Connolly’s Stardust Room, on the corner of Tremont and Whittier in Roxbury, served as a destination for two generations of Boston clubgoers. The first attended from 1957 through 1967, including the club’s name-band years. The second witnessed the 1990s and last call.
Connolly’s in 1997
Connolly’s history starts in 1955, when Jimmy Connolly bought a five-story building at 1184 Tremont Street housing a neighborhood bar called Murray’s Cafe. Jimmy brought in music in 1956, and Connolly’s Stardust Room, with a capacity of about 150, was born. Vin Haynes wrote in the Boston Chronicle that he was hearing good jazz there on the weekends in January 1957. But the building was so dilapidated that Boston’s building inspectors told Connolly that if he didn’t remove its upper floors, they’d condemn it. He did, and the result was the squat single-story building we remember.
In early 1959, Connolly brought in an organ trio and put them to work seven nights a week. Hillary Rose was the man at the Hammond B-3. Dan Turner, a hard blower nicknamed “Hurricane” during his days with Sabby Lewis, played tenor. Bill “Baggy” Grant, who learned his drumming alongside Kenny Clarke, completed the trio. It was the group to hear in Boston.
Enter Jimmy Tyler
In December 1959, Turner left Boston. His replacement was another Sabby Lewis alumna, the fiery tenor and alto saxophonist Jimmy Tyler. If ever a man walked into the right place at the right time, Jimmy Tyler was that man. Tyler’s showmanship made him a crowd favorite at the Roxbury club. Within a matter of months Tyler became the music director at Connolly’s, because he had something else going for him besides his fiery play—he knew every mainstream musician on the east coast. And he brought them all to Connolly’s, one at a time, to play with his band.
Jimmy Tyler. Photo by Popsie Randolph.
Many on Tyler’s guest list were associated with Basie, Ellington, and Hampton, and all were reliable members of jazz’s mainstream. Consider just the trumpeters: Red Allen, Cat Anderson, Emmett Berry, Buck Clayton, Sweets Edison, Roy Eldridge, Lennie Johnson, Howard McGhee, Ray Nance, Joe Newman, Charlie Shavers, Clark Terry, and Cootie Williams—an impressive roster. Whenever the road bands were idle, Connolly’s brought their star soloists to Boston for a week’s work. At the time, it was the only Boston spot booking this caliber of musician consistently. But May 1962 marked the end of it.
I don’t know why Tyler’s reign at Connolly’s ended. After two-and-a-half years, maybe Connolly wanted to try something other than a steady diet of singles backed by the house band. Perhaps Tyler wanted something new. But when I look at the club’s guest artists, and I can’t help but wonder if Connolly wanted to add more contemporary sounds to the club’s mix. If that was the case, he got his wish.
Hard Bop and Name Bands: 1962-1967
Changes were apparent in the fall/winter of 1962-1963. In came a more modern sound. Eric Dolphy brought a quartet that included Herbie Hancock. The Toshiko Mariano Quartet worked their last gig before Tosh and Charlie, then married, moved to Japan. Jackie McLean worked a remarkable week with the teenage drummer Tony Williams. Sam Rivers and Hal Galper brought in a quartet. One local group made multiple appearances—the International Jazz Quartet, led by Berklee students saxophonist Sadao Watanabe and trumpeter Dusko Goykovich.
Also in early 1963 came the first of what would be a lengthy lineup of organ trios, that of Rhoda Scott. And soon would follow Trudy Pitts, Gene Ludwig, Shirley Scott, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, and others. The local Hammond specialists were at Connolly’s too—Fingers Pearson, Joe Bucci, and Phil Porter.
It’s not like Connolly’s abandoned the idea of singles playing with a local rhythm section. Sonny Stitt was a frequent visitor who always worked as a single. Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins worked as singles. Singers like Al Hibbler and Johnny Hartman used local trios. And only the best of the local cats got the call to play at Connolly’s. These included pianists Jimmy Neil, Ray Santisi, and Paul Neves; bassists Billy Hill, John Neves, and the club’s first-call bassist, Larry Richardson; and drummers Harold Layne, Alan Dawson, and Bobby Ward.
Jimmy Connolly was a white man operating a tavern in a black neighborhood. Except for Wally’s, that’s the way it was then. But that neighborhood crowd sustained the club, and Connolly’s music directors booked the artists they wanted to hear. The vast majority of the club’s bookings were black artists. (White artists worked more often, and white audiences were larger, at the Jazz Workshop on Boylston Street.) The audiences were racially mixed, but generally more black than white. People remember it as a congenial place.
The Quiet Years
Sax man George Braith, with Billy Gardner on the Hammond, Nov 1963.
