La Grosse Pomme (Paris nightclub, 1937-1938)

American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer Adelaide Hall (1901-1993) and her husband, Bertram Hicks, opened a nightclub called La Grosse Pomme (French for “The Big Apple”) in Paris on December 9, 1937. This was after Harlem’s Big Apple club opened in 1934, and during the height of 1937’s Big Apple dance craze.
 
The New York (NY) Times reported on October 12, 1988:
 
“Miss (Adelaide—ed.) Hall believes she and her husband coined the Big Apple as a nickname for New York City. La Grosse Pomme was the name of the Parisian club the couple opened in 1936.”
 
La Grosse Pomme obviously did not coin “The Big Apple.” The club was sold and closed on December 10, 1938.
 
Hall and Hicks were not associated with the Harlem’s 1934 Big Apple bar/restaurant. The 2012 and 2017 articles in Harlem World Magazine (below) are incorrect.
 
The 1937 dance of the “Canned Apple” (Big Apple dance + Can-Can dance) began here at La Grosse Pomme.
 
     
Wikipedia: Adelaide Hall
Adelaide Louise Hall (20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993) was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her long career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death and she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hall entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2003 as the world’s most enduring recording artist having released material over eight consecutive decades. She performed with major artists such as Art Tatum, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Fela Sowande Rudy Vallee and Jools Holland, and recorded as a jazz singer with Duke Ellington (with whom she made her most famous recording, “Creole Love Call” in 1927) and with Fats Waller.
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In 1937, Hall choreographed her own take on the famous French dance the Can-can; she called it the Canned Apple and would perform it at her Montmartre nightclub La Grosse Pomme.
   
Wikipedia: Pigalle, Paris
Pigalle (French pronunciation: [piɡal]) is an area in Paris, France, around the Place Pigalle, on the border between the 9th and the 18th arrondissements. It is named after the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle (1714–1785).
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American-born jazz singer Adelaide Hall lived in Pigalle in 1937–1938 and opened her nightclub La Grosse Pomme (“the Big Apple”) at 73 Rue Pigalle.
 
7 April 1983, Newsday (Long Island, NY), “Applause for Adelaide Hall’s sublime songs” by Jerry Parker, pt. 2, pg. 37, col. 4:
Black entertainers were much in vogue in Europe. Hall and her husband, a Trinidad native named Bert Hicks, rode the wave by opening a nightclub called La Grosse Pomme (The Big Apple) on the rue Pigalle. After four years, they shifted to London, so that Hall could accept an offer to star on the West End.
   
Google Books
Alberta Hunter:
A Celebration in Blues
By Frank C. Taylor with Gerald Cook
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
1987
Pg. 115:
Adelaide (Hall—ed.) did marry and went right on entertaining into the 1980s, to the delight of audiences in Europe and America. She and Bert Hicks ran a club on the Rue Pigalle in Montemarte from 1935 to 1938 called the Big Apple (she claimed ownership of the name before it became a nickname for New York City).
   
11 October 1988, Newsday (Long Island, NY), “Cabaret, Recalled Revived” by Blake Green, pt. 2, pg. 11:
Her )Adelaide Hall—ed.) husband, Bert Hicks, a merchant seaman who was a native of Trinidad (their marriage gave her dual citizenship), decided to open a nightclub in Paris, La Gros Pomme, which had people talking about The Big Apple long before its association with New York. “Maurice Chevalier came, Charles Boyer came,” Hall said. “Josephine came. Stephane Grappelly. Django Reinhardt—people would follow him anywhere.”
 
12 October 1988, New York (NY) Times, “A Long Way From Beads and Feathers of the 20’s” by Stephen Holden, pg. C20, col. 3:
Miss (Adelaide—ed.) Hall believes she and her husband coined the Big Apple as a nickname for New York City. La Grosse Pomme was the name of the Parisian club the couple opened in 1936.
 
“Though it was a very tiny place, it was a big success,” the singer recalled. “You could cram at most 200 people in it, and everyone came—Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier, Mistinguett, Josephine Baker, Stephane Grappelli—I could keep going and going.”
   
After two years, however, they sold their interests and moved to London, where they opened another club, the Old Florida, which catered to the British armed services and which was destroyed during the blitz.
 
