Bop City

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Post Street 1942. Photo: Dorothea Lange

Bop City (also Jimbo's Bop City ) was a jazz club in San Francisco that existed from 1950 to 1965. It was considered one of the most famous jazz clubs of its time , especially due to the performances of artists such as Billie Holiday , Louis Armstrong , Chet Baker and Charlie Parker .

History of the club

Bop City jazz club was one of the most famous venues for jazz music in San Francisco in the 1950s . It was located on 1690 Post Street in the Fillmore / Western Addition neighborhood between Laguna St. and Buchanan Street, a neighborhood that was heavily influenced by Afro- American after the internment of Japanese-American Americans during World War II.

Sarah Vaughan, around 1946.
Photo: Gottlieb

While modern jazz - whether in the form of swing or bebop - was popular on Central Avenue in Los Angeles , San Francisco was considered a haven of traditional jazz at this time ; in the 1940s and early 1950s the Bay Area scene was dominated by Dixieland revival bands such as Lu Watters ' Yerba Buena Jazz Band. In the late 1940s, however, new clubs sprang up in the Tenderloin and North Beach district, which changed the city's music scene.

The Bop City went out of the short-lived, by Slim Gaillard powered Club Vout City forth. Gaillard moved to Los Angeles and left the venue to Charles Sullivan, an African American entrepreneur. Sullivan bought the building and rented it to John "Jimbo" Edwards (1913-2000), who initially only wanted to open a café called Jimbo's Waffle Shop . At the insistence of musicians, an event room with a stage was built in a larger back room, which soon became popular in the city as Bop City ; the name was adopted after the closure of a club of the same name in New York. The San Francisco club opened in late March 1949 with a concert by the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra and Sarah Vaughan . Bop City was best known for its nightly jam sessions and parties, as the club didn't open until 2am, when all other restaurants and clubs were closed (and opened until 6am).

Pony Poindexter described the scene:

“One night, or should I say one morning, Art Tatum was honored with a special party at Bop City. There was lots of food ... Up on the piano were cases of liquor. After everyone had stuffed himself or herself, we all settled back to look and listen to some real piano playing. Still, several hours went by and no one moved. It was daybreak. No one moved. Finally it came to an end. When I left there, I was spent - both from playing and listening… The very next weekend we had at Bop City the big three trumpet players of the bop style: Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Kenny Dorham . Dexter [Gordon] was also there. The session went on to early noon the next day. Jimbo honored them all with a special dinner. The next week the Woody Herman band came to town, and there was another party for them. That night we heard Stan Getz and Zoot Sims stretch out. "

Here, u. a. Duke Ellington , Ben Webster , Billy Eckstine , Miles Davis , Count Basie , Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington , John Coltrane (in October 1950) and Dewey Redman . The saxophonist John Handy , who later played for Charles Mingus , began his career as a house musician here, jamming with Benny Bailey , Kenny Dorham and Paul Gonsalves . Other house musicians were bassist Terry Hilliard and Teddy Edwards . The earliest musicians to play at Bop City included Jimmy Heath , Milt Jackson , Roy Porter, Howard Jeffries, Sonny Criss, and Hampton Hawes .

The Bop City was also the place where Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong met ; the trumpeter had come to the club where Parker was playing after his own concert. Also in attendance were the young Clint Eastwood as well as celebrities and Hollywood stars such as Joe Louis , Marilyn Monroe , Kim Novak and Sammy Davis Junior .

Art Tatum, Vogue Room, NYC, 1948.
Photograph by William P. Gottlieb

The Bop City also attracted writers like Jack Kerouac and artists; the painter and filmmaker Harry Smith (* 1923) painted the walls with abstract motifs and created a light show that was played to the music of Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk . Admission was only a dollar and musicians got in for free, but Jimbo Edwards always decided for himself who to let in and who not:

“We don't allow no squares in Bop City. If you don't understand what we doin ', then leave and don't come back. "

Singer Mary Stallings commented on the atmosphere from an African American perspective:

"It's such a spiritual music, it really binds people together. And for that time, people that had any kind of prejudice or any kind of hang-ups, they don't even feel it. They'll sit next to each other, drink out of the same glass and won't feel a thing. I mean, that's from the heart. "

In 1965 Jimbo Edwards had to close the club shortly after other well-known jazz clubs such as the Black Hawk and the Say When had ceased their activities. The Victorian building that housed Jimbo's Waffle Shop was moved two blocks down to 1712 Fillmore Street as part of the redevelopment work in the neighborhood in the mid-1970s; the back room in which the club Bop City was, however, fell victim to the demolition. John "Jimbo" Edwards died in April 2000 at the age of 87.

Carol P. Chamberland directed the 1998 documentary The Legend of Bop City , in which Dick Berk , Jimbo Edwards and Teddy Edwards starred.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Don Alberts: The Rushing at Google Books
  2. ↑ Guidespot: Finding Chet Baker In San Francisco (2009) ( Memento from July 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Dirk Sutro: Jazz for Dummies
  4. ↑ Carol P. Chamberland: The House That Bop Build
  5. ^ A b Carol Chamberland: Jimbo Edwards - In Remembrance
  6. ^ Billboard Apr. 2, 1949
  7. ^ A b Music of the Fillmore Scene
  8. ^ Lewis Porter: John Coltrane: his life and music
  9. ^ Alan B. Govenar: Texas blues: the rise of a contemporary sound
  10. ↑ Texas Monthly Jul 1983 - Jazz in Camouflage - John Handy portrait by Doug Ramsey
  11. ↑ Playing On the Streets to a Different Tune - The Forgotten Street (May 2011)
  12. ^ Roy Porter, David Keller: There and Back
  13. ^ Jimmy Heath, Joseph McLaren: I walked with giants: the autobiography of Jimmy Heath
  14. ↑ Rand Richards: Historic Walks in San Francisco: 18 Trails Through the City's Past
  15. ^ Joel Selvin: The Chronicle's Bay Area Musical History Tour (2009) in SFGate
  16. ^ The Fillmore Museum
  17. ^ Paul J. Karlstrom, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco: On the edge of America: California modernist art, 1900-1950
  18. ^ A b Carol Chamberland: Jimbo's Bop City in The House That Bop Built , California History Magazine, Spring 1997
  19. ↑ cf. Reflecting on the Past, Embracing the Future Heritage News 39 (3) (PDF; 9.9 MB) as well as Landmark Designation Work Program there
  20. ↑ Rand Richards: Historic Walks in San Francisco: 18 Trails Through the City's Past in Google Books
  21. ↑ Obituary
  22. ↑ Bop City in the Internet Movie Database (English)