"Ill Wind"--Great Harold Arlen torch song from The Cotton Club Revue:
Written in 1934, with lyricist Ted Koehler, Ill Wind is just one of the dramatic torch songs Arlen had written during his lengthy career. In the 1930's, Harlem's Cotton Club featured the finest black entertainers like Lena Horne,Ethel Waters, the Nicholas Brothers and bands likethose of Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. Arlen wrote a number of songs, some quite rique fro the Society folks who travelled uptown to a place where blacks could entertain but not sit as customers.
In the 1970's, Hollywood launched a movie called The Cotton Club. It recreated the life and times of that turbulent but highly creative period during Prohibition days.
This most evocative song was sung in the movie by Lonette McKee. The film footage shown along with her performance captures the dangerous night club atmosphere with gangsters fighting for control of the Club and the lives of the black entertainers .It was a most exciting era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaShvVW1w5U
