blind. At Club Harlem, the streetfront exterior only hinted at the magic within. Columbo, who piloted the house band for 34 straight seasons, often warmed up with guitarist "Wonderful" Floyd Smith and jazz organist "Wild Bill" Davis in one of two lounges before the main show. Crowds jamming the big room were known to exceed the capacity of 900. Of Davis, Columbo said, "He brought the Hammond organ from the funeral homes and gave it to jazz."
Williams had converted the dance hall Fitzgerald's Auditorium into Club Harlem in 1935, and in the early days, the new venue offered more than just music. By day, it took bets on the ponies, and funneled gamblers into the backroom of an adjacent building for a go at blackjack and craps.
In 1951, Williams and his brother, Clifton, recruited additional partners, and the marquee eventually bore the name "Clifton's" in large electric lettering, topped by a note-shaped electrified sign that said "Club Harlem." One of the new business partners was Ben Alten, who had left the Paradise Club on Illinois Avenue. Years later, Alten was quoted in the Atlantic City Press as saying," Pop [Williams] wanted a white man as a partner because he wanted to expand the place, and in those days, the banks weren't lending money to black men."
Pop and Clifton got their green, and turned the walls to red-and-gold velvet. Debonair promoter Larry Steele packaged his annual Smart Affairs tour for Miami Beach and Las Vegas as well as Club Harlem. The dancers stayed sleek, the singers dusky, the comics razor-sharp. Then the inevitable decline.
In the early morning of Easter Monday, 1972, a shootout inside Club Harlem triggered a melee and resulted in five deaths. Philadelphia gangs battling over drugs were fingered as the culprits. In truth, this musical mother lode was already on the skids. Soon, the arrival of casino hotels on the Boardwalk sealed the demise of the streetfront clubs.
Club Harlem switched off its red-hot marquee in 1986. Six years later, a December nor'easter shook the structure and crumpled the famous sign. Two weeks after that, bulldozers leveled the storied building.
A few loyalists rescued some of Club Harlem's inimitable texture: chairs, booths, padded interior doors, onstage props, vintage photographs. These appointments were sequestered in storage rooms, awaiting the call back to center stage, perhaps in a new or existing museum.
Meanwhile, the old voices and images hover in the air, unwilling to relinquish that special space on Kentucky. The dancing dynamo whirling about the stage-in-the-sky is Peg Leg Bates. And those one-liners are being slung by comedian Slappy White. The beautiful songstresses with their sultry voices are Nancy Wilson and Damita Jo, and vocal stylists Billy Daniels, Joe Williams and Brook Benton weave their spell as well. Dinah Washington and her musical heir, Aretha Franklin, are belting to the heavens.
They all played Club Harlem, as did many more. Where the bricks and mortar came alive, and the adrenaline never quit.
Jim Waltzer's Tales of South Jersey, co-authored by Tom Wilk, is published by Rutgers University Press.
“As a matter of fact, before I moved to New York, I saw Coltrane at his mother’s house one day and was talking to him about how I was thinking about going to New York and he wished me luck.”
Bell on opening up for Van Halen, new music and video projects, his mid-'60s band the Jazziacs, which played Atlantic City's jazz clubs at the time, and his legendary Godfather.
On Tuesday, Feb. 22, groundbreaking will commence on the newest Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian’s 19th museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, will occupy a five-acre site on Constitution Avenue between 14th and 15th streets N.W., between the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
In a cozy purple sweater and gray sweatpants, the orange Mohawk was expertly coiffed as usual. I remembered attending her 75th birthday party a few years ago and knew then I wanted to hear her story from her own mouth, but she is one hard lady to catch up with.
For one day — Sunday, Sept. 18 — the Asbury United Methodist Church in Atlantic City, home of the South Jersey Jazz Vespers, will be transformed into the bygone Club Harlem as a tribute to a name nearly as legendary as the club itself. Chris Columbo (1902-2002) was a jazz drummer who led the Club Harlem orchestra for 34 years, right up until the club closed its Kentucky Avenue doors forever in 1978
Atlantic City, like many other U.S. cities, once had segregated beaches, but they didn't start out that way. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Blacks and whites lived side-by-side, worked side-by-side and played side-by-side.
