Just about all of the great jazz clubs described in The Boston Jazz Chronicles were inside the Boston city limits. Famous ones include the Savoy, the Stable, Storyville, and the Jazz Workshop. But one was way north in the suburbs. That was Lennie’s-on-the-Turnpike, the club owned by Lennie Sogoloff, on the northbound side of Route 1 in West Peabody. On the morning of May 30, 1971, fire struck the club.
Firefighters broke through the roof to fight the blaze, which was confined mainly to the bar and dressing rooms, but the entire building suffered extensive smoke and water damage.
“You could say I am down, but not out,” proprietor Lennie Sogoloff told the Globe’s Bill Buchanan later that day. “This club has been my life since the early 50s and to see all the damage was a great shock to me. I just don’t know what direction we’ll take now. It’s something I’ll have to think about.”
Jazz Comes to the Turnpike Club
Lennie Sogoloff got started in 1951 with what was then called the Turnpike Club. He was working as a salesman for London/Mercury Records, and his passion was jazz, so he filled the jukebox with his favorites. For about eight years that jukebox was all the music there was. But it was the hippest jukebox on the North Shore, and the club built a clientele around it.
In 1959, Sogoloff brought in his first live jazz: Dixieland cornetist Dick Creedon, followed by saxophonist Ike Roberts, vocalist Mae Arnette, and his most popular attraction, the duo of organist Joe Bucci and drummer Joe Riddick. Bucci played the club 19 times during the 1960s, sometimes for four-week engagements.
In early 1963, Lennie Sogoloff began adding jazz artists of national reputation who were on the road working as singles, alternating the bigger names with his local regulars. Roy Eldridge, Sonny Stitt, and J.J. Johnson were among that first wave. Sogoloff’s house trio in 1963–64 was Ray Santisi, Larry Richardson, and Alan Dawson, one of the Gretsch Drum Night regulars.
Jacquet, Rich, and the Best in Jazz
And then it was off to the races for Lennie’s-on-the-Turnpike. Sogoloff enjoyed all styles of jazz, so if a band was commercially viable, he booked it. The schedule ran the gamut from Wild Bill Davison to Archie Shepp. There were annual visits by Cannonball Adderley, Jaki Byard (who recorded at the club in 1965), Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, and Joe Williams. Rahsaan Roland Kirk played the club nine times. Sogoloff’s biggest draws, though, were Buddy Rich and Illinois Jacquet. Rich played the club 14 times (four times in 1969 alone). Jacquet also made 14 appearances, eight times sharing the stage with organist Milt Buckner and drummer Alan Dawson. Jacquet recorded at Lennie’s too. The album Go Power was released by Cadet Records in 1966.
Sogoloff had a warm relationship with Rich, who called him “Lennie Turnpike” and consistently sold out the 200-seat club. Latecomers sometimes tailgated in the parking lot. Rich called when he heard about the fire and told Sogoloff he’d be there when the club reopened, and he was—with Jacquet and Buckner right behind him.
A changing scene in the late 1960s led to a more diversified schedule, with Lennie’s adding comedy and blues. In 1970, Sogoloff dipped into the world of pop and rock, and distinctly un-jazzy names like Homer and Jethro and Ricky Nelson appeared on the sign out front. There was always room on the schedule for Erroll Garner or Roland Kirk, but the lesser jazz lights, and many of the local jazz players, were edged out by the Kingston Trio and Kris Kristofferson.
“The jazz audiences are dying,” Lennie told the Record-American in January 1970. “So to earn a living here, I’ve got to hire artists who attract people. I’ve got to go in many directions. New jazz audiences aren’t developing. The kids’ thing is rock music and that’s where the action is. Jazz still has an audience, but it’s just not getting any bigger.”
“Don’t misunderstand me,” he told the reporter. “We’ll still have jazz—but less of it.” And early 1971 saw visits by big-name favorites like Davis, Rich, Kirk, and Stan Kenton.
Lennie’s-on-the-Turnpike Moves to Danvers
Then came the fire in May, and three months later, the reopening at the Village Green on Route 1 in Danvers on August 31, Buddy Rich presiding. “He stopped traffic on the turnpike,” Sogoloff recalled. “We were packed every night.”
