Sunset Cafe
The Sunset Cafe was a jazz club in Chicago, Illinois operating during the 1920s and 1930s. It was one of the most important American jazz clubs, especially around the period between 1917 and 1928 when Chicago became a creative capital of Jazz innovation. The club was a rarity from its inception as a haven from segregation, since the Sunset Cafe was an integrated or "Black and Tan" club where Afro- and Euro- Americans, along with other ethnicities, could mingle freely without much fear of reprisal. Many important musicians developed their careers at the Sunset Cafe.
The building that housed the Cafe still stands at 315 E 35th St in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Originally built in 1909 as an automobile garage, after a 1921 remodeling, it became a venue with around 100 tables, a bandstand and dance floor[1].
Owned by Louis Armstrong's manager, Joe Glaser, the venue played host to such performers as Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway. Johnny Dodds, Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and Earl "Fatha" Hines.
Shortly after beginning to record his Hot Five records, Louis Armstrong began playing in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra at the Sunset Cafe in 1926, with Earl Hines on piano. The band with Hines as musical director was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers[2].
Cab Calloway got his professional start onstage under Louis Armstrong at the Sunset Cafe. Calloway eventually became one of only a few big band leaders to come up under Armstrong and, of course, Earl Hines. When Louis departed the Cafe for New York - it was the young Cab Calloway - 20-year-old "kid from Baltimore" whom Armstrong and Glazer picked to take over from Louis at the Sunset. A few years later Calloway followed his mentor Armstrong to NY, and before long found himself headlining at The Cotton Club, while back in Chicago the Hines inherited the Sunset Cafe mantle. In 1928, the 25-year-old Earl Hines opened what was to become a twelve year residency at what was now re-named The Grand Terrace Cafe - by now "controlled" [or 25% 'controlled'] by Al Capone.[3]
With Hines as its bandleader, what used to be the Sunset Cafe continued its tradition, introducing under Hines Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Nat "King" Cole and Billy Eckstine, as well as the dancer - Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. And it was "live" from The Grand Terrace that the Hines Band became the most broadcast band in America. [4]
While the historic structure that once housed New York's original Cotton Club was torn down decades ago for urban renewal, Chicago's original Sunset Cafe/Grand Terrace Cafe building still stands, and still has some of its original murals on the walls. The Sunset Cafe/Grand Terrace Cafe building returned to its modest roots after the then Grand Terrace Cafe closed in 1950, serving as a political office for a short time, and then as an Ace Hardware store until the present day. The building received Chicago Landmark status on September 9, 1998.[5]
[edit] Note
- ^ Collier, James Lincoln (1985). Louis Armstrong. Pan Books. pp. 161. ISBN 0330286072.
- ^ Collier, p162
- ^ See extensive interview with Hines about this period in Earl "Fatha" Hines, 1hr 'solo' TV documentary made in Washington DC for ATV, England, 1975 director Charlie Nairn: original 16mm film plus additional tunes 'out-takes' from that film archived in British Film Institute Library @ bfi.org.uk: see also www.jazzonfilm.com/documentaries. In that film Hines said, "Al came in there one night and called the whole band and show together and said, "We want to let you know our position. We want you to be like the 3 monkeys, you hear nothing, you see nothing and you say nothing - and that's what we did".
- ^ See Earl "Fatha" Hines, 1hr 'solo' TV documentary made in Washington DC for ATV, England, 1975
- ^ Sunset Cafe[dead link]. City of Chicago Dept. of Pl. and Devpmt., Landmarks Div. (2003). Retrieved on 2007-06-27.
Coordinates: 41°49′51″N 87°37′07″W / 41.8309°N 87.6186°W
|
|||||||||||||||||
