[1] The Nest Club, 100 feet (30.48 m) east of Seventh Avenue, opened in 1923 with a Leonard Harper revue and Sam Wooding's band.
In 1924, Carey and Frazier also opened on October 23, 1924, and operated the Bamville Club in Harlem at 65 West 129th Street, 2 doors east of Lenox Avenue – where blacks and whites danced in mixed couples.
Carey and Frazier, later, owned and operated the Saratoga Club, on Lenox at 140th Street, which had been founded by Casper Holstein (1876–1944).
In the late 1920s, Billie Holiday, under her birth name, Eleanora Fagan, sang for tips at small Harlem venues, namely the Nest Club, Pod's and Jerry's, the Yeah Man (1925–1960)[Note 6] at 2350 Seventh Avenue at 138th Street, and Monette's at 148 West 133rd (1926–).
Side note: Music writer Donald Clarke avers that Holiday adopted her first name from a jazz vocal team, Billie Haywood (1903–1979) and Cliff Allen who, had been singing at a Harlem venue.
[16][Note 7] In 1925, the Nest Club Orchestra, directed by Billy Butler, nationally broadcast their performances Tuesday and Saturday evenings, 11:30 to midnight, from host WFBH, a short-lived Manhattan radio station in existence from July 15, 1924, to November 6, 1926.
Yet, not a single venue in Harlem had been padlocked until September 1928, when the Nest Club was closed for violating the Volstead Act.
Bey (né LaRocque Norvel Wright; 1937–1990) was an African American choreographer, dancer, percussionist, composer, and founder of the Harlem dance school and theater bearing his name that, as of 2025, still endures, currently located at the Malcolm Shabazz Cultural Center at 102 West 116th Street at Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue).
sitting there and requesting numbers and passing out money.The sole purpose of these clubs, according to Malcolm X, was 'to entertain and jive the white night crowd to get their money'[28](accessible via Newspapers.com on p. 3 and p. 12; subscription required)