The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan,[1] was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979.

[4] The opening night was "A Journey Through Jazz", consisting of various styles of the music up to that point, played by Maxie Kaminsky, Hot Lips Page, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Harry Belafonte, Stan Getz, and Lennie Tristano, in that order.

Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Louie Bellson,[7] Bud Powell, Johnny Smith, Stan Getz, Lester Young, and many others made appearances.

The club's original master of ceremonies, the diminutive, four feet tall Pee Wee Marquette, was known for mispronouncing the names of musicians, if they refused to tip him.

[3] Later broadcasts organized in the 1950s with the musicians’ union were relayed across network radio with announcers and guests like the jazz critic Leonard Feather.

On August 25, 1959, Miles Davis was beaten by a New York City policeman on the sidewalk in front of Birdland, during a performing engagement at the club.

[8] During the 1950s, Birdland also became a fashionable place for celebrities to be seen, with Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Sugar Ray Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, Joe Louis, Judy Garland and others as regulars.

These have included Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny, Lee Konitz, Diana Krall, Dave Holland, Regina Carter, and Tito Puente.

Reference to Birdland is made in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road: "I saw him wish a well-to-do man Merry Christmas so volubly a five-spot in change for twenty was never missed.

In the play Send Me No Flowers, George Kimball relates a story concerning a female friend who ran off with a "bongo player from Birdland" after her husband died.

Sesame Street featured a night club called Birdland, run by Hoots the Owl, which was occupied by multiple birds.

[14] The club, along with several artists such as Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, and James Moody, are mentioned in Quincy Jones song "Jazz Corner of the World" [Introduction to Birdland].

Ray Charles references a dance of the same name in the lyrics of his song "What'd I Say": "See the girl with the red dress on, She can do the Birdland all night long...."