The World Famous Cotton Club

The history began in 1923, when bootlegger and boxing promoter Owen "Owney" Madden took over the Club Deluxe at 646 Lenox Avenue in Harlem and renamed it the Cotton Club. Madden enforced a strict color line at his club. While the Cotton Club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters, it generally denied admission to blacks. In 1936, the managers decided that Harlem had become unfashionable, and moved the club downtown, to Broadway at 48th Street. In 1939, Charlie Conolly, head barman at New York's Players Club, was hired to standardize drink formulas and create new cocktails for the club. His recipes were privately published in 1939, one year before the demise of the club. This edition has been reproduced from a rare copy of the original "Cotton Club: 1939 Book of Mixed Drinks." It reflects the style, flavor and, unfortunately, the mild imperfections of the printing processes of that era.