Here’s a little thing I’ve been working on in my spare time. I wanted to get a sense of where the famous jazz clubs in New York were located, so I started collecting addresses and photos and began making this map. It is a work in progress and I hope those with more years in the city than me can correct me on a few things and give me some new information as well. If you click on the markers there are pictures for many of the clubs. For now I have mostly focused on clubs that are no longer there, but I have included in a separate category some of the famous still standing venues. I hope this is a useful reference to everyone.
Thanks Jon for this wonderful resource!
Jon.
This is great – a wonderful piece of work. As a native New Yorker, whose parents were die-hard jazz buffs, I got to experience the renaissance of clubs in the ’70s (helped along, I think, by George Wein moving his festival to the city). So, a few notes: Also in the Village was Nick’s at I think 10th St. and Greenwich Ave. but you’d need to confirm. Later on it became Your Father’s Mustache (wha???) which had a group of Dixie banjo players most nights but it was the venue where Red Balaban had his Sunday gig of “Balaban and Cats,” until he opened his own place, the *new* Eddie Condon’s on W 54 near 7th. Which brings to mind that that block hosted the new Condon’s, the new Jimmy Ryan’s (relocated from 52nd St. and the longest living of the clubs), and briefly the new Half Note relocated from the West Village. A couple of additions on the east side of University Place: The Knickerbocker at the corner of 9th (still there, of course), and The Cookery on the corner of 8th, founded by Barney Josephson of Cafe Society fame and host to a slew of excellent pianists and, eventually, vocalists, notably Helen Humes and Alberta Hunter.
I’ll peruse your map some more to see if I think of others, but this is a great resource – thanks for doing it!
– John B
Thanks very much John, will do some research and updates tomorrow based on what I’ve heard from you and Ted Brown in the last couple of days.
Thought of a couple more: Michael’s Pub at, if I recall correctly, 55th and 3rd, one of Gil Weist’s places. He also ran the Carnegie Tavern, which was at the 56th and 7th corner of the Carnegie Hall building, a showcase for Ellis Larkins and others (and perhaps the only room in town to boast an August Förster piano, brilliant-sounding). Oh, and Zinno’s, on 13th just west of 6th – had a small music room in the ’90s to early ’00s where some great players worked, e.g. Gene Bertoncini and Michael Moore, and the wonderful trio of John Bunch, Bucky Pizzarelli, and Jay Leonhart.
Kelly’s Stable was another one on the old 52nd St. I have a 1947 issue of The New Yorker somewhere that I will try to dig up to see what others of that era were listed. There was a spacious room in the basement level of the Empire State Building for a time in the ’70s – I remember hearing Sy Oliver’s big band there – but I can’t remember the name; you entered on the southwest corner of 5th and 34th and walked downstairs.
I should have mentioned that I learned about your map project through my friend Mike McGinnis liking it on Facebook; I know Mike through Alec Wilder music connections. I live in Peabody MA and work (on those days when I travel to the office) in Quincy, where I see you are from. Keep on making music!
Great stuff!