Cotton Club Inh. Dieter Roloff

What’s not to like about the Cotton Club? Ok, I admit that the prices aren’t the cheapest, and the crowd is heavily biased toward the septuagenarian end of the scale, but they have great live music every night and they have their own pilsner beer!

The Cotton Club is a bit of a Hamburg institution. A jazz bar with a 50 year history - it’s 50th birthday party is coming up soon.

It’s not easy to find, but now that I have found it, I’ll definitely be back…

Traditional jazz is not really my favourite style of music, but I have always had a good time at the Cotton Club (I usually go there for free, courtesy of TwoTickets.de).

The club is a Hamburg institution. It was started in 1959 and moved into its current location in 1971.

They are taking reservations for three special evenings on the occasion of Cotton Club’s 50th birthday already (April 16, 17 and 18, 2009). I’m sure the celebration will be a blast!

Groups and artists who played the Cotton Club include the Monty Sunshine Jazzband, Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band, Schnuckenack Reinhardt Quintett, Pasadena Roof Orchestra, Max Collie's Rhythm Aces, Ken Colyer, and Mr. Acker Bilk.

You can have a nice time with amateur bands as well. The most recent one I saw at the Cotton is Stintfunk, Hamburg’s oldest bigband (according to their homepage). They have been in existence for over 30 years and play the Cotton on a regular basis (you can see 30 seconds of it in the video).