A tall dark skinned man with brown eyes and gray hair looking out the window of the renowned Lenox Lounge on 124th St. and Lenox Ave. The man is Alvin Reed, owner of the establishment that's known for putting on the best jazz in Harlem. Mr. Reed was born the same year the Lenox Lounge was built, which was in 1939. As I walk in and introduce myself, he walks us through the bar section and into the back room where zebra prints cover the walls, and booths surround a beautifully enormous grand black piano.

We sit down in the second booth were he immediately tells me that the booth we are sitting next to was always reserved for Billy Holiday. I was in awe. The Lenox Lounge use to be one of the biggest hot spots in Harlem where artists like Benie Powell (vocalist), Bobby Watson (saxophone), and one of the best piano players in Harlem, John Hicks played.

According to Mr. Reed the Lenox Lounge "puts on the best Jazz in Harlem, because we pay well and we're the only jazz club in Harlem that has a grand piano" says Reed. "This is what brings the best musicians that can play and draw people from as far as France and Japan."

However, the times have changed. "Jazz isn't the way it use to be in the 20's when it was preformed and watched by an African American audience," he says. "Now 90% of the audience that attends the Lenox Lounge jazz club are mostly white and European."

It's our fault, he says, that our children don't know about jazz today because we never showed it to them. People wonder why they're hardly any more African American listeners in jazz clubs and that because we don't let our children know about it. "Many Caucasian people come to the clubs with their children who are about eight to twelve year old to give them a little taste of one of the many verities of music there are," Reed says. "This is why clubs are mainly filled with white people."

Jazz clubs were a popular place to be in the 20's and still are in the Lenox Lounge at night. The real busy nights at the Lenox Lounge are Fridays, Saturdays and Thursdays. Thursdays at the Lenox Lounge it attracts lots of young jazz fans because it's "Jam Fest", when anyone who's into jazz music can come up with their instruments and perform live jazz on stage with everyday people just like them. Fridays and Saturdays are when people get out of work and have their free time to go out clubbing.

Though the Lenox Lounge may sound like a great Jazz club it hasn't always been successful. In 1986 the Mr. Reed's wife sadly, passed away. Mr. Reed and the club were both going through really rough times that at one point he was thinking about giving it all up. But Mr. Reed found it inside of him to keep the club "it is a label of love and it has the potential that will make a lot of money. I had to get a loan to put the club back on it's feet," but it all worked out a the end.

Now the club is a great place to hang out in even your 18 as long as you don't drink. "The cost of admission is $15 to hear original and modern jazz music." Mr. Reed ends his statement about the cost of admission and stop to let us take pictures of him and the famous Lenox Lounge.

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