Posted: February 17th, 2022

Apollo Theatre

Jose 1 Janelle Jose Professor Pappas AAS 254 16 April 2008 “Our Theater: The Hey Dey of the Apollo Theatre” Apollo was the Greek God of music, Poetry and the humanities. His temple was at Delphi and was recognized to be a spot of purification. There’s a temple of a special that bears the identify of the Greek god and its at 253 West 125th Avenue Harlem in New York Metropolis. The Apollo Theater would turn out to be as well-known because the temple at Delphi. The Apollo Theaters house was in Harlem. Harlem is thought worldwide as a serious African-American cultural and enterprise neighborhood.
It wasn’t all the time the Harlem we all know right this moment. Harlem didn’t turn out to be an African American neighborhood till the Nice Migration. In the course of the first decade of the 20th century, Rising unemployment and growing racial violence inspired blacks to go away the South. The way in which they got here up north was by working for northern producers who had recruited the southern black employees to fill manufacturing unit jobs. So from 1910 to 1930 between 1. 5 million and a couple of million African People left the South for the economic cities of the North.
By 1930 greater than 200,000 blacks had moved to New York. As black communities in Northern cities grew, black working individuals grew to become the patrons for an increasing black skilled and enterprise class, gaining in political and financial energy. As increasingly more educated and socially acutely aware blacks settled in New York’s neighborhood of Harlem, it developed into the political and cultural heart of black America. In the course of the 1910s a Jose 2 new political agenda advocating racial equality arose within the African American neighborhood, notably in its rising center class.