The music abruptly stopped at the end of 1967. Whatever the reason, club listings and advertising stopped in January, and the newspapers reported the club closed in April 1968. This led to years of relative quiet. James Connolly Jr, who had taken over the club from his father, reopened and restarted a music policy—at least long enough to wind up on the musicians union’s defaulters list in 1974. So Connolly’s limped along, but the times were changing in Roxbury, and the city had big plans for Tremont Street.
In 1976, the Boston Redevelopment Agency (BRA) took the property by eminent domain, allowing the club itself to remain open. The BRA courted various developers and evaluated many proposals, but nothing concrete came of it. Connolly’s remained open, a lonely survivor in the last building standing on the once-thriving block.
Revival and Last Call
In 1991, Fred and Brenda Hamlett bought the business, renting the property from the BRA. They built upon the club’s community roots (“good jazz,” said one regular patron, “but also good conversation”) and presented a schedule of local groups. Among them were those of trumpeters Cecil Brooks and Billy Skinner, guitarist Fred Woodard, and Salim Washington’s Roxbury Blues Aesthetic. As in Connolly’s glory days, the clientele mixed neighborhood people and jazz fans. But always the specter of the BRA loomed over the club, and in an effort to preserve it, the Hamletts applied for landmark status with the city’s Landmarks Commission in 1994.
After years of push-and-pull, during which the Hamletts were unable to find a suitable site for relocation, the end came swiftly. The club was denied landmark status in early December 1997, and on December 15, the BRA gave notice that the club had 120 days to vacate. Connolly’s closed March 26. The Hamlett lease expired on April 15, they were evicted on the 16th, and the BRA demolished the building on the 17th. After 43 years of ups and downs, Connolly’s was literally down—knocked down. It was a sorry end, but certainly not the first time a place of neighborhood importance gave way to “progress.”
The Connolly’s site at Tremont and Whittier is still a vacant lot. I’ll have more to say about the last days of Connolly’s in a later post.
What a great read! I am Bill “Baggy” “Bags” Grant’s granddaughter! My later grandfather had a very special place in his heart for Connollys! I had the privilege of listening to many over the years. I am excited to read the many stories and comments about his contributions and also the important pieces of shared jazz history that should not be forgotten! Great times indeed! Be Well & Cheers!
I’d be very interested in talking to you about your grandfather, one of the unsung heroes of Boston jazz. Thanks for dropping by.
You should feel very proud. He’s a local/not-so-local drum legend. I know musicians in the Bay Area, not just drummers, who remember him. I had the good fortune to play with Baggy frequently at Connolly’s and Slades. The top student drummers from Berklee would stop in at our gigs just to listen to him. I heard he was offered a place in Miles’ band but turned it down because he had a steady job in Boston and a family to raise. Also, I believe there’s a recording of him with Charlie Parker at the Hi-Hat. Hmmm…I bet Roy Haynes has many stories about Baggy. Looking forward to hearing more.
There is a 1953 Hi-Hat date (from a radio broadcast) where Grant plays, though he’s identified as “Bill Graham.”
Hi Richard,
I have one more Steve Connolly boxing story.
Johnny Risko, “The Cleveland Rubber man” is in training to fight the great Max Schmelling.
It will be Max’s first fight in the U.S.A. My father Steve, encounters Johnny in a gym. Johnny recognizes my dad from a previous encounter. He invites my dad to spar with him in the ring. My dad agrees. (Now my dad says, when you spar you “pull” your punches so no one gets hurt”.) My dad gets in the ring, and Johnny knocks out my dad, cold, with the first punch. My dad weighed about 145 lbs, he was a welter weight. Johnny was a heavy weight.
I wonder if Steve boxed with the pianist Red Garland who was in Boston for a while, married to May Arnette. Red was a welterweight boxer and actually boxed with Sugar Ray Robinson at an exhibition event. He opted to play piano, and went on to join Miles Davis’ band.
There are several iconic Lee Tanner reproductions which I believe are from Connolly’s hanging at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley CA, specifically the one of Johnny Hodges. Lee Tanner lived in Berkeley. He passed away in 2013, but it looks as if one of his children is publishing his photos. – http://jazzimage.com/hx9y1qje6it3qum3tv5338anx7x03i – There’s a entire book of Lee’s photos which my friend Newton Davis had, taken at Connolly’s and WGBH. Do you know which book that is? I’d like to purchase a copy if I can find one. Last question: are you related to Tony?
Michael, the book is titled Images of Jazz, published in 1996 by Friedman/Fairfax. I found a used one a few years ago on abebooks.com, and there are many Boston photos in it. Lee’s daughter Lisa is running jazzimage, and she’s a good photographer herself.
Nope, no relation to Tony, but I think he’s still kicking around out in western Massachusetts.
I seem to remember Chick Corea playing there. Unfortunately my father (Jim Connolly) had a tin ear and no concept of who was really good except by the draw of patrons. My father was a scrapper and I remember a story about him trying to “throw a bum out” when he went on stage to join a group that was playing. Thankfully Uncle Steve stopped him because it was someone like Benny Goodman.
