by Richard Vacca | Jul 21, 2024 | Boston musicians, Boston nightclubs, Nightlife
The first thing to say about the 1369 Jazz Club is that the music was terrific; a lot of hits and not many misses. The second thing is, it felt right—it was an honest-to-god jazz joint. Third thing, its closing seriously diminished the local jazz scene. “I’m not keen on ‘Best and Worst,’ wrote Fernando Gonzalez of the Globe in his 1988 year-end wrap-up, “but the closing of the 1369 Jazz Club in Cambridge easily qualifies as one of the worst events of the year.”
Flyer for Jay Brandford Septet at the 1369 Jazz Club, June 1987; map shows club’s approximate location.
A bit of introduction to this well-remembered place: The club was at 1369 Cambridge Street, in Inman Square, on the corner of Springfield Street. It first opened in January 1976, and closed in August 1988. It presented live music nightly for 13 years, and built an ironclad relationship with the local jazz community in the process. During its last five years, under the management of Jay Hoffman, Bob Pollak and Dennis Steiner, the 1369 was the finest jazz club in the Boston area.
All this music happened in quite modest surroundings. The 1369 Jazz Club didn’t look like much from the street, just a corner bar housed in a building dating back to the 1910s. There wasn’t anything fancy about it inside, either. Bar to the right, tables to the left, stage at the back, with the rest room behind it. Sometimes patrons had to squeeze around musicians while they played in order to use it. The white tile wall behind the bar had a gouge in it, left when a customer threw a bottle at a bartender, but missed. It was smoky. It got crowded. It was sinned-in. Gonzalez again: “It was just a great place to hear music.”
So let us explore the 1369’s story, especially those last five years, the ones Gonzalez mourned as they passed. (Quotes following are from my conversations with Hoffman, Pollak, and Steiner.)
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by Richard Vacca | Mar 5, 2024 | Boston musicians, Boston nightclubs, Boston recordings
In 1968, the Buddy Rich Big Band released Mercy, Mercy, an album recorded live at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. It had some success and made the Billboard album chart, due in large part to the title tune, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.” And there is more than one Boston story tied up in it.
Mercy, Mercy by Buddy Rich, 1968 (Pacific Jazz ST-20133). Love the psychedelia.
Let’s start with the composer. Joe Zawinul wrote “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” in 1966. He’s the first local connection. A native of Austria, Zawinul arrived in Boston in 1959 on a Berklee scholarship, but his stay was very brief. He had been in town for all of two weeks when Maynard Ferguson heard, and hired, him. About two years later Joe joined Cannonball Adderley’s group, and it remained his musical home for the rest of the decade. Although Cannonball recorded dozens of Zawinul’s tunes over the years, they never had another one like “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.” It caught fire and climbed the charts, peaking in February 1967 at #2 on Billboard’s Soul chart and at #11 on that magazine’s Hot 100, the singles chart. Then “Mercy” won the Grammy award in 1967 for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance.
New versions of “Mercy” popped up everywhere in 1967; among the jazzers who recorded it were Count Basie, Willie Bobo, Art Farmer, Willie Mitchell, Howard Roberts, and Jimmy Smith. Gail Fisher wrote lyrics, and Marlena Shaw’s vocal version made it to #58 on the Hot Hundred. A Chicago rock band, the Buckinghams, singing different lyrics, made it all the way to #5.
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by Richard Vacca | Jan 6, 2024 | Awards and honors, Community organizations, Jazz festivals
For many area jazz fans in the 1980s and 1990s, the Boston Jazz Society meant one thing: the Jazz Barbecue. It was the Society’s biggest and best-known event. The annual August blast started in the mid-1970s and continued into the early 2000s. If Boston jazz had a community-building event, this was it: all ages, multi-cultural, musicians of all abilities, just plain fans. Everybody I know who made a habit of attending remembers those afternoons warmly, if hazily.
