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Once you are buzzed into the spacious lobby, you can hear the percolating sounds of jazz and immediately you know it's Marjorie Eliot's parlor jazz session swinging in apartment 3F, the only place to be on a Sunday afternoon. The neighbors don't mind the great music. After all, they reside in the legendary building 555 Edgecombe Avenue, where such greats as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges, Andy Kirk and singer-actor-activist Paul Robeson once called home. Many of Eliot's neighbors often stop by to catch the weekly intimate concerts held every Sunday from 4-6 p.m.
"People only come here for one thing, good music," says Rudel Drears, the pianist-in-residence, who just happens to be Eliot's son.
Although folding chairs set up in the living room that spill into the kitchen and hallway don't match, no one seems to care. The colored ceiling lights add a whisper of ambience to the homey atmosphere that is much more conducive than any downtown jazz club. Eliot's parlor, a Harlem institution for jazz lovers, is free no cover charges, two-drink minimums or being rushed...