☞ BESPOKE: Great Gatsby's Harlem Renaissance

The Jazz Age was a term coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald but it has been pointed out that the novelist failed to chronicle the heart of this heady era which had much of its roots in Harlem.  There is one point in The Great Gatsby that the main character sees a group of "modish negroes" with a white chauffeur but this was more of a reference to how the class structure started to break boundaries at this time period.

Baz Luhrmann's new film on Gatsby includes this important scene and appears to also have a few more nods to Harlem.  As an informal record of the 20s, the great Gatsby would have ideally had the characters visit the many speakeasies uptown for the wealthy were also bored and adventuresome.  Harlem was the epicenter of this new, underground music genre and prohibition would make the brownstone-lined streets the playground for those living further downtown.   More details on this movie can be found on the official Gatsby website: LINK