Rosemary Connolly Quirke
Chick Corea did play at Connolly’s, multiple times in 1964-65 and maybe more. The “throw the bum out” story happened at the Savoy, though, not Connolly’s. Sabby Lewis used to tell the story. His band was on the bandstand, it was during WWII, and Goodman came by to listen. And he did sit in, and your dad wanted to get him out of there because nobody was buying drinks while Goodman was playing. And yes, Steve did stop Jim from escorting Goodman from the stage.
I read someplace that the iconic duet Chick Corea and Gary Burton gigged there. Is that true? RIP Chick. I played there years ago sitting in with Salim’s RBA, and also trading off with Walter Radcliffe playing with Harold Layne, Baggie Grant and Leo Stevens. What an education.
In his book Learning to Listen, Burton says he first played with Chick Corea in 1968. Chick was around Connolly’s a lot in 1964-65 but I can’t find any reference to him playing with Gary Burton then. So I’ll say they didn’t gig at Connolly’s, but if anyone out there knows different, please leave a comment!
If you knew Walter Radcliffe and those three drummers, you were with the best in town. An education indeed. Thanks for dropping by.
Hi Richard, another Connolly checking in. My father was Frank Connolly, Chancey, to many. He was a bartender for Steve at the Savoy. I think Morley’s was the bar Jim Connolly owned right next to the Savoy. Above the bars was a gym that the Connolly brothers used to bring fighters along. My father was the trainer. In the summer we used to go to Quincy stadium for outdoor matches. I was a water boy for my father’s boxers. Among them were Lee Williams, a bruising heavyweight and a Golden Gloves boxer named Bonds. Jim’s sons, Dennis and David and I were going to be the next generation of Connolly boxers, but none of us could box.
Hello Thomas and thanks for dropping by. This whole boxing aspect is a part of the Connolly family story that is all new to me. The gym must have been above Morley’s (408 Mass Ave), because there were apartments upstairs above the Savoy (410 Mass Ave). Wonder if any of your father’s fighters ever had matches at Mechanics Hall on Huntington Ave, which presented all kinds of sports events.
I don’t know what happened to the sign. My daughter had expressed an interest in it but by then the building was gone. My brother Jim passed away 2 years ago he may have known what happened to the sign.
When I was a kid my friends and I would play “secretary” at my house. It involved addressing post cards with up coming musicians for Connolly’s.
I remember one evening my father brought Lionel Hampton home for dinner. I was very impressed.
It was an interesting life growing up as Jim’s daughter.
Over the club’s last years, newspaper stories indicated that the sign was to be removed and reinstalled at either a new Connolly’s location, or on whatever structure replaced the club. I guess I should get busy and find out what happened to it.
I have a dozen or so of those postcards, all hand-addressed. Maybe you did a few of them yourself!
Hello, I enjoyed reading this story. Jim Connolly was my father. My brother Jim took over the business only for one year then my father stepped back in. In 1973 my father had a stroke and was unable to fully run the business so he and my mother gave a quarter of the business to his longtime associate “Winnie” (sorry I can’t recall her last name) to assist in the management. When my father passed away the family sold the business to Winnie.
Hello Rosemary, thanks for adding to the story. “Winnie” was Winnie Halford, and as you note, she was with the club for a long time. In turn, she sold the club to Mike and Leona Dixon, and they sold it to the Hamletts. But the sign out front always said “Connolly’s,” and I wonder what happened to it.
Hi Richard,
I enjoyed the article about my Uncle Jim and his business. My dad, Steve Connolly and family left Boston in 1956. So everything you mentioned in the article was new to me.
Jim Sr. and Steve were inseparable growing up. They were both amateur and professional boxers. They even shared the same boxing manager, the famous Al Weill. In the 1940s, they owned establishments side by side. Around the middle of that decade they both bought houses near each other in Brighton Mass.
The following story is my Tribute to Uncle Jim. Circa 1960, my dad, Steve, and I are attending the Boxing matches in Miami Beach. We are about 10 rows back and have a very clear view of the ring. My dad says to me, there is my old manager, Al Weill sitting
at ring side. Let’s go down and I will introduce you to him. So down we go. Dad taps Al
on the back and quietly says, Al, I am Steve Connolly, do you remember me? Al spins around and very loudly says, “Jimmy, Jimmy Connolly, I will never forget you”. My dad made no attempt to correct him.
Howard Connolly
Jensen Beach Florida
Nice to hear from you, Howard, and thanks for sharing that story. Steve and Jim were both boxers? No wonder people behaved themselves in their clubs… Steve, of course, operated the Savoy Cafe, the home of good jazz in Boston in the 1940s.