Leonard Harper (producer)

Leonard Harper
Born (1899-04-09)April 9, 1899
Died February 13, 1943(1943-02-13) (aged 43)
Occupation Producer/stager/choreographer

Leonard Harper (April 9, 1899, Birmingham, Alabama – February 4, 1943, Harlem, New York) was a producer, stager, and choreographer in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s.[1][2]

Harper's works spanned the worlds of Vaudeville, Cabaret, Burlesque and Broadway musical comedy.[3] As a dancer, choreographer and studio owner, he coached many of the country's leading performers, including Ruby Keller, Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire, and the Marx Brothers went for lessons.[4][5][6] He produced floor shows and theatrical revues both uptown in Harlem and downtown on Broadway's Great White Way.[7]

He co-directed and staged the ensemble segments of The Exile and the short film Darktown Revue with Oscar Micheaux. Harper staged for Broadway Hot Chocolates at the Hudson Theatre and was the premiere producer who opened up the Cotton Club. Harper also produced Lindy Hop revues and an act called Harper's Lindy Hoppers at the Savoy Ballroom as detailed in his biography "Rhythm For Sale".[8]

Early life

Harper was born in 1899 in Birmingham, Alabama, to William Harper, a performer, and his wife. It was the major industrial city of the state. Harper started dancing as a child to attract a crowd on a medicine show wagon, traveling with the show throughout the South. In 1915, Harper first toured in New York City but quickly moved to Chicago.

There he began choreographing and performing dance acts with Osceola Blanks of the Blanks Sisters they became the first black act for the Shubert Brothers.[9] He married Osceola Blanks in 1923, Chicago Defender, January 1918, July 1, 1922.[10]

Return to New York

Harper and Osceola Blanks performed in his first big revue, Plantation Days, when it opened at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem in 1922-1923. New York Amsterdam News He began producing floor shows in Harlem and New York thereafter.

From 1923–1924, Harper offered the Duke Ellington Orchestra the house band position at the speakeasies, Connie's Inn in Harlem and the Kentucky Club in Times Square. He was producing shows there and the Duke Ellington orchestra played as the house band at the Kentucky Club for the next four years. At the suggestion of drummer Sonny Greer, Duke Ellington and his wife Edna along with their son Mercer Ellington were lived in one of Harper's Harlem apartment bedrooms in the early 1920s.[11]

By 1925, Harper owned a Times Square dance studio where black dancers taught their dances to white performers, Billboard Magazine, August 23, 1924. As a nightclub and Broadway producer, Harper counted Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Bill Robinson, Harold "Stumpy" Cromer of Stump and Stumpy and Count Basie among his colleagues. He introduced Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway to New York show business, and worked with Mae West, Josephine Baker, Lena Horne, Fats Waller and Eubie Blake.[12][13]

Harper was part of the transition team when the Deluxe Cabaret was turned into the Cotton Club, producing two of its first revues during its opening. Harper's biggest milestone on the Great White Way was his staging of the Broadway hit Hot Chocolates, which established the songs Black and Blue (Fats Waller song) and Ain't Misbehavin classic Broadway show tunes. Harper was one of the leading figures who transformed Harlem into a cultural center during the 1920s. His nightclub productions took place at Connie's Inn, the Lafayette Theatre (Harlem) at the opening of the new Apollo Theatre, and at other theatres in New York.

He had a daughter Jean Harper out of wedlock with Fannie Pennington.

Harper died in Harlem, New York, on February 4, 1943, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. conducted his funeral at the Abyssinian Baptist Church.[14]

Legacy

A Harlem street was Co-Named after Harper on October 10, 2015 because of the efforts of his grandson Grant Harper Reid. "Leonard Harper Way" is located on 7th. Ave. (also known as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd.) and 132nd street.[15][16] [17] Harper became a 2015 NAACP History Maker[18]

References

  1. ↑ Reid, Grant Harper (2014). Rhythm for Sale.
  2. ↑ Williams, Kam (October 29, 2014). "Rhythm for Sale by Dr. Grant Harper Reid". Maryland Daily Examiner.
  3. ↑ Beckerman, Jim (February 16, 2014). "Pioneering African American Film Comes Back to Fort Lee Where it All Began". North Jersey. Retrieved February 9, 2015.
  4. ↑ Variety]], July 2, 1924 ,Billboard, August 23, 1924
  5. ↑ Duke Ellington and His World, pages 34-36
  6. ↑ Taylor, Erica L. (February 14, 2014). "Little Known Black History Facts: Leonard Harper and the Harpettes". Black America Web.
  7. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=XFnfnKg6BcAC&pg=PA482
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ Variety, September 23, 1921
  10. ↑ Cullen, Hackman, McNeilly, Frank, Florence, Donald (2007). Vaudeville, old & new: an encyclopedia of variety performers in America. New York: Routledge. pp. 482–483.
  11. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=23Gr_y8fS_sC&pg=PA102
  12. ↑ "Leonard Harper". Streetswing.
  13. ↑ Graves, Neil (February 14, 2000). "He 'Roots' out Granddads Past". New York Post.
  14. ↑ Hinckley, Dave (March 19, 1998). "He Lived the Nightlife: Entertainer and Impresario Leonard Harper Was a New York Original Whose Story Deserves Telling". New York Daily News.
  15. ↑ "Leonard Harper Way Street Co-Naming Resolution" (PDF). New York City Government. Retrieved February 27, 2016.
  16. ↑ "Harlem Street Pays Tribute To Influential Producer, Director, Choreographer Leonard Harper". Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  17. ↑ http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/551-15/mayor-bill-de-blasio-signs-legislation-co-naming-51-thoroughfares-public-spaces
  18. ↑ http://www.naacp.org/pages/history-makers-names
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