Minton's Playhouse

Minton 's Playhouse is a jazz club (with bar ) on the first floor of the Hotel Cecil in the 210 West 118th Street in Harlem, New York. The club was opened in 1938 by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton and is especially known for its jam sessions in the early 1940s, who played an important role in the development of bebop and where musicians such as Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian and Dizzy Gillespie took part.

Minton had occurred the Rhythm Club in Harlem, where musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Earl Hines at the beginning of the 1930s, and was an important person in the musicians' union, which the organization of jam sessions allowed only. In 1940 he turned bandleader Teddy Hill as manager that his connections to the Savoy Ballroom ( there played Hills big band) and Apollo Theater earned and a house band with Monk on piano, Clarke on drums, trumpeter Joe Guy and bassist Nick Fenton ( and later compiled with the tenor saxophonist Kermit Scott). Frequent guests were Dizzy Gillespie and Jimmy Blanton out of the band by Duke Ellington. Charlie Christian, guitarist Benny Goodman's band, played in 1941, although only a short time there, but exercised great influence. Hill wanted to gloss help with the sessions as well as Minton musicians over periods of time without commitment. Very popular were the "Monday Celebrity Nights", which, at the end of the week-long commitment already gave the owners of Apollo, the ship Mans in Apollo, with free food and drink. Here found " Battles " between the star soloist of the swing music and emerging young musicians of the bebop place, such as famous trumpet duels between Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie, or between the saxophonist Don Byas (also with Swing background, he was then at Count Basie, played in Minton's but Bebop ) and stars such as Ben Webster, Lester Young, Chu Berry and Coleman Hawkins.

Starting in 1942, Charlie Parker took the jam sessions in part ( in his time in the band of Jay McShann 1941, he was jamming in Clark Monroe 's Uptown House in Harlem ), who played with Gillespie in the band of Earl Hines. Clarke and Monk Hill tried to persuade to get involved also Parker firm, and paid him after this proved unsuccessful, fees out of pocket. The game of Gillespie and Parker in Minton's exerted a pull on jazz musicians such as Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Fats Navarro, Bud Powell, who hoped to be invited by Gillespie and Parker to play along. As Charles Mingus reported Gillespie used but new musicians who wanted to play to test thoroughly by audition in the back room.

Due to a strike ( recording ban ) from 1942 to 1944 occurred the recordings of the sessions at Minton 's Playhouse, which were later published as recordings, taking the place of studio recordings from this period and form key documents in the history of jazz. After her time at Minton's, the increasingly popular Bebopper attracted the mid-1940s "downtown" in the clubs of the 52nd Street ( as Jimmy Ryan's, Famous Door, Three Deuces, Spotlite Club, Onyx Club, Hickory House, 1949 Birdland ).

In the 1950s, the club lost its leadership role and became an ordinary jazz club. In the late 1960s, the decline of the club, who graduated in 1974 finally began. On 19 May 2006 he was re-opened under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton 's Playhouse.

The building 210 West 118th Street was listed on the National Register of Historic Places of the United States in 1985 and is thus officially recognized as a historic site.