1941 New Orleans skyline
1941
Whether the lack of reports in the Louisiana Weekly on the club and band scene was for slack business in the clubs, too muchg competition from traveling acts and a resultant lack of work for local bands, or tight money–or no one to report on the scene, or to sell ads or buy them–it’s impossible to tell. Cobojo’s column transitions to mostly society gossip, and by the end of the year, the Weekly’s entertainment coverage is less than half a page.
Two factors in the scene. First, the quick rise of juke boxes, and second, the local musicians union’s complaint against the newly opened Rhythm Club and its owner, Tudy Mancuso. Alvin Alcorn, president of Musicians Protective Union local 496, complained that Mancuso and his club were employing too many “name” bands, depriving local union musicians of work, and that during the summer dance season of 1941 between 18 and 25 name bands had been brought in to New Orleans.
Local bands active in New Orleans, 1941
Sidney Desvigne’s orchestra / Sidney’s Moonlight Serenaders Swing Orchestra
George Williams orchestra
Papa Celestin, “the old master”
Paul Barbarin & his Jump Rhythm Boys
Henry Horton’s orchestra
Sidney Cates’ Moonlight Serenaders
Earl Barnes orchestra
Don Raymond orchestra
A.J. Piron orchestra; Piron with Prof Victor & His Music Masters
Leary & his Society Syncopators
Fats Pichon, with “King Kicks, Satan’s imp”
Royal Playboys
Name acts, 1941
Jazz Lips Richardson
Cab Callaway
Fats Waller
Ella Fitzgerald
Lionel Hampton
Earl Hines
Flournoy Miller & the Tan Town Topics
Erskine Hawkins
Lil Green
Louis Armstrong (at Rhythm Club Sept. 14)
Claude Hopkins
Irvin C. Miller’s Brown Skin Models
May 17, 1941 Louisiana Weekly
Clubs & venues open to Black patrons, 1941
“Swank Chicken Coop to Open on January 6th,” Paul Gross, Propreietor
Gypsy Tea Room [Jan 27, Buddy Tureaud mgr of club].
In July, a renovated GTR opened: “Now the South’s longest nightclub,” it runs one whole city block, with 1,700 capacity & table reservations for 600.
St. Katherine CYO Hall
Astoria Restaurant & Tick Tock Tavern;
Palace Theatre
August 30, 1941: Palace Theater Musicians go on strike; had been playing for $7.50 / wk, want .50 raise which has bee denied, resulting in non union musicians working there now.
Pelican Restaurant & Bar
Lincoln Theatre
San Jacinto Dance Hall, with new management & newly renovated;
Rhythm Club
Alvin Alcorn & Local 496 file complaint against Mancuso & Rhythm Club for employing non-union musicians.
Tick Tock Tavern
October 16, 1941: Re-opened under (un-named) management.
New Joy Tavern
News from the Louisiana Weekly
Jan 18, 1941
1: Magnolia housing unit opens; families move in
Feb. 1, 1941
1: Booker T. Washington High School to open in September.
April 23, 1941
1: Calliope housing project opened.
May 24, 1941
4: Swimming is okayed at Lincoln Beach at Little Wood & the Citrus Canal; they’ll both be cleaned up and police will try to keep people from throwing dead animals & refuse in the water and to remove open toilets and pig sties along the canal. Over 1,000+ attended opening last Sunday. Eddie Burbridge is the new manager.
June 21, 1941
1: “Juke Box Racket Expose Shows Negroes as Heaviest Supporters.”
170,000 Negroes in New Orleans and many support the juke box racket, which is dominated by white operators. Currently 7,000 juke boxes in NO, most owned & oerated by Samuel Hoskins.
4: Health department closes Lincoln Beach, noting that the operators failed to obey heath department regulations & the water was contaminated.
June 28, 1941
1: Lincoln Beach re-opened.
July 5, 1941
5: 500 Negro soldiers at Jackson barracks
6: Booker T .Washington High School under construction
July 26, 1941
1: 22 Negro homicides this year; latest was found dead in his cell in Algiers, with no explanation.
August 16, 1941
4: Lafite Housing Project, largest in the South, is now nearly filled, at rent starting for $8.25 / month.
October 25, 1941
1: MPs & police are boycotting & picketing at the Snack, a Black-owned sweetshop & beer tavern near Jackson Barracks, at St. Claude & Delery St., and “out of bounds” for Black-operated businesses.
4: Lease-signing begins for St. Bernard housing projects.
November 8, 1941
1: The Shack mysteriously burned to ground; owner says he’s been targeted since July.
4: Stop Hitler Rally at Shakespeare Park.
• • •
A partial list of Social & Pleasure Clubs in New Orleans, 1941, compiled from activities listed–club meeting and dances, especially–by these clubs and organizations in the Louisiana Weekly.
Ad Libitum Bridge
Autocrat Club
Beau Brummels
Black Pirates Club
Breakfast Club
Bunch Club
Busy Bee Club
Capetowners’ Club
DBT Bridge Club
Dorcas Sewing Club Helping Hand Pleasure Club
the Dukes
Fiddlestick Club
Euphrosyne Club
Gardenia Stitch & chat Club
Golden Leaf Art Club
GPC Pleasure & Social Club
Helping Hand Pleasure Club
Holsum Girls
Imperial Bridge Club
Jolly Boys & Girls Carnival Club
KRTs
Klassy Kut-ups
Ladies Royal Twenty-five
La Vida Bridge Club
Le Circle de Service
Les Chers Amis Modern Matrons
Los Buenos Apogeo S&P Club
LTS Club
Marionettes Club
Mikado Club
Moonlight Sewing Circle
Neighbors’ Whist Club
Original TNTs
New Orleans Poor Club
Phyllis Wheatley Club
Pullman Porters
Plantation Revelers
Rhinestone Club
Rose of Sharon Cub
Royal 25
Seventeen Club
Sigma Gamma Rho
Sparkettes Social & Pleasure Club
Starlight Revelers
Stardust Revelers
Star spangled 8
TCGs
Unity Club
Vogue Sewing & Embroidery Club
Young men 22s
–2 December 2023
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