The Cotton Club: "Brown Sugar" (Sweet But Unrefined) Revue Wessels, Henry performer LaRedd, Cora performer Wells, Mordecai & Taylor performer Mordecai, Jimmy performer Wells, Dickie performer Taylor, Ernest performer Washington, Isabel performer Cotton Club Girls performer Theatrical Performance 1930-09-28 Cotton Club Alternately titled Blackberries (Crop) of 1931, Duke Ellington opening at the Cotton Club revue with music and lyrics by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen. Featured performers were Leitha Hill, tap dancer Henri Wessels, Mildred Dixon, Isabel Washington, Cora LaRedd, and Wells, Mordecai & Taylor. The Act I program included the class act tap dance team of Wells, Mordecai & Taylor performing "Hittin' The Bottle." The number was presented with the permission of Earl Carroll, producer of Vanities and was lifted by Wells, Mordecai & Taylor from Vanities, claiming in the program to dance it much better. Also in the first act, the scene "Snake-hip Wedding" with the song "Linda" performed by Sherman Robinson as the Snake-hips person, and Henri Wessels dancing his specialty eccentric dance, with Clarence Robinson, Isabelle Washington, and the female chorus; and "Andulusian Nights" with the number "La Rhumba" which included Cora LaRedd's dance specialty which informed the audience: "Did you know that Cora has to wear special asbestos dancing tog to keep from burning herself? s'fact!" ; and the Ebony Steppers ;("These boys just shuf-shuff-shuffle along") and Henri (Wessels) and Mildred's "whirlwind specialty." Act II's scene "Fantasie de Paris" included Wells, Mordecai and Taylor dancing their specialty and "putting their best foot forward"; "Misbehavin' Hips" featured dancing specialties by Cora LaRedd and the Ebony Steppers. And in the scene, "The End of the Road""in which a fallen woman is grabbed by the Heebie-Geebies in San Francisco's Chinatown,and sees her past life pass in review" Jimmy Mordecai plays a tap dancing "Gentleman Plying the Easiest Trade." Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts Strattemann, Klaus: Duke Ellington: Day by Day, Film by Film. Copenhagen: Jazz Media (1992). Hill, Constance Valis: Constance Valis Hill, personal collection of tap dance materials. (). Tap Dance America http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html Cotton Club Girls (biography) loc.music.tdabio.61 Cora LaRedd (biography) loc.music.tdabio.122 tda IHAS 151216 loc.music.tda.902