Andrew Sullivan

PROJECTS: Harlem Jazz

   
Tap dancer David Gilmore tries to draw customers into Showman's.
   
Max Lucas, 98, finishes at midnight at the Lenox Lounge, where he performs with his son's band.
     
  
Sedric Choukron prepares his saxophone. http://www.sedric.net/
   
Marjorie Eliot has hosted jazz shows in her apartment every Sunday for 15 years.
   
Reflected in the piano at his club, Bill Saxton performs in the space that housed a speakeasy and hosted Billie Holiday's debut.
     
  
Singer Kay Mori, moonlighting as a bartender at St. Nick's Pub, restocks the bar as a band with David Bowie's drummer Dennis Davis, left, performs late one night.
   
A trombone student waits in the wings, hoping to be asked to perform with the Melvin Vines Quartet.
   
Jukebox, Harlem.
     
  
Jazz drummer
   
Harry "The Hat Man" Tuck, retired hat maker.
   
"When you walk in here, you're taking a step back in time," said Al Reid, owner of Lenox Lounge.
     
  
The neon glows on an empty bar just before closing time at the Cotton Club. Duke Ellington led the house band at the original club from 1927 to 1931 and convinced the owner of the club, bootlegger Owney Madden, to ease restrictions on black customers.
   
The Cotton Club Orchestra packs up at the end of the night.
  
Linda Hutchinson, who calls herself Billie Holiday Jr., readies for her last songs of the night at the Cotton Club.
     
  
Omar Edwards dances at Minton's Playhouse, the club where Charlie Parker was said to have invented bebop during after hours jam sessions. Edwards is no less experimental with his tap dancing in which he uses his shoes to tell "the history of man."
   
Seleno Clarke.
   
Saxophone