@SNational Jazz Museum in Harlem : Willie “The Lion” Smith once said: “I’d rather be a fly on a lamppost in Harlem than a millionaire anywhere else.”

@PoemHunter.com : In a Harlem cabaret. Six long-headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold. Lifts high a dress of silken gold. (James Langston Hughes)

@My Hero : : With the advent of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, strong black voices, writing with African-American rhythms and cadences, broke out all over the country. Of this remarkable creative outpouring, one voice rose among all of the rest. This was the voice of poet Langston Hughes.

@University of Virginia Library : The night-clubs also constitute the stage for a number of crack Negro bands. Duke Ellington’s is one of the most famous jazz bands in the country. Fletcher Henderson is another, which, however, generally plays in a downtown club. There are hundreds of musicians and hundreds of performers connected with the night-clubs of Harlem. (James Weldon Johnson)

@UBarry Popik : The Big Apple night club, at Seventh Avenue and West 135th Street, was started by sportsmen in 1935. The owners were almostt certainly familiar with “the Big Apple” in the Morning Telegraph. In fact, it was a “Harlemania” entertainment column in the Morning Telegraph that helped to popularize Harlem.

@Earle Hagen : Originally written as a tribute to saxophonist Johnny Earle Hodges, Hagen confirms that “Harlem Nocturne” was inspired by Duke Ellington’s band. (Many years later) Earle Hagen used it as the signature theme for the television series “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer” in 1984, and the 1986 film “The Return of Mike Hammer.”

@Starpulse : : Following an album with Bobby Darin and collaborations with Henry Mancini in the early ’60s, Mercer’s career slowed down under the onslaught of rock & roll.

@Monkey-Boy.com : There are at lest two different sets of lyrics, both of which explain the overwhelming number of instrumental performances. Start by finding something that rhymes with ‘nocturne’ (ie., sun burn, spurn, butter churn, western) and go from there. Generally speaking, the longer the version, the more intollerable the redition.

@Wikipedia : Spanish Harlem” is a song released by Ben E. King in 1961 on Atco Records, written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector. The song was King’s first hit away from The Drifters, a group he had led for several years.

to be continued… probably