Sogoloff soldiered on at his new location for about a year, but the economics were unfavorable. In September 1972 Sogoloff announced he was closing. Tom Rush played on the final night, September 17.
Ernie Santosuosso was there, and he wrote about it in the Globe the next day. “Usually, in summing up a story of a death or closing of something, even of a frozen custard stand, the phrase “end of an era” is inevitably included. That type of signoff is much too corny for Lennie’s-on-the-Turnpike. Let’s just say that last night Lennie ended a long gig.”
Sogoloff worked outside of the music business after Lennie’s closed. Although he continued to book concerts and organize fundraisers in Boston and environs for another 20 years, he never opened another club.
Lennie Sogoloff donated his archives to Salem State University, and almost 200 of his photos are posted on Flickr.
Buddy Rich did not record at Lennie’s, but here is the band live in 1969, with “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.” The arrangement is by Phil Wilson.
A previous version of this post was published in May 2014.
Thank you for this!
You are most welcome. Did you ever make it to Lennie’s yourself?
Just saw this!
Was so very fortunate to have been there several times….
I miss it to this day
I attended a performance by Weather Report in October of 1971. It was a tremendous show.
Where on the turnpike was Lennie’s located? I remember the name but not the location.
There’s been so much change to the area that it is difficult to pinpoint the exact location. That said, we know it was on the northbound side of Rt 1, just before the exit for Rt 114/Andover St. How far it was from 114 is where peoples’ memories disagree. Some put it at about where the Costco is, some a bit further south, about where the truck rental place is. I keep hoping I’ll run across some photos someday…
My sister, a couple of our friends, and I saw Kris Kristofferson and his original band, live at Lennie’s on the Turnpike in the spring of 1971. I was 18 years old and a freshman in one of the area colleges. The set they played was all of Kristofferson’s new original songs from his soon to be released 2nd album, “The Silver-Tongued Devil and I”. It was epic.
I have been a Kristofferson fan ever since attending that show. Thanks, Lennie!
Could you tell me exactly where Lennie’s was located before the Village Green? What is located now at Lennie’s on the Turnpike?
Thanks
Doug, finding this answer is taking longer than expected, but I should have an answer in a day or two. All I know for now was it was on the northbound side of Rt 1, next to a trailer park, and across the highway from another club called the Wagon Wheel. Stay tuned!
Covering that trio at Lennie’s was one of this jazz cub’s first gigs writing for The Boston Phoenix — they really filled the club with rip-roaring swing and camaraderie. I can still hear Buckner’s organ antics, tracking his lines with eyes a-bulging and brows a-flutter.
The trio worked together numerous times—do you recall when you wrote about it?
It must’ve been in 1966 or early 1967, because I’d left for Italy before Labor Day, 1967. The first piece of mail I received at St. Stephen’s School in Rome was from my Dad, with John Coltrane’s obituary neatly folded in a long letter. FB
Lennie is a great guy…and the club was wonderful…saw so many greats…Like Illinois Jacquet and Flip Phillips togeher on a Sunday afternoon…what great music…Danny Frank
Lennie had good results with Joe Bucci’s organ/drums duo, so he booked Milt Buckner and paired him with Alan Dawson. But then he told me he had an inspiration, recalling Illinois Jacquet and Buckner together in Lionel Hampton’s band, so he approached Jacquet about making a trio gig. Jacquet accepted, and it happened in March 1966—and during the week, the Jacquet album Go Power was recorded, live at Lennie’s.
I spent a lot of time at the club as a kid. As an adult, Lennie was a customer of mine and we became friendly. Lennie gave me the lid of the piano that was in the club when it burned. It is now a coffee table. Jazz ghosts abound!
I’d like to see a picture of the “Lennie’s-on-the-Turnpike Memorial Coffee Table”!
There’s a great video of Herbie Hancock and Jay Leno on Leno’s “Jay Leno’s Garage” YouTube channel. Apparently Jay Leno opened for the Miles Davis Quintet at Lennie’s when Herbie was in the band.
Jay Leno has always been one of Lennie’s biggest fans. He was a very generous donor to the Lennie Sogoloff scholarship fund that was established at Salem State College at about the time Lennie donated his archives there.