CrowdMateHamburg · Venue
Cotton Club
A compact jazz cellar with a 1959 origin story and a participatory weekly session.
- Upcoming shows
- 40
- Capacity
- 200
- Address
- 10 Alter Steinweg, 20459 Hamburg
- Phone
- 040 343878
- Next show
- Fri, 9 Oct 2026
About Cotton Club
The Cotton Club is a 200-capacity live-music cellar in Hamburg, built for close contact between audience and players. Its winding basement room has wood-panelled walls, photographs and memorabilia, with seating pressed close to the stage. The defining detail is the address’s previous life: this club has played from the former Jailhouse Taverne at Alter Steinweg since 1971.
A club that kept moving
Founded in 1959 as Vati’s Tube Jazzclub, the operation began inside the Tiefbunker at Grindelhof 89b. Wolf-Dieter Roloff took charge in 1961 and changed the name to Cotton Club in 1963. A series of addresses followed, including the Hamburger Jazzclub e.V.’s Hochbunker at Poelchaukamp, before the 1971 move to the present cellar. That shift brought a steadier international bill, including Britain’s Monty Sunshine Jazzband and American reed player Peanuts Hucko. In 2022, Helge Sachs succeeded Roloff as owner. Two years later, Sachs described a punishing summer, major maintenance needs and substantial personal investment; city Live Concert Account support formed part of the effort to keep the frequent live programme running.
What the room asks of a night out
The programme is jazz-first, with roughly 320 annual concerts spanning blues, funk, soul and related styles. Its Wednesday Cotton Session gives a booked four-player core band the stage, then welcomes musicians and singers who want to join, making the club a regular landing place for participation alongside ticketed sets. Seating reservations suit listeners who want a fixed view; on dance nights, tables and chairs move aside for Lindy Hop. Expect a small, close-range room where the bar, stage and audience share the same compact frame.
Sources
- Über uns — Cotton Club Hamburg
- Cotton Club — Musikinformationszentrum (miz.org)
- Clubsterben in Hamburg: Droht das Ende des Cotton Clubs? — NDR
- Cotton Club Hamburgs ältester Jazzkeller seit 1959 — Hamburg Tourismus
- Cotton Club — hamburg.de
- COTTON SESSION +100 YEARS OF JAZZ – led by René Tenenjou & SANAGA JAZZ — Cotton Club Hamburg
Next 15 shows
- Fri, 9 Oct 2026 · 20:00 SOUL KNIGHTS View in the CrowdMate app
- Sat, 10 Oct 2026 · 20:00 FRANC CONNECTION QUINTET View in the CrowdMate app
- Tue, 13 Oct 2026 · 20:00 IN CASE OF BLUES View in the CrowdMate app
- Wed, 14 Oct 2026 · 20:00 Charlotte Joerges View in the CrowdMate app
- Thu, 15 Oct 2026 · 20:00 JAZZ GUYS GO POP View in the CrowdMate app
- Fri, 16 Oct 2026 · 20:00 THE VOLCANOES View in the CrowdMate app
- Sat, 17 Oct 2026 · 20:00 ADI WOLF PRESENTS "SATURDAY NIGHT FUNK" View in the CrowdMate app
- Tue, 20 Oct 2026 · 20:00 BIG BAND View in the CrowdMate app
- Thu, 22 Oct 2026 · 20:00 JAZZ ACCORDING TO MISS BALU View in the CrowdMate app
- Sat, 24 Oct 2026 · 20:00 THE SAZERAC SWINGERS View in the CrowdMate app
- Tue, 27 Oct 2026 · 20:00 SANAGA JAZZ + RENE TENENJOU View in the CrowdMate app
- Wed, 28 Oct 2026 · 20:00 NIGHT OF THE SINGERS - COTTON SESSION +100 YEARS OF JAZZ View in the CrowdMate app
- Thu, 29 Oct 2026 · 20:00 MEENA CRYLE & CHRIS FILLMORE + JAN FISCHER View in the CrowdMate app
- Sat, 31 Oct 2026 · 20:00 JAZZ LIPS View in the CrowdMate app
- Fri, 6 Nov 2026 · 20:00 SHREVEPORT RHYTHM View in the CrowdMate app
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