Page "Lil Hardin Armstrong" Paragraph 6

The store had been paying Hardin $ 3 a week, but Duhé offered $ 22. 50.

Knowing that her mother would not approve of her working in a cabaret, she made it known that her new job was playing for a dancing school.

Three weeks later, the band moved on to a better booking at the De Luxe Café, where the entertainers included Florence Mills and Cora Green.

From there, the band moved up to the jewel of Chicago's night life, the Dreamland.

Here the principal entertainers were Alberta Hunter and Ollie Powers, and there was no finer night spot in Chicago.

When King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band replaced Duhé's group at the Dreamland, Oliver asked Hardin to stay with him.

She was with Oliver at the Dreamland in 1921, when an offer came for the orchestra to play a six-month engagement at San Francisco's Pergola Ballroom.

At the end of that booking, Hardin returned to Chicago while the rest of the Oliver band went on to Los Angeles.