Henderson, Fletcher

Henderson had to find work for the bands that he had assembled, and wound up leading his own orchestra and playing engagements near Broadway. After an acclaimed stay at Club Alabam, Henderson took up residency at the Roseland Ballroom in 1924. At this point in his career, Henderson was still trying to reconcile the ragtime music he heard emerging from Black Swan with the European music he had studied in his youth. His recruitment of Louis Armstrong helped accelerate this process...