Boston Jazz Society pin-back button
The Boston Jazz Society was a non-profit organization that incorporated in spring 1973. Its officers and board of directors were all volunteers. Their purpose was two-fold. First, to assist young musicians by offering financial support, and second, to help working musicians by producing concerts. The concerts, in turn, would raise money for scholarships. Doing these things, they reasoned would help keep jazz alive in the public eye. They produced their first concert at Paul’s Mall in June 1973.
The BJS adopted that phrase, “keep jazz alive,” as their slogan. After a few years, though, they gave it a more positive slant: “Jazz Is Alive!” They put it on pin-back buttons, t-shirts, and the masthead of their newsletter.
There were more club concerts in the mid-seventies, and the Boston Jazz Society raised enough money to make its first scholarship award in 1975. And that year, saxophonist Sonny Carrington, the Society’s third president, thought of a way to bring the student musicians and the working musicians together in a casual setting.
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by Richard Vacca | Oct 17, 2023 | Boston musicians, Boston recordings
The twin peaks of baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff’s recorded output were the two albums he made for Capitol Records, Boston Blow-Up! in 1955, and Blue Serge in 1956. There would certainly have been more great records to come had not Chaloff died of cancer in 1957 at age 33. Blue Serge might have been the better record, but I’ve always liked Boston Blow-Up! because of its strong local connections.
A Boston Blow-Up
In March 1955, baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff was back in action following a months-long hospital stay. “Serge, for years one of music’s more chaotic personalities, has made an about face of late and is again flying right. It is evident in his playing, which…has become a thing of real beauty.” So began Jack Tracy’s Down Beat review (Oct 5, 1955) of Boston Blow-Up!, Chaloff’s first album for Capitol Records.
Serge Chaloff, about 1950
“Chaotic”…others used harsher words to describe Chaloff. Serge was a heroin addict who managed to play splendid saxophone with Georgie Auld, Woody Herman, and his own groups in spite of it. By 1954, though, he’d burned too many bridges and had no room left to run. He voluntarily entered the rehab program at Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts.
Chaloff emerged from Bridgewater in early 1955. Disk jockey Bob “The Robin” Martin was one of the first to help him get reestablished. He negotiated a contract with Capitol Records for an album in their “Stan Kenton Presents” series. Then Chaloff assembled his band. His first call went to alto saxophonist Boots Mussulli, with whom he had recorded the Serge and Boots album for Storyville in March 1954. Chaloff still had his bad boy reputation, and the presence of the steady Mussulli, who had recorded his own “Kenton Presents” LP in 1954, reassured the producers at Capitol.
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by Richard Vacca | Oct 2, 2023 | Boston musicians, Jazz history
The masterful trumpeter William Frank “Frankie” Newton (1906-1954) was well established in jazz circles long before he ever came to Boston. He’d worked with Cecil Scott, Charlie Johnson, and Teddy Hill. He was on Bessie Smith’s “Gimme a Pigfoot” session in 1933 (her last), and on Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” session in 1939. Newton was one of the Port of Harlem Jazzmen, the first group to record on Blue Note Records. He was a founding member of John Kirby’s sextet, and a bandleader at Barney Josephson’s Cafe Society nightclub. Frankie Newton, in other words, got around. And when he got around to bringing a band to Boston, it was a sensation.
Newton’s residency at the Savoy Cafe, starting in January 1942, turned the local jazz scene on its ear. His professionalism set a standard for musicians on bandstands all over town, and his influence on young musicians was significant. One in particular, pianist George Wein, called Newton his musical mentor and never missed an opportunity to say so. And his band drew a crowd, at the Savoy, and the Vanity Fair and the Ken Club after that. It was an inspiring 18 months.
It was a fine band, too, with trombonist Vic Dickenson, Ike Quebec on tenor, and George Johnson on alto. Young Boston pianist Ernie Trotman anchored the rhythm section until he joined the navy. Nick Fenton on bass and Artie Herbert on drums rounded out the sextet.
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