Google Books
Underneath a Harlem Moon:
The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall (Adelaide Hall, 1901-1993—ed.)
By Iain Cameron Williams
London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic
2002
Pg. 89:
Curiously, the (Big Apple—ed.) bar’s popularity inspired many Negroes to use its name—the Big Apple—as slang referring to the geographical region in Harlem where it was located. Gradually, the nickname became known to visiting white New Yorkers who, thinking the term novel, adopted it and began referring to New York in general as the Big Apple. No one really knows who first referred to the metropolis in this manner, but most jazz historians agree the terminology came from Harlem in the early Twenties. As with all aspects of fashion, the original idea emanates from street level and is then expanded upon by others. Certainly, Adelaide’s story and her lifetime claim that she popularized the name seems valid enough when put into context. Since their marriage , Adelaide and Bert had resided at her mother’s apartment at 194 West 134th Street.
Pg. 407 [Footnote 1]:
Many theories exist regarding when and how New York was christened the Big Apple. Most historians agree the term evolved during the jazz era in the 1920s and came out of Harlem’s Renaisssance. As happens with any new culture, a new language is created to express its ideals and aspirations. From Adelaide’s account, it appears that regular customers to the Big Apple bar gradually began to connect the name with the geographical area where it was situated . When white New Yorkers from downtown visited Harlem they picked up on the name and over a period of time began to refer to the area in general as the Big Apple. When put into context, this story seems highly probable.
 
See also, Alberta Hunter’s biography A Celebration in Blues, page 155. Alberta claims ownership of the Big Apple name to the book’s author, Frank C. Tayler.
 
Unfortunately, Adelaide couldn’t accurately recall on which of the four corners of 135h Street and Seventh Avenue the Big Apple bar was originally located.
 
Harlem World Magazine
The Big Apple Night Club, 1934 (video)
Posted on 02/08/2012 by Carolyn
In 1934, the Big Apple Night Club founded by Bertram Errol Hicks opened in Harlem on the northwest corner of West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue across the street from the Savoy, and his wife the legendary Adelaine Hall-Hicks was the official business manager. One of the club’s most enduring legacy was the sign set in the fake stone exterior of the building — a brown stucco coat of arms featuring an upside-down apple painted red and overlaid in white letters.
(This is incorrect. Hicks and Hall opened La Grosse Pomme in Paris in 1937. Also, the Big Apple club was across the street from Smalls Paradise, not the Savoy Ballroom.—ed.)
   
Entrée to Black Paris
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Adelaide Hall’s Paris Years
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After a couple of false starts, including a short-lived upscale club on the Champs Elysées, they settled on a location at 73, rue Pigalle. They opened the doors of La Grosse Pomme (The Big Apple) on December 9, 1937 and weathered a slow start to become the toast of Paris. Joseph, their Senegalese doorman, was the man to impress if you wanted to gain entry. Within a short period of time, Adelaide became known as the “Queen of Montmartre” and the club was dubbed the most fashionable of the city.
 
During its heyday, La Grosse Pomme employed almost 40 persons. Even the great Bricktop worked their briefly, just a few yards from the club that she had to close for lack of business.
 
The loom of war and the September 28th announcement by the U. S. government that American citizens without a compelling reason to remain in Paris should plan to return home prompted Bert’s decision to sell the club. It closed on December 10, 1938.
     
Black Then
ADELAIDE LOUISE HALL: JAZZ ICON DURING THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
POSTED BY JAE JONES - JULY 18, 2017 - BLACK WOMEN, ENTERTAINMENT
Jazz singer and entertainer Adelaide Louise Hall had a career that spanned more than 70 years until her death. A major icon during the Harlem Renaissance, she entered into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2003 as the world’s most enduring recording artist having released material over eight consecutive decades.
   
Hall was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 20, 1901, to Elizabeth and Arthur William Hall. She began performing in 1921 on Broadway in the chorus line of Nobel Sissle’s and Eubie Blake’s musical “Shuffle Along.” She married in 1924 to a British sailor, Bertram Errol Hicks. Hicks became Hall’s manager and opened a short-lived club in Harlem, “The Big Apple.”
   
Harlem World Magazine
Adelaide Louise Hall’s Rich Harlem History, 1901 – 1993 (Audio Video)
Posted on 12/14/2017 by Harlem World Magazine
Adelaide Louise Hall, 20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993, was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her long career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death and she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance.
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Marriage, 1924
In 1924, Hall married a British sailor Bertram Errol Hicks, born in Trinidad and Tobago. Soon after their marriage he opened a short-lived club in Harlem, New York, called ‘The Big Apple‘ and became her official business manager.
 
Twitter
Russell Young
@RussellY_Edin
@barrypopik I noticed you have a page on La Grosse Pomme. Found this in my great-grandparents’ trunk. Says on the back “17 August 1938. Spoke to English lady announcer”
5:10 PM · Feb 28, 2021·Twitter for Android