A black center class had developed by the flip of the century, fostered by elevated schooling and employment alternatives. There was one thing rising within the midst of social and mental up rise within the African American neighborhood within the early 20th century. Harlem Renaissance was the identify of the African American cultural motion of the 1920s and early 1930s that was centered within the Harlem. The Apollo Theater has been essentially the most lasting legacy of the Harlem Renaissance. The Apollo grew to prominence throughout the Harlem Renaissance of the pre-World Warfare II years.
By the point the Apollo had open its doorways the Harlem Renaissance was coming to an in depth. The Apollo Theater that we all know right this moment didn’t begin out that approach. It started as a all white music corridor and burlesque theatre. It gained fame a Hurtig and Seamon’s Burlesque within the twenties and early thirties. The 125th road Apollo Theater didn’t open till January 1934. That is after they began showcasing black leisure. The Apollo theatre was initially owned by Sidney Cohen. After Sydney S. Cohen’s dying, Morris Sussman and Frank Schiffman bought collectively.
Schiffman ran the Harlem Opera Home and a merger between the 2 theaters was shaped. Schiffman is credited with guiding the Apollo Theater to greatness. Schiffman’s motivation for that includes black expertise and leisure was not solely as a result of the neighborhood had turn out to be black over a 200 12 months interval of gradual migration, however as a result of black entertainers had been cheaper to rent, and Schiffman may provide high quality exhibits for cheap charges. For a few years Apollo was the one theater in New York Metropolis to rent black expertise. Jose three
With black performers as the primary leisure within the Apollo got here an necessary side of American life that has been dominated by blacks. That’s jazz. In jazz the black man stands supreme. The merchandise of his artistic energies are wanted by musicians and listeners of each background. Jazz didn’t begin within the Apollo theatre. It didn’t begin in Harlem both. The roots of jazz lie deep within the historical past of New Orleans, Kansas Metropolis, Chicago, and New York. The true ancestral roots are buried even deep within the music traditions of West Africa and Latin nations.
However the Apollo was one of many locations that supplied a house and a receptive ambiance by which jazz practitioners felt relaxed, the place their artwork may thrive and flourish. Though jazz was a real American style of music it was previously held in comparatively low class by sure mental. Many imagine the rationale for the low appraisal of jazz’ worth was made as a result of a lot of the jazz practitioners had been black and the critics had been white. Though the Apollo Theater was basically a black theater, the primary curiosity was all the time in high quality reasonably than shade.
Despite the fact that jazz was predominantly the creation of black musicians, the quantity of interracial jazz was comparatively small thought the historical past of early jazz. It wasn’t due to discrimination from the performers however reasonably the performers had been maintaining with the local weather of the occasions. Many white musicians had been accepted with respect and affection by Apollo viewers. The primary present was referred to as “Jazz a la Carte”. All of the proceeds of this present had been donated to the Harlem Youngsters’s Contemporary Air Fund. Since then the Apollo Theater is thought for beginning careers of many music pioneers. In 1934, it launched its common Newbie Evening exhibits.
Billing itself as a spot “the place stars are born and legends are made,” the Apollo grew to become well-known for launching the careers of artists akin to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Vacation, James Brown, Diana Ross ; The Supremes, Gladys Knight ; The Pips, The Jackson 5, Patti LaBelle, Marvin Gaye, Luther Jose four Vandross, Stevie Surprise, Aretha Franklin, Ben E. King, Mariah Carey, The Isley Brothers, Lauryn Hill, and Sarah Vaughan. The Apollo additionally featured the performances of old-time vaudeville favorites like Tim Moore, Stepin Fetchit, Godfrey Cambridge, Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham, Mothers Mabley, Marshall “Rubbish” Rogers, and Johnny Lee.
The Apollo didn’t solely make careers however in addition they had massive identify artist. By the mid-thirties, the period of the massive band was in full swing. Of all of the personalities we ever performed on the Apollo, none had been as vibrant as Fat Waller. There was by no means any Question Assignment about Fat taking part in the Apollo. It was a semi-annual engagement, which he by no means missed. The Luis Russell Band was a band that was put collectively to showcase the expertise of Louis Armstrong. They performed a 1937 engagement on the Apollo with out Louis, who had left the band by then.
They band did embody clarinetist Barney Bigard, who later starred with Ellington; Large Sid Catlett, who additionally performed with Hines, on drums; and trumpeter Henry “Pink’ Allen. Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong are most likely two of essentially the most influential males within the historical past of jazz. Louis Armstrong performed with all of them as a result of all of them wished to play with the grasp. In 1949, Louis’ band in an Apollo present included such legendary figures as trombonist and vocalist Jack Teagarden, drummer Cozy Cole, clarinetist Barney Bigard, pianist Earl Hines, and bHelp Arvel Shaw.
A jazz lover may solely be at awe at this line up. Louis influences everybody, even the singers. Billie Vacation as soon as spoke about how she wished to sing precisely as Louis performed his horn. The fun-loving genius had vocal trick of ending his songs with “Oh Yeah”. In 1939 Duke Ellington performed the Apollo. He had performed there and on the Harlem Opera Home and the Lafayette and, after all, was legendary determine on the outdated Cotton Membership. He performed the Apollo once more, once more, and once more. He was one of many Jose 5 giants and one of many transcending figures in jazz historical past.
You may’t discuss Duke Ellington musical genius with out speaking concerning the unimaginable variety of compositions that he penned. Most likely in the entire historical past of music nobody has composed extra songs the Ellington. There’s stated to be over two thousand songs. Ladies had been additionally very talked-about within the Apollo Theater. A lot of the ladies had been singers, the key exceptions being pianists Mary Lou Williams and Hazel Scott. They had been the Worldwide Sweethearts of Rhythm. One other gifted jazzwoman was Blanche Calloway, sister of Cab Calloway.
Though she often copied Cab’s fashion as a frontrunner, she was a critical musician. Later Blanche ran a membership in Washington and introduced us Ruth Brown, who grew to become a serious Apollo attraction. Along with introducing an enormous variety of rising stars, the Apollo shortly grew to become an important cease for any black entertainer, and just about each main African American musical act carried out there no less than as soon as as did a number of white acts, who typically had been booked as a result of they had been assumed to be black. The administration maintained a coverage of alternating dwell stage exhibits with B motion pictures.
The Apollo was the head of the “basic circuit” of venues together with the Regal Theater in Chicago and the Howard Theater in Washington, D. C. that catered to African American audiences. As a present of respect for its legacy, the constructing was left untouched throughout the riots of the 1960s. In 1977 the exhibits had been discontinued, and the theatre was operated as a film theatre. A 12 months later the constructing was closed. Bought by traders in 1981, the Apollo acquired landmark standing in 1983, was renovated, and was reopened to the general public in 1985. | | | | | | | |

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