Career
Nemo"s rare collection of jazz memorabilia documents 1930s music and his days at the Cotton Club, where he wrote the lyrics with Irving Mills and John Redmond for "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" (1938), with music by Duke Ellington. In Nemo"s historical collection are original photographs which he took at the Cotton Club, plus Cotton Club memorabilia and a 1939 telegram from Ellington to Nemo, written in jive talk. In 1941, Nemo formed his own 19-piece band.
The group featured four Chinese women as singers.
Playing on his nickname, "The Neme," the band"s slogan was "Hit the Beam With the Neme." In 1989, Nemo appeared in The Plot Against Harry, a film made in 1969 by independent filmmakers Michael Roemer and Robert M. Young.
