Stormy Weather with Maggie Brown

4455 South King Drive,Chicago IL 60653

11 December, 2021

Description

An all-star Black cast featuring Lena Horne and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson highlights this 1940s musical. Discussion led by musician Maggie Brown. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Lena Horne top-line an all-star, all-Black cast in this tale of romance and music between the world wars. The slim plot, which is basically a few lines of exposition between musical numbers, recounts Robinson’s attempts to win Horne’s heart and make it big. When he succeeds, he asks her to quit her career and become a housewife—wait, who in his right mind would ask Lena Horne to do that? I bet they work everything out in a big musical number. The whopping sixteen numbers, including the title song, “Ain’t Misbehaving,” and “Diga Diga Do,” are performed by the cream of the crop of 1940s Black entertainers, including Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Ada Brown, Dooley Wilson, the Nicholas Brothers, and Katherine Dunham. Jazz fans, watch the bands for such luminaries as Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, and Benny Carter.