Knitting Factory
The Knitting Factory is a New York City music club, in its heyday specializing in jazz and experimental music (though these are no longer its main focus). It was opened in 1987 by Michael Dorf and Bob Appel, both from Madison, Wisconsin. Initially the Knitting Factory was supposed to be an art gallery with a performance space and cafe.
There is also a club in Los Angeles. For many years there was also an associated record label, Knitting Factory Records.
References
- Philippe Carles, André Clergeat, and Jean-Louis Comolli, Dictionnaire du jazz, Paris, 1994
- Official website
. Michael Dorf founded the venue on Houston Street, almost equidistant between CBGB and The Bottom Line, in late February 1987. The club quickly emerged as a home for the sounds that did not neatly fit into the categories of jazz or rock, becoming the downtown home for the burgeoning improvisational jazz community, as well as, the preferred venue for the growing alternative rock scene. This eclectic programming combined with Mr. Dorf’s ambitious marketing and entrepreneurial skills quickly established the “Knit” brand as one of the important venues in New York , in addition to gaining status as an international symbol of the “downtown” scene.
Artists as diverse as Sonic Youth, Cassandra Wilson, Yo La Tengo, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Frisell could be found on the stage in a single week. From 1987 to 1994 the venue lived at 47 E. Houston Street, before the neighborhood became known as “NoLiTa”. The New York Times said of Michael Dorf in 1987, “The Knitting Factory has almost singlehandedly revised New York’s downtown arts scene in its first six months of operation. Presenting Jazz and improvised music, along with films, poetry, performance art and dance, it’s putting on affordable, genre-crossing double bills every night of the week. “ Rolling Stone Magazine said of club in 1991, “It’s rare for a club to act as a magnet for talent, drawing a new scene around itself. But in New York City, where the Knitting Factory has become synonymous with new music, that’s precisely what’s happening.”
From the inception through 1996, Michael Dorf was the sole owner of the Knitting Factory moving the club to Tribeca and building the recording business festival business. He created KnitMedia, during the dot-com economy, as the umbrella company to the Knitting Factory club in NY and soon to open state-of-the-art club in Los Angeles. By 1999, as the Chairman and CEO, Mr. Dorf grew to over 100 employees and worked with Apple Computer, Intel Computer, Bell Atlantic, and MCI among others, on a number of ground breaking developments helping usher in a wave of music and internet ventures. In 1999, Inc. Magazine named KnitMedia, one of the top 500 fastest growing businesses in America. New York Magazine, named Michael Dorf one of the ten most important New Yorkers that year.
See also
External links
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