"I hope my daughter will be introduced to a different type of music. She usually plays rock and R&B. I've always tried to keep my daughters busy with something constructive during the summer, no sitting around on your butt watching TV for months."
My fondest Kentucky Avenue memory is gaping in awe at the mere size of Muhammad Ali as he lifted me into the air with one huge hand.
Nina Simone had never been in a bar, nor had she ever sang before, but both were required for her summer gig at the Midtown Bar, located at 1719 Pacific Avenue, between Indiana and MLK Blvd., and just “two blocks back from the seafront" Atlantic City Boardwalk.
It’s been very weird. When I decided to self-publish my book in Dec. 2009, I did it because an agent in New York told me — and this is pre-Obama — that nobody’s interested in black history now. I said, ‘What?’ And she said, ‘Nobody is interested. That’s just the truth.’ Then, I think it was in April, HBO calls me.
As the late Atlantic City historian and former Club Harlem house band drummer Sid Trusty once said, "Every night was our party. And we invited the world." The party may be starting up again soon.
Summertime, and the groovin’ is easy. Tourists fatten the regular jazz crowd cramming Kentucky Avenue, where the night never dies. Inside Club Harlem, they press against the bar and each other, as the organist and his quartet tune up on the bandstand. The music comes fast and the band is tight and the organ looses a torrent of sound. And there’s an added bonus for posterity: the live session is being recorded for an album, a rare occurrence in Atlantic City. This was the scene on the Saturday night of Aug. 9, 1969, when master jazz organist Lonnie Smith and company cut Move Your Hand, an exemplar of ’60s soul jazz, for the legendary Blue Note label. The title song, which became a hit, borrowed its lyric from a joke that Smith’s drummer told about a substitute preacher who couldn’t deliver the sermon because someone else’s hand was covering the text. (The joke is less than hysterical, but the number’s a grabber.) “One night, I was playing a little lick and just happened to say [“move your hand”] to the fellows in the band,” says Smith, now 67 and as busy as ever. “People loved it and always requested it.” It became...
Back in the 1920s, A.C. was a hub for all sorts of different nightlife and entertainment, and not just the kind that would be frowned upon by puritan society. There were theaters, amusement parks, music and dance clubs, and some of the biggest names in entertainment appeared regularly or got their career starts on A.C.’s bustling streets.
A banner with the name Slappy White on it hung across Kentucky Avenue all summer. The late comedian and actor (who died in Brigantine in 1995) was booked for the entire season at Atlantic City’s famed Club Harlem. On this particular summer night, however — July 24, 1964, to be precise — hanging above the banner was yet another banner. It read: “Sam Cooke.”
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1. Dawn Kindt said... on Mar 22, 2011 at 09:51AM
“I worked as a waitress in Wildwood back in the 60's and we always went to
Atlantic City after work on early Sunday morning to the show at The Harlem
Those days were so exciting. Working in the clubs in wildwood I had the pleasure of meeting many of the wonderful entertainers back then. Sam Cooke had to be the nicest man I have ever miss. I miss those days so much. They were great and everybody got along. The music was the best. I went on to work in Phila at "Just Jazz". and there again we had the best entertainers. Oh, to be able to relive those days. They are memories I will always cherish.
”
2. Anonymous said... on Apr 3, 2011 at 09:17AM
“Saw a show at Club Harlem back in the early 60's by Slappy White. Was to date the funniest ever. Too bad they didn't record these shows. I would pay anything for the recordings.”
3. Rockzilla said... on Jun 2, 2011 at 06:05AM
“My late dad, Chris Woods, played alto sax in the house band for the "Larry Steele Smart Affairs" review. We where living in Brooklyn, NY at the time. Every year for 3 years he'd head off to Atlantic City at Memorial Day and remain there until Labor Day. He played a grueling schedule with very few days off. My mom and I would go down to visit him once a month. I'd go to the matinee (PG) show on Sunday. I saw the greats. It was wonderful.”
4. MALIK'S NEPHEW said... on Nov 29, 2011 at 02:32AM
“My uncle, Gilbert "Malik" Satterwhite, was one of the victims of the shooting that occured on April 2, 1972. He had turned 25 just two weeks earlier. Billy Paul was the artist tthat evening. As much as I look forward to this exhibit, for our family, the recollection of this historic venue is bitter sweet.”