Opening Night time on the Apollo Theater, 90 Years In the past
In February, the Apollo will open new levels on the revamped Victoria Theater, the primary growth since its 1934 opening. Because the legendary Harlem venue takes on a brand new life — we glance again on the evening all of it started.
On a wintry Monday night in January 1934, big-time businessman Sidney Cohen and his good friend Morris Sussman gathered a gaggle of 9 Black journalists from New York and from out of city. Cohen and Sussman, each white, needed the writers’ enter on what the Harlem “neighborhood wanted,” as a result of 4 days later, the pair would make a historic enterprise transfer.
Though they didn’t comprehend it but, their new enterprise, which promised a “revolutionary step within the presentation of stage exhibits,” would remodel the world of leisure for many years to return. On Friday, January 26, 1934, they’d open the doorways to one of many first vaudeville halls in New York Metropolis to highlight Black performers and welcome Black audiences — the Apollo Theater. [1]
Historians have described the Apollo as a spot of mythology the place legends are cast.[4]
“It’s a theater on crucial road in [Harlem] proper in the midst of the neighborhood,” says Brian Goldstein, historian and creator of The Roots of Urban Renaissance: Gentrification and the Struggle Over Harlem. “So, there’s this very tangible approach through which enjoying [the Apollo] was sort of name-making.”
The Apollo gave us Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey. It’s the place the place a younger Black artist named Billie Vacation placed on a controversial efficiency of “Unusual Fruit” in 1959 America, the place the place the nation’s first and solely Black president broke right into a rendition of Al Inexperienced’s “Let’s Keep Collectively” in 2012.
It’s laborious to think about a time earlier than it turned the Apollo, however such a time does exist. Positive, the well-known performances of the latter half of 1934 and onwards by the likes of Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and James Brown, stamped the theater’s identify in historical past. However its extra modest, much less buzzy beginnings set the stage for what was to return.
The Harlem fixture debuted because the 125th St. Apollo in 1934. It was a “re-christened” reincarnation of the “all-white” Hurtig & Seamon’s Apollo Theater, a burlesque corridor which had been working contained in the theater constructing since 1913. [2][3] Little is understood in regards to the embryonic days of the Apollo, however what is clear is that when he purchased the 20-year-old constructing in 1933, put in Sussman as supervisor, and struck the “all-white” rule, Cohen rolled the cube.
Though New York had made segregation unlawful by the Twenties and created legal guidelines stopping discrimination by the Thirties, many theaters in Harlem nonetheless solely permitted white patrons or handled Black guests otherwise, in response to David Freeland, historian and creator of Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan’s Lost Places of Leisure.
The Nice Despair was in full swing, and a marketing campaign towards burlesque by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia had shuttered Cohen’s former companies and people of different music corridor homeowners. “Burlesque began turning into too vulgar, too dangerous,” says Billy Mitchell, the Apollo’s tour information and historian. “It was selling immoral conduct.”
Opening the Apollo amid these circumstances was a bet, however Cohen took a danger — within the identify of lucre.
Harlem wasn’t all the time a predominantly Black neighborhood. When Hurtig & Seamon’s, the Apollo’s predecessor, was constructed, the realm round 125th St. was extra Irish and German, says Freeland. When middle-class African American households started transferring to Harlem to fill in vacant housing triggered by overdevelopment, Freeland says, “the middle of African American life [expanded and moved] southward, with out diminishing the areas of the [130’s streets]” which had beforehand been “the locus of African American tradition.”
On the heels of the Harlem Renaissance, Cohen and Sussman noticed a chance to capitalize on the rising African American inhabitants and guarantee a groundbreaking premiere for the Apollo.
Not solely did the businessmen solicit recommendation from Black journalists, however in addition they publicized their determination to donate all proceeds of the opening to the Contemporary Air Fund of Harlem, a summer time program for kids from “underserved communities” – maybe in hopes of drawing a crowd. To make sure superior audio high quality, they acquired high-tech sound tools akin to that used at Radio City Music Hall and had been certain to boast about it. [5][6]
Organising for a present on the Apollo in its early years proved arduous. An undated letter despatched to the theater’s administration relating to a Josephine Baker present consists of sketches of the required stage configuration and requests “a big fast change room, constructed on stage,” “a 5-foot broad runway,” eight totally different microphones, and two coloured spotlights, one “gentle pink” and the opposite “particular lavender.”[7]
If this missive is something to go by, Cohen and Sussman’s mise en place for the January 1934 opening was sizeable, for they must put together to serve up a buffet of performances. On the menu: “Jazz a la Carte,” a smorgasbord of at the least eight totally different acts. Jazz singer Aida Ward, showman Ralph Cooper, and multihyphenate musician Benny Carter and his Orchestra had been three of the primary points of interest. Accompaniments included the Three Rhythm Kings, singer Mabel Scott, and a displaying of the 1932 crime drama Prison at Massive.
The theater’s administration was eager to cook dinner up a storm.
