[Dixielandjazz] Black and Tans

[Rob McCallum]

Hello all,

As to the label "black and tan" as used to describe a night club, I believe
it originally meant a club where both light and dark black people met.
Because lighter skin blacks (who often referred to themselves as "people of
color") quite often thought of themselves as a higher social class (and
monetarily they usually were in the 1920's), the term may have originally
had negative connotations.  Over time, it came to be used to mean a place
where anyone, regardless of skin color, congregated for nightlife.  In
Harlem, it became a fad for upper and middle class whites to go "slumming"
in black bars and at rent parties.  In the same way that some of the big
name Harlem clubs restricted blacks from the audience, some black bars in
Harlem also restricted whites, however, because so much money was flowing
Uptown, many establishments welcomed all of the paying customers.

Whether or not Duke Ellington is referring to a "black and tan" club in the
title, I couldn't say for sure, but he certainly would have been aware of
the term "black and tan" in reference to a drinking establishment.  Much ink
was spilled at that time regarding skin tones and related topics like
"passing" for white, skin lighteners, hair straightening products etc, and
what all that represented, especially in writings aimed at black audiences.

Mulattoes often had the best economic opportunities and even had societies
much like any other upwardly mobile social class, and immigrants from the
Caribbean were at the lower end of the social scale, though they had a
tendency to group together also and not associate with American born blacks
(in the 1920's).  In Harlem, some of the tenement houses would only accept
people from the Caribbean, and in many others, people from the Caribbean
were excluded.  Of course, the irony is that anyone with any
African-American blood was simply considered black to white society (Mark
Twain satirizes this situation in his story Pudd'nhead Wilson).

All the best,
Rob McCallum