{"id":4665,"date":"2017-03-10T09:49:18","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T14:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=4665"},"modified":"2025-08-16T17:49:51","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T21:49:51","slug":"a-night-at-the-cotton-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2017\/03\/10\/a-night-at-the-cotton-club\/","title":{"rendered":"A Night at the Cotton Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here at UMPI, students come from many different backgrounds.\u00a0 But they don\u2019t always get to learn about one another\u2019s experiences.\u00a0 UMPI senior English majors Lassana and Lossene Dorleh wanted to change that.\u00a0 On Tuesday, Feb. 14, they brought their heritage to the stage at Wieden Auditorium.\u00a0 They took audience members on a journey to \u201cThe Cotton Club\u201d and the Harlem Renaissance.<\/p>\n

Lassana and Lossene Dorleh began their show with a history lesson for Black History Month.\u00a0 The Harlem Renaissance took place in Harlem, N.Y.\u00a0 It lasted from the 1920s to the mid-1930s.\u00a0 During that time, numerous African-Americans moved from the South to northern cities.\u00a0 They came for better jobs.\u00a0 In Harlem, African-American writers, artists and musicians found their voice.\u00a0 They helped create a vital movement for their culture.<\/p>\n

The Cotton Club was a famous nightclub in New York City.\u00a0 It became an icon of the Harlem Renaissance.\u00a0 The club had a \u201cwhites-only\u201d rule.\u00a0 African-American musicians had to enter through a back door.\u00a0 But those musicians performed to crowds that loved their music.\u00a0 They created a sound that became jazz music.\u00a0 Lossene Dorleh was excited to share jazz music with audience members.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want people to be inspired to look at things that have nothing to do with them or even affect them,\u201d Lossene Dorleh said.\u00a0 \u201cBut at the same time it has affected so many of their favorite singers and songwriters and poets who maybe aren\u2019t black.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cotton Club\u201d show featured many musical guests.\u00a0 UMPI student Adrien Tourtelotte performed two jazz standards.\u00a0 He first sang Duke Ellington\u2019s \u201cFly Me to the Moon.\u201d\u00a0 Later, he sang Dean Martin\u2019s \u201cAin\u2019t That a Kick in the Head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the Presque Isle band Almost Islanders also performed.\u00a0 Brenden Goulet and Troy Nadeau performed jazz scats.\u00a0 Scatting is a type of vocal improvisation.\u00a0 Scatters use no words or lyrics.\u00a0 Instead, they make up rhythms and sounds as they go.\u00a0 During the Harlem Renaissance, scatting became popular in jazz music.<\/p>\n

Due to technical difficulties, the performers could not use background music as they had planned.\u00a0 The singers and scatters performed a cappella.\u00a0 Lassana Dorleh said that at first he felt disappointed.\u00a0 He and Lossene had planned a Charleston dance routine.\u00a0 But they still got to show audience members dance moves.\u00a0 Lossene Dorleh also read the poem \u201cSome Days\u201d by James Baldwin.\u00a0 Both brothers were glad the show went on despite setbacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the music not working kind of helped the show even though I was disappointed,\u201d Lassana Dorleh said.\u00a0 \u201cIt made the end result a little better because we got to do something we worked so hard on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audience members gave \u201cThe Cotton Club\u201d great reviews.\u00a0 Joshua Williams is an UMPI business management and leadership major.\u00a0 He enjoyed all the musical performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gave a good understanding of what the culture was like in the African-American community at that time,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Tiffany Smith is a freshman journalism major.\u00a0 She also attended the show.\u00a0 She most enjoyed the scatting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really creative and I like how they just did it on the go,\u201d Smith said.\u00a0 \u201cThey really immersed you in the time period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting on \u201cThe Cotton Club\u201d meant a lot to Lassana and Lossene Dorleh.\u00a0 The Harlem Renaissance inspires both of them as writers and performers.\u00a0 In December, they will graduate from UMPI.\u00a0 They plan to pursue playwriting in New York.\u00a0 \u201cThe Cotton Club\u201d was a chance for them to create more diversity on campus.\u00a0 But more than that, they wanted to share their own culture with the campus community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to talk for someone else, no matter how much I research someone else\u2019s culture or talk to other people about their culture,\u201d Lassana Dorleh said.\u00a0 \u201cSo my brother and I wanted to show a bit of our culture, our inspirations and how it is to be African-American.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cotton Club\u201d was a great time for everyone involved.\u00a0 Audience members did not just learn about jazz and African-American artists.\u00a0 They also learned that culture doesn\u2019t just exist during a special month or day.\u00a0 Culture is there for everyone to experience and enjoy.\u00a0 With open minds, students and community members can meet new people.\u00a0 They can celebrate the differences that unite us all.<\/p>\n

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Here at UMPI, students come from many different backgrounds.\u00a0 But they don\u2019t always get to learn about one another\u2019s experiences.\u00a0 UMPI senior English majors Lassana and Lossene Dorleh wanted to change that.\u00a0 On Tuesday, Feb. 14, they brought their heritage to the stage at Wieden Auditorium.\u00a0 They took audience members on a journey to \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8886,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4665\/revisions\/8886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}