Isabel de la Granja
Jazz club from the late 30's
My great NYC nightclub discovery is the Lenox Lounge. It's a jazz club from the late 30's decorated in the Art Deco style and located in the heart of Harlem between 124th and 125th at 288 Lenox Avenue. This is also called Malcolm X Boulevard after a black civil rights activist who worked as a waiter there and used the place to hold meetings. In fact, the Lenox Lounge is in the film Malcolm X starring Denzel Washington. We were invited by the artistic director and jazz pianist Danny Mixon to go on a Friday night. We took a taxi from our hotel in Midtown and when I told the taxi driver who was a young black man the name and address of the bar, he looked very confused.
He asked my English husband and I if we were sure and when we stopped at the door, he told us to be careful. We went straight to the concert hall which is called the Zebra Room after its black and white striped walls and upholstery. The space has the power to transport you to New York in the fifties while hearing the voice of Billie Holiday, the trumpet of Miles Davis and the saxophone of John Coltrane. We loved the performance of the Danny Mixon Quartet but it lacked the saxophone. I do not consider myself a lover of jazz but I was so happy here that I remember this time as one of the most emotional in all my travels.
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