Wrecking ball, big move looms for historic Chicago jazz club
© MICHAEL TARM Associated Press
CHICAGO – Saxophonist Fred Anderson has kept one of Chicago’s most
notable jazz clubs going almost single-handedly for nearly a
quarter century – as club owner, sometimes bartender and resident
mentor. Passers-by would hardly suspect it, but Anderson’s divey
Velvet Lounge, its bleak black facade crowned by a tattered ” Old
Style ” beer sign, is known by aficionados worldwide as one
of the cradles of contemporary jazz.
Now, at 76, he’s preparing for what he calls the most difficult task
of his life: moving the club to a new location and watching as
crews bulldoze the current, much-beloved venue to make way for a
housing complex. Fearing it would close for good, Velvet Lounge devotees have raised money to help Anderson move the club half a mile away. But most agree that any replacement can’t possibly match the history and charm of the current venue – a last relic of the gentrifying South Loop neighborhood now brimming with new condos.
” Because it’s being torn down, I’ve been coming as often as I can
lately,” said Wendy Chan, 32, speaking at the club recently
above the din of snare drums. ” It’s the feeling of another
era here. It’s magic to me.”
Frequent performers express similar reverence.
” It’s been a Mecca to modern jazz musicians,” explained Tatsu
Aoki, one of the world’s leading jazz bassists. ” You can’t
talk about the development of this music without talking about the
Velvet Lounge.” And you can’t talk about the Velvet Lounge, he hastened to add, without talking about Anderson, who started the club in 1982 and named it after someone’s praise for his smooth, velvety playing style.
In deference to his influence, some artists go so far as to refer
to the club as Fred Anderson University.
The Louisiana-born Anderson does everything at the club from
collecting the $10 cover charge to jamming on stage to taking out
the garbage. He has just two employees, who alternate tending the
bar. Performers typically make less than $100 a night – a modest
sum compared with what other clubs pay. But money, says the
soft-spoken Anderson, has never been the point. The goal is to
give aspiring musicians a place to hone their skills and to
experiment playing harder-edged, freewheeling jazz that posh, more
commercially minded jazz clubs tend to shun.
” The idea was to keep young musicians going … (so) they could
develop their music here before taking it out to the world, ”
Anderson said. ” Those who come through here learn how to
listen and how to play with each other – which is very difficult.
That’s how jazz has developed from the beginning.”
Among the top musicians who spent their formative years playing the
Velvet Lounge are trumpeters Corey Wilkes and Maurice Brown, flutist Nicole Mitchell and Aoki.
” If you’re doing music that isn’t straight, traditional jazz,
you need a place to try new things, to meet other artists and
grow, ” said Aoki, who was born in Japan. ” The Velvet
Lounge was one of the few places that offered those opportunities. … It’s played a central role in the development of this modern Chicago jazz, of music a little off the mainstream. ”
Dozens of acclaimed albums have been recorded at the club, including
last year’s ” Blue Winter, ” featuring Anderson, drummer Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker. Inside the Velvet Lounge, Anderson flips through a recent edition of Playboy, pointing proudly to a glowing review of the recording.
His own foray into music began in earnest 40 years ago when he joined other black artists in founding the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a groundbreaking group dedicated to reviving a faltering 1960s jazz scene in Chicago.
While other founding members went on to jazz fame in New York, Anderson spurned offers to play elsewhere, saying he was determined to stay in Chicago and help foster cutting-edge jazz here. He kept performing in relative obscurity, taking odd jobs until he opened the Velvet Lounge in 1982.
His own rise to prominence came in the ’90s, when music companies
began to release recordings of his work to favorable reviews. He’s
now a regular on the jazz-festival circuit in the United States
and Europe. After his years of commitment to them, Anderson’s
musical benefactors are trying to reciprocate. Last year, they launched a drive to raise money to help cover the $100,000-plus costs of moving.
” We all benefited from the Velvet and it’s our turn to help Fred,
who ran the place out of his own pocket all these years, ”
said Mitchell, the flutist. ” It just wasn’t an option to have the Velvet close.”
Around $30,000 has been raised so far, said Anderson, who will also draw on his personal savings. He said he’s confident the move will happen, most likely at the end of March. The demolition will begin sometime later.
The new Velvet Lounge will be a little larger and include features the club now lacks, like a dressing room and a dependable heating system. In a bid to transfer some of the spirit of the current club, several artifacts – including the Velvet Lounge’s gangly, hallmark ceiling lamps – will be moved to the new location.
But of the more than 50 patrons crowded into the tight-fitting Velvet Lounge on a recent evening, many dreaded the looming move and demolition of the current venue.
” This is a spiritual place – there’s nothing like it,” said
Ted Dinwiddie, 44. ” It’s something in the way the music
bounces off the walls here. … It ought to be a landmark.” Others seem less bothered.
” Whatever happens here is portable, ” said 57-year-old
Michael Thompson. ” Wherever Fred goes, I’ll follow. He’s the key.”
As he contemplates the move, Anderson himself seems torn.
” This place has been my life, and the new place – it can never be
the same, ” he said with a sigh, sitting at the end of the
Velvet Lounge bar. ” You hate to see it happen, but you gotta let
it go. Its time has come. ”