Lost Twin Cities, Jazz Edition -- Jeff Cawhorn
Some folks say Christmas is Hans Gruber falling from Nakatomi Plaza. For others it's Ralphy shooting his eye out. Traditionalists hold out for Clarence getting his wings.
For me it's The Bad Plus at the Dakota Jazz Club. The Dakota opened in St. Paul in 1985. They moved to downtown Minneapolis in 2003. My sister and I have been going to the Christmas show since 2008 and it's become our regular Christmas night thing.
There used to be quite a few jazz clubs in Minneapolis, but sadly most of them are gone. Café 57 (1101 LaSalle Ave) used to be the Café Lux, back when the Double Tree Inn was the Hotel Lux. They usually had local acts, but my brother and I saw Mose Allison there in 1989. No cover and they had pretty good food. It closed in the early 90s and now it's just a generic hotel restaurant. I suppose they have a bar.
Moving further south, we had the Flame Club (1523 Nicollet Ave). This was before my time. From the '40s to the '70s it was a pretty nice club. But it burned down in 1974. I would like to have gone there. Ironically, the space is now occupied by a rehab center.
The last stop on our Tragical History Tour is the old Artist's Quarter located on 26th and Nicollet. It opened in 1970. I saw a lot of good jazz there after I moved to the city in 1988. The highlight would be Tom Harrell in 1989. But I saw a lot of local musicians as well. They had good food. And ice in the urinals. When my brother and I would use the convenience I would always have to do a Peter Boyle from "Joe" impersonation and declaim "I'm pissin' on ice here!" It may or may not have been amusing. The AQ closed down in 1990 and was replaced by a rock club called Crossroads. I never went there and it closed in 1991. The place is now occupied by condos, the Arts Quarter Lofts. I'm really grateful to have the Dakota. I hope it's there for a long time.
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Postscript: the AQ re-opened in St. Paul in 1995 at the corner of fifth and Jackson and moved again to the historic Hamm Building in 2001. I went to the latter location many times. It closed for good in 2014 and is still missed.
Having the photo of the night spots really made this real for me even though I've never been up that way.
ReplyDeleteThat's a cool tradition to have. The venue, the mood, and the person/people to share it with. Jazz isn't a strong personal pull, but that's a horribly broad statement to make; it's mostly unexplored territory for me.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to finally make some room in my life for this sort of thing... but I'm not quite there yet. Maybe this'll be the year. Maybe keeping this somewhere in mind will inspire me to make the extra effort to get some things in order so I can make this happen.