Back in 1982, pianist Barry Harris opened a jazz club in New York's Chelsea neighborhood, carrying on a long tradition. Musicians from Shelly Manne and Buddy Rich to Count Basie and others took stabs at running music establishments. The difference was the kind of club that Harris managed.
Harris's club was known as the Jazz Cultural Theatre, and he partnered with promoters Jim Harrison and Frank Fuentes. The club on Eighth Ave. between 28th and 29th streets wasn't fancy. The exterior looked fittingly shabby, like a neighborhood storefront. Inside, as I recall from my many visits, there was a wide, long entryway that ended in a sizable rectangular space where tables was situated along with the stage area and a grand piano. The floors were distinctive and made of worn hardwood slats. Harris taught classes there during the day, and at night superb music was performed. I remember seeing the Jaki Byard Big Band as well as Bill Hardman and Junior Cook, Vernel Fournier, Walter Bishop Jr., Michael Weiss, Chris Anderson, Barry Harris and many others. The club was forced to close in 1987 when its lease expired and the rent jumped. There was a special warmth there and intimacy. As the musicians took their breaks in that long entry corridor, they were accessible and loved chatting with audience members milling around between sets.
Now, it turns out, a Jazz Cultural Theatre has opened in Bilbao, Spain (go here). Harris, of course, is no longer setting up tables; he's 87. Instead, the club in Spain was co-founded (with Harris's blessing) by pianist and Harris disciple Joshua Edelman and his wife and writer Cristina Santolaria. Yesterday I came across this wonderful video clip of the new space and Harris's involvement that the club uploaded last month. Makes me want to head over just to hang...
And here's Barry Harris and Tommy Flanagan playing Thelonious Monk's Well You Needn't at the old Jazz Cultural Theatre in New York in the mid-1980s. That's how it was...