Administration assured an “all-colored manufacturing of the highest quality” and “probably the most lavish and colourful extravaganzas.” These guarantees had been cemented in newspaper print. “We really feel sure that the one hundred and twenty fifth Avenue Apollo Theatre might be an leisure edifice that Harlem will take pleasure in displaying off to neighborhood communities,” learn an advert within the New York Age, a then-prominent African American newspaper.[8]
At 8 o’clock on Friday, January 26, 1934, the theater rose its figurative curtain for the primary time with a brand new identify and viewers, in what turned out to be a glitzy event, in response to Amsterdam Information’ Roi Ottley. Someplace within the 1,500-seat theater, Black celebrities similar to actor Invoice “Bojangles” Robinson and pianist Lil Armstrong, in all probability of their snazziest garb, watched because the theater delivered its first-ever present — the nascence of the Apollo we all know at the moment.[9]
Opening evening wasn’t all glamorous, although. Some jokes fell flat, Mable Scott danced a bit of an excessive amount of and, in response to Ottley’s evaluation, “Benny Carter’s band wants tons extra rehearsing” as a result of they hit “many a bitter observe.”[10]
Bitter observe or not, because of the administration’s donation marketing campaign, the theater was “packed,” an out-of-town newspaper printed. The Apollo “opened with a bang,” one other reporter concluded. That Friday, Harlemites ditched the opposite “vaud” venues within the space for a day of music, dance and comedy on the Apollo, elevating $229.50 for trigger, the equal of over $5,000 at the moment. Lower than 10 years earlier than the Apollo’s opening, Black people were made to enter the 125th St. theater through a separate entrance on 126th St. Now, right here they had been, well-known Black friends and civilians alike listening to the nice and cozy tones of “sizzling jazz” by Black musicians.
Over time, as different Black vaudeville venues in Harlem hung up their hats, the Apollo remained steadfast. Take the Lafayette Theater, for instance, as soon as perched on 132nd. This venue was owned by Leo Brecher and Frank Schiffman — who are sometimes incorrectly credited with opening the Apollo, when as an alternative they took over from Cohen. Or the Harlem Opera Home on 125th, or the Lincoln Theater on 135th, or the Cotton Club on 145th. All have vanished into relative obscurity. [11]
“I believe [the Apollo] tells us quite a bit about survival — survival of music, of tradition, of structure of area — as a result of it beat the percentages,” says Freeland. “A lot historical past in Harlem has been misplaced.”
Many years since its opening, the Apollo’s Greek-inspired façade and (now-digitized) iconic marquee nonetheless distinguish it from its industrial environment in Harlem, however the theater has developed. Mitchell emphasizes that the Apollo is “not only a efficiency area anymore.” It has grown to additionally provide instructional neighborhood programming. Nonetheless, the theater’s mission has remained basically the identical.
“The Apollo Theater just isn’t solely a spot the place we come to see exhibits,” Mitchell says. “The Apollo Theater, through the years, has turn out to be the focus within the Harlem neighborhood, the place individuals come…to rejoice, and to mourn and grieve when one in every of our greats have handed on. It’s a spot the place the neighborhood involves trade concepts.”
Annually following the triumphant opening in 1934, the viewers of the Apollo grew ever extra Black. Little has been documented about how African American guests had been handled by Cohen and Sussman within the subsequent days and months — the theater’s tradition was stated to have been higher than that at different venues — however Mitchell says the Apollo was a “welcoming” surroundings.
Because the theater gained reputation and adjusted possession, it started to play a key position within the nighttime routines of New Yorkers. After attending exhibits or enjoying on the Apollo, patrons and performers typically stopped by Eddie Inexperienced’s barbecue rib joint on 126th St. earlier than hopping in a cab to move to their subsequent cease. [12]
“There’s a sort of intimacy that you just get whenever you’re within the Apollo. You possibly can perceive how such nice music was cultivated there,” says Freeland.
When Cohen and Sussman lit the Apollo stage for the primary time that Friday in 1934, they created an area the place Black performers may take a break from the “bitter actuality” of the world outdoors. “Within the theatre, actuality was stunning girls, sturdy males, and angelic kids,” wrote Ted Fox, creator of Showtime on the Apollo. As a result of for Black performers, “the Apollo was dwelling.”
The constructing referred to as The Victoria is a part of the Victoria Theater Redevelopment Undertaking, a private and non-private partnership that features the Renaissance Lodge, The Apollo’s Victoria Theater, and Apollo workplace area. The Apollo Levels at Victoria Theater embrace two new versatile theaters—one with 99 seats and one with 199 seats. There may also be retail retailers to be introduced within the constructing as properly. The Apollo areas (two theaters and workplace area) are positioned on the third and 4th flooring of The Victoria constructing.
You possibly can take a look at the entire upcoming programming on the Apollo, together with performances at The Music Café and The Apollo Stages at Victoria Theater, on the Apollo website.
Subsequent, take a look at 10 Secrets of the Apollo and 10 Iconic Jazz Clubs, Past and Present
Sources
[1] New York Age, Jan 27, 1934, “Message to Harlem Theatre-Goers.”
[2] Fox, Ted. Showtime on the Apollo. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983, pp. 7-123.
[3] New York Age, Jan 27, 1934, “New Vaudeville Home to Open on 125th Avenue.”
[4] Schiffman, Jack. Uptown. Cowles E book Firm, 1971, pp. 2-191.
[5] Chicago Defender, Feb 10, 1934, “Contemporary Air Fund Nets Massive Revenue from Theater Profit.”
[6] New York Age, Jan 27, 1934, “Message to Harlem Theatre-Goers.”
[7] Letter to Frank Schiffman, Undated, Smithsonian Institute, Frank Schiffman Apollo Assortment https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?eadrefid=NMAH.AC.0540_ref15
[8] New York Age, Jan 27, 1934, “New Vaudeville Home to Open on 125th Avenue.”
[9] Fox, Ted. Showtime on the Apollo. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983, pp. 7-123.
[10] Berger, Morroe. Benny Carter: A Life in American Music. Scarecrow Press, 1982, pp. 43-130
[11] Fox, Ted. Showtime on the Apollo. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983, pp. 7-123.
[12